“Mom. Mother, would you listen to me for a second?” Eli has his earpiece in. His hands are occupied—presently covering his bowed face. He rakes his hands up through his hair, curling his fingers in it. He pulls slightly, eyes still shut, trying to remind himself to breathe.

His mother is still speaking, her voice sounding in his ear without pause, brushing past his plea for her to slow down and listen to him. Just one second. All he needs is one second, but she’s still talking.

“Mother, listen. Stop...” He drops his hands, leaning on the table. “Stop for just one second, okay? Will you listen to me? You’ve just decided that you know exactly what’s happening right now and—“

Charlotte cuts in again. Eli lets out a frustrated sound, turning, pacing across the room. “No. No, that’s not what I’m saying. You’re not listening, mother. I say one thing and you go off and make it into something completely different. You think you know exactly what to do, exactly what I’m going through, but you don’t. You don’t. You’re not here, okay? You don’t understand what’s happening. If you would just listen to me and actually hear what I’m telling you... Mother.” He drops into a chair, digging his hands up into his hair. “Mother, this isn’t...” He sighs, letting one hand drop. His left hand. He slides his thumb along the ring circling his finger. Williams. “This isn’t something I’m just going to give up on. This isn’t something I’m going to throw away.”

There’s a brief pause before his mother speaks again. Eli shuts his eyes.

“I can’t do this. I can’t do this right now, this isn’t... let me talk to Gunther.” He gets up, pacing back to the counter. “Gunther, Mother. Please.” He leans his elbows on the counter, burying his face in his hands as he waits for the phone to transfer.

A gruff voice picks up a moment later. Eli straightens. “I cannot talk to her right now, Gunther. She doesn’t listen to me. She... she’s trying to answer questions that I never asked, and I just cannot handle it. She doesn’t listen.” He sighs. “Jesus, she’s so... fucking... intense. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.”

The man laughs and says something, his voice rich with an accent—Austrian.

Eli ambles over to his stove, looking down at it. “So here’s the deal. I’m making rice, right? It’s to go with this chicken stuff that I’m making. And I cooked it, and it tastes done, like it feels like it’s done, but it’s still, like... swimming, pretty much.” He picks up the fork and stirs the rice, sending clouds of it up into the water that’s still sitting on the top of it. “Mom says I should just throw it out, but I’d rather figure out how to rescue it.  I want to have dinner on the table when he gets home from work.”  He doesn't have to say who he is.  Gunther's met Tennessee.  He probably knows more about the two of them than Eli's mother does.

Eli laughs at something that Gunther says. “Yeah, I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have called you from the start. I mean, you’re the cook, right? What does she know?”