"Make yourself comfortable while I prepare something for you to eat." Evelyn smiled, as she gestured for Eli to take a seat.
"There's nothing much, just a few leftovers, hope you don't mind." Evelyn called from the kitchen, her voice raised slightly.
"No, Mom, no problem at all." Eli responded, getting up from his chair as he made his way to the room that was once his.
His foster parents were not rich, and you could see the tell tale signs of poverty lurking everywhere as you walked. They had no kids of their own, because his parents had found out that Franklin was impotent when they had married, but Evelyn loved her husband so much that she couldn't bear to leave and Eli showing up on their doorstep had been the best day of their lives.
As he walked through the narrow hallway, he noticed the fraying edges of the carpet runner beneath his shoes. It curled at the corners and was threadbare in places, revealing the rough, stained floorboards beneath. The wallpaper was yellowing and peeled near the baseboards, and a small leak stain traced a path from the ceiling down one corner of the wall. He passed the faded family photos—most of them featuring Evelyn and Franklin, and one where he stood awkwardly at fifteen in a too-big jacket.
The hallway grew darker toward the back of the house, lit only by the dim glow of a single bulb encased in a cloudy glass fixture. As he approached his old room, the wooden floor groaned under his weight.
The door was still the same—chipped at the edges, the paint a dull, off-white shade. Eli turned the knob gently and pushed it open.
The room smelled faintly of dust. It was small, just enough space for a narrow bed against the wall, a battered wooden dresser with one drawer that always stuck, and a rickety desk beneath the window. The mattress was still there, covered in a faded blue sheet with little stars printed on it. The walls had a few scuff marks and nail holes where posters used to hang. A single curtain, thin and sun-bleached, moved slightly with the draft sneaking in through the poorly sealed windowpane.
Eli shook his head, reminding himself why he was there, not to reminisce on old memories. Moving close to his dresser, he pulled the drawer open with a little difficulty searching inside for anything that could fit the key, not seeing anything, he proceeded to ransack his room, getting agitated as time went by and he still hadn't found anything.
"Mom, I can't find most of my things in my room, do you know where they might be?" Eli yelled, stepping out of his room, not bothering to arrange the things he had disorganized.
"I couldn't bear to look at them, and think of you anytime I came to the room, so I moved them to the room, hope you don't mind." Evelyn responded, coming to stand in front of Eli.
"No I don't." Eli responded quickly, heading towards the attic.
"Are you looking for something?" Evelyn asked, her eyes sweeping through the disorganized room.
"Yes, – but I can't tell you what it is, till I find it, because I don't know what I am looking for yet." Eli stopped in his tracks briefly to respond to Evelyn before heading to the attic.
"Yeah Eli, what were you thinking, that some key and paper would suddenly lead to a great story behind your life." he muttered to himself as each item he inserted the key into didn't fit. He felt the despair and sense of loss rising up in his chest as he stood up from the bent position he was in, about to leave the attic, when his leg kicked against a box.
The box wasn't exactly big, it wasn't tiny earlier, but he had not noticed it earlier because it had been in another box separate from his belongings and had rolled off when Eli had been concentrating on the remaining contents of the box. Taking in large gulps of air. Eli inserts the key into the not so tiny, not so big keyhole, closing his eyes to reduce the disappointment he would feel if it didn't fit.
A tiny click, and a swift turning of the key made Eli open his eyes in excitement as he pried the box open. At first he sees nothing fascinating, only a bit of papers that were already old, but digging deeper, he sees a photograph with two people he had never seen before in his life, and an image of a little child that looks exactly like him. Turning the photograph to the back, he notices small handwriting at the back, they were names he believed were his real parents name, searching deeper he finds some documents that he couldn't make much meaning of and a birth certificate with his name on it.
Dazed, he stumbled out of the attic as he went in search of his Mom, the box still in his hand.
"Eli, are you alright, Is everything okay?" Evelyn stepped out of the kitchen to see her son rushing towards her, his eyes blank and his movement unsteady.
She immediately rushed to his side, embracing him in a hug, not noticing what he held his hand.
Eli stiffened for a moment before allowing himself to relax in the embrace, when he felt his mind clear up a bit, he released himself from the hug, bending to pair into Evelyn's worried eyes.
"Can you tell me what the content of this document means and why you didn't mention it when you told me I was adopted.
Evelyn shifted her gaze from Eli's face to what he was holding in his hand, confusion spread across her face as she couldn't remember the box, collecting it from his hand, she stared at it for a while.
"Am I meant to know what this is?" She asked after a while, still not able to place what the box contained.
"I found it in the attic, so I am guessing you would know." Eli responded, his voice calm and also worried that his Mom didn't really know what the box was or what was inside.
"Oh!!" Evelyn said after a while, realization dawning on her face as tears started to stream down her face.
"It's not what you think Eli, I really don't know what's inside the box. I hid it from you and never brought it up, because the person that appeared on her doorstep to leave you in our care, said we should never let you open that box, and also paid a huge sum of money to keep us shut. I am so sorry Eli, I should have let you know the moment you were old enough to understand, but I thought it could pose a threat to your life, that's why I didn't say anything."
"It didn't have to do with the money you were bribed with?" Eli asked, feeling guilty at the accusation in his tone.
"No Eli, it had nothing to do with that."
"But you told me, Dad had picked me from a bin on his way back from work." Eli said, shaking his head, not wanting to believe what the woman he considered his Mom was telling him now – "what other lie have you told, what other thing are you keeping from me?" Eli couldn't stop himself, trembling from the fact of being lied to by the people he loved the most apart from his wife Elara.
"It was a way to keep you safe Eli, the only thing I could tell you at that time, I never intended to lie to you, and that's the only thing that I have told you that isn't the truth." Evelyn's voice cracked and broke with tears that fell off her eyes and ran down her face.
"Did you really love me or did you pretend to love me because you were paid to." The question tumbled out
of his mouth before he could stop himself.