Part 3 recap: Eli escaped from his grandfather’s house injured, while my father and brother tried to label him confused and me unstable before he could tell anyone what happened.
Eli’s fingers tightened around my sleeve hard enough to stop me from reaching for the phone again.
I leaned closer, careful not to touch his ribs. His face tightened with pain, and for several seconds he only breathed through it while the social worker lowered the tablet and waited.
Whatever he wanted to say, I wasn’t going to put words in his mouth.
“You’re safe,” I told him. “You don’t have to explain anything right now.”
His eyes moved toward my phone on the counter—the same phone that still held my father’s calm voice, my brother’s offer to call everything a misunderstanding, and the threat about my treatment history.
That was the detail I couldn’t shake. They hadn’t simply denied what happened. They had already decided how every person in the story would be described before Eli ever reached our mailbox.
Confused son.
Protective uncle.
Unstable father.
And now they wanted me to bring him back before the night was over.
I pulled a chair beside the bed instead.
The social worker asked whether I wanted the calls documented with the rest of Eli’s medical record. I said yes, then handed her the saved recording rather than keeping the only copy on my phone.
Eli watched me do it.
For the first time since I had found him beside the mailbox, some of the panic left his grip.
Then his fingers tightened again.
He swallowed, looked directly at me, and tried to speak.
“They told me what I was supposed to say about you.”
The social worker didn’t move closer. She asked Eli whether he wanted to keep talking with me in the room, and he nodded.
