The Science of Growing Apart

14- Questions

I was nervous about my formal interview with Eleanor, which was weird because I usually felt really comfortable around her and nothing was ever awkward. But for the formal interview, I knew that I might drudge up some uncomfortable memories for her that she'd probably rather stay buried.

I knew that she didn't have an easy childhood, but I didn't know all of the details and frankly, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I sat stiff on the corner of her couch with my notepad in hand. We had a normal conversation for at least forty-five minutes before I could find the resolve to finally grab the pencil and suggest that we start with the questions.

"Do you know how your parents met?" I asked her my first question.

"She worked at the hotel he would stay at in Virginia when he was there for work," she took a sip of her coffee and then placed it on the wooden coffee table in front of her. She didn't look tense at all as she recanted the story, talking as if she was describing the plot of a movie or something. "They'd meet up once a month, and did so for two years before I came along."

"Why do you think he kept coming around after she got pregnant?" I scribbled notes down on the notepad.

"I have no idea. I've thought about it a lot over the years, but I just don't know," she admitted with a small shrug. "Maybe he really did love her, or he just liked sleeping with her that much. Or he could tell that she was struggling mentally and might do something stupid if he left that could jeopardize his reputation."

"What do you remember about him from those eight years that he kept coming around?"

"I remember that he'd bring me gifts," she said to me, scrunching her eyes shut as if trying to remember something. "Mostly dolls, even though I hated playing with dolls. That's just what he thought little girls would like. He didn't do it for me though, he did it for her. Neither one of them ever really did anything for me. She conceived me to keep him, he brought me dolls to make her happy. It was all for each other."

"Do you know the name of the mental hospital your mom went to after she had Casey?" I asked her curiously.

She looked at me curiously and then said, "I have it here somewhere. Why?"

"Just a hunch I want to follow," I said vaguely, not wanting to give her false ideas if my hunch never panned out into anything. "And after your mom was hospitalized, Silas never tried to contact you again?"

She shook her head and said, "Nope. I found this in a box of my mom's things I kept in storage, thought maybe it could help. She was truly obsessed with the man, kept very detailed logs of where he was around the country at all times, printed out articles written about him, kept it all collected in this binder like a stalkerish scrapbook."

She slid a thick forest green binder toward me on on the couch that had been resting on the side table. I started to curiously flip through it, scanning the pages. This woman was so detailed that she knew what hotels he would stay at in each city he traveled to.

"Wow," I exhaled in shock. I had a lot of work to do, going through the binder, fact checking, and investigating each location for possible affairs.

"I don't really want her mentioned in the article, if possible," Eleanor added, running her fingers through her long brown hair. "She was in a really bad spot with her mental health and she's gotten a lot better in the last decade or so. I don't really have that much contact with her, but she's got a stable job, she's a step mom now. She's really not the same person she was back then and I wouldn't want her to get villainized for something she did thirty years ago."

"I'm planning on keeping everything as confidential as possible, you don't have to worry," I assured her. "I think I'll have a rough draft ready next week with just some of the evidence I already have so you'll get a good idea on how things are going to be portrayed."