You Are Not Ape

Chapter 12

Ellie's morning did not start well. When Malcolm learned from Caesar that Alexander wanted to remain with the apes, he hit the ceiling. The ape king, catching Ellie's eye, and sensing that Malcolm did not know about alexander's wish and that he needed some time to absorb the situation, quickly left him and Ellie alone to talk.

Malcom paced restlessly in the space Caesar allotted to him and Ellie and Alexander while Ellie watched and worried.

"Now Malcolm, calm down," Ellie pleaded as she gripped her husband's arm firmly in both hands, and pulled him to a stop.

"I'm calm, Ellie," he said from between clenched teeth. "I am perfectly calm for a father who just found out his son wants to split up the family!"

"Okay, but if you get any calmer, Luca might be back in here and Caesar could order me to sedate you," she warned. "Besides, didn't you tell me you don't want to leave here either. You said you wanted to stay and help them. Why are you so upset that Alexander feels the same way?"

Malcolm groaned, but Ellie did not let go of him until she saw him take several deep breaths.

"Why didn't he come and talk to me about this first, Ell?"

"Well, maybe he was afraid how you'd react," she suggested very gently. Ellie had never heard Malcolm sound so bewildered and lost before, and her heart was breaking for both her husband and her stepson. "Did you always come talk to your father about everything when you were that age?"

"Oh my God, of course I didn't. But—"

Ellie waited patiently.

"But I thought things were different with me and Alexander, that's all. I mean, after everything we've been through, I just thought he would talk to me before anyone else."

Alexander's got a lot more people around here close to his own age," Ellie reminded him. "Haven't you noticed how he's taken to so many of these apes? He and Caesar's son and a few of the others are becoming fast friends. Maurice is like his beloved uncle or a grandfather. Maurice adores him. And you should see how Cornelia and the other ape women fuss over him, too," Ellie added.

"I know. I've never seen him want to interact with so many strangers before, and that's a good thing, Ellie, but-"

Ellie put her arms around Malcolm and held him tightly to her. "I know, Malcolm," she whispered against his shoulder. "I know."

"You think he has other reasons for staying, Ellie?" asked Malcolm.

"What do you mean, other reasons?" Ellie tried to sound as neutral as possible on that subject.

'it's not just the older ape women who are taken with Alexander, is it?" Malcolm asked more bluntly this time. "I've seen him hanging around that little blonde-headed ape girl and her baby an awful lot."

"So? What's wrong with that?"

A soft sound made the two humans jump and turn around. The small blonde ape girl in question was standing there with her human baby cradled in one arm.

"Excuse me," she said softly. "I was not spying. I ... I guess that Alexander is not here, then."

She started to leave, but turned back to them at the last minute, her little face aflame with either embarrassment or shame?

"If you don't want me to be friends with your son, Mr. Malcolm, just say so," the ape girl said ostensibly to them both but mostly to Malcom. "I understand why you don't want him to befriend any daughter of Koba. But what Alexander and I talk about is how it feels to lose a parent ... and how it feels to be all alone in a crowd of your own kind."