Chapter 53: JUST FOR AWHILE

Outside the courtroom, the energy was different. People moving in and out, chatting and smiling. Elgin was waiting now, outside the courthouse gates, dressed in a simple black button-down and dark jeans that hung a little loose on him. There was a thin scar at the base of his neck. His beard was trimmed close. And his hands… they kept fidgeting like he didn’t know what to do with them.

Dexton walked beside her, tall and stiff, hands buried in his hoodie pockets. Neither of them said a word until Elgin stepped forward.

“Thank you for being here for me,” he said, looking directly at Anise.

“I was hoping,” he said, voice low but clear, “you two wouldn’t disappear on me again.”

Dexton folded his arms. “We weren’t the ones who disappeared.”

Elgin accepted the hit with a slow nod. “Fair.”

Anise stared at him. For years, she’d imagined this moment — sometimes with anger, sometimes with longing, sometimes with fists. But now that he stood in front of her, real and tired and older than she remembered, all she felt was hollow.

Still… she spoke.

“Do you have somewhere to go?”

He smiled faintly. “Not really. They’re letting me stay in a temporary place nearby. A small flat. Guarded, of course.”

Dexton rolled his eyes. “So much for freedom.”

Anise cleared her throat. “Are you… hungry?”

Elgin blinked. “That depends.”

“On?”

“If you’ll eat with me.”

She looked at Dexton. He hesitated, then gave a short nod.

“Fine. But I pick the place. No shady corners or weird menus.”

Elgin grinned. “Fair enough.”

They ended up at a cozy restaurant tucked between a bookstore and an old music shop on the quieter side of town. Low lighting and Warm walls. The kind of place their mother would’ve loved — not too fancy, not too loud, with soft Afro-jazz playing in the background and the smell of grilled spices floating through the air.

Anise sat across from him, picking at a warm piece of garlic bread, her gaze flickering between the menu and the man who used to tuck her in at night, before he disappeared into smoke and silence.

Dexton sat beside her, arms folded, his jaw working hard behind his silence.

“You guys still allergic to shrimp?” Elgin asked softly, chuckling as he scanned the seafood section. His voice was low, weathered with age and regret.

Anise blinked. “You remember that?”

Elgin gave a crooked smile. “You both broke out in hives on your eighth birthday. Had to rush you to the hospital. Your mother cursed me out in four languages that night.”

For a second, silence wrapped around them like warm cloth. Even Dexton cracked a small grin.

Then Elgin exhaled slowly. “I used to come here with your mom.”

Anise raised her eyes.

“Back before things got… messy,” he continued. “She’d order grilled goat meat. Always asked for extra pepper, even though she couldn’t handle it.”

Anise smiled despite herself. “She still couldn’t handle it. Would drink two full bottles of water before admitting she made a mistake.”

Dexton chuckled. “She once made me promise not to marry any woman who couldn’t eat pepper. Said it was a red flag.”

Elgin laughed. “That sounds exactly like her.”

The laughter faded gently, like mist. And then came the quiet again, heavier this time.

Elgin looked down at his hands. “I missed too much. I know that. I missed every first — your graduations, birthdays, your first fights, your heartbreaks, your victories. I didn’t deserve to. But I didn’t miss that stupid middle school play where Anise forgot her lines...”

“You saw that?” Anise’s eyes widened.

“I snuck in through the back,” he said, smiling faintly. “Stood in the shadows. Couldn't risk being caught. But I saw it all.

You froze on stage, and Dexton stood up from the crowd, yelling the lines like it was a war chant.”

Dexton groaned. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I remember everything,” Elgin said, voice low now. “I replayed every moment I missed like a loop in my mind.”

Anise picked at the edge of her napkin. “Why didn’t you fight harder? Even from wherever you were hiding. You could’ve written, called, sent anything?”

“I tried,” he said. “But everything I touched got traced. Every letter I sent was intercepted or used to track me. After a while… I thought staying away was protecting you.”

“That’s not protection,” Dexton muttered. “That’s cowardice.”

Elgin nodded slowly. “You’re not wrong.”

The food arrived on steaming plates, fragrant and glowing under the warm amber light. Anise took a slow bite, savoring the spice, the familiarity, and how strangely comforting it felt to eat a meal across from the man whose name had been erased from every photo in their house.

Then Elgin leaned forward, speaking through a mouthful of his favorite meal.

“You know,” Elgin said, “your mother hated people who chewed loudly. Said it made her ears itch.”

Anise smiled. “She’d smack Dexton across the head every time he did it.”

“That’s how you know she loved him.”

They all laughed.

Elgin tried to bring up memories from the past.  He wanted to use that as a medium to fill the void he had left for years. But is that enough? He kept talking…

“You know, Dexton used to be terrified of the dark. He made me put glow stickers of moons and stars on the ceiling.”

Dexton scoffed. “I was six.”

“And you insisted I call you ‘D-Man’ for a year straight,” Elgin added with a grin. “Like a superhero with glow-in-the-dark powers.”

Anise burst out laughing. “You’re lying.”

“He’s not,” Dexton groaned. “And I had the cape to prove it.”

It felt like magic — fleeting, delicate magic. Laughter stitched together old wounds, just for a while.

After the plates had been cleared and the second round of soft drinks came, Elgin pulled a folded photo from his wallet and slid it across the table.

It was old. Faded. But unmistakable.

A picture of the four of them — Anise sitting on his shoulders, Dexton hugging his mother’s waist. Smiling. .

“You kept this?” Anise whispered.

“It kept me,” he said.

For a while, no one said a word. They just stared at the memory between them.

And then Elgin spoke again, voice rough.

“I don’t expect you to trust me overnight. But if there’s any part of you—you—any small piece—still wants to know the man I used to be… I’ll be here. I’ll come to every dinner, every talk, every moment you’ll let me have.”

Anise looked at him — looked at him. He wasn’t a ghost anymore. He was flesh, flawed. And somehow, still hers.

“We’ll see,” she said.

But her voice was softer this time.

Outside, as they walked back toward the car, Elgin turned once more.

“Next time, I’ll cook,” he offered.

“You cook?” Dexton said with a raised brow.

“I used to,” Elgin said with a smirk. “Your mom said I made the best steak in town.”

Anise laughed, a real one. “Then next time, you better prove it.”

As he walked off with the officer in the distance trailing him at a quiet pace, Anise stood by the car, watching the back of the man who once held her world together… and nearly shattered it.

But maybe — just maybe — they were all learning how to build again.