Lee Child: First Thrills

She said, “You’re just jealous.”

I said, “ He ’s jealous.”

She looked at her coffee cup for a while, maybe checking for cracks. Then she said, “Sometimes grown-ups keep company for different reasons.”

“Than if someone’s nice?”

“Yeah. You know when you get lonely?”

“No.”

“How lovely,” she said, and got up to go to work.

That night when I walked home from school I saw Bo’s truck outside. But when I went in, the numbers were punched into the microwave anyway, so that meant they were going out to dinner. They were sitting on the couch together and Momma’s hair was wet, which was weird since she only showers in the morning. They were all smiley and their faces were red. Bo pretended to be nice to me but I went back to my room to read comics.

I heard Momma say, “Let him go.”

They went out. Momma came in to give me a kiss first and she held my head and said, “You know I love you, right?”

And I said, “Me, too.”

I ate alone. They got home late. I was watching TV. Momma opened a bottle of her pink wine so I hid in my room because when Momma drinks her pink wine she gets louder and her voice sounds different. She never gets mean, but I don’t like her voice getting different. It’s sort of like this one time when Wolverine was in the plane crash and it burned away all his skin and, well, you get the idea. I went to bed and got up later to pee and I heard them kind of grunting in Momma’s room and I thought they were moving the bed because Momma likes to redecorate sometimes.

At Mrs. Connelly’s the next day I drew a big pumpkin head with a mean, fake smile like the Joker’s. Or like Bo’s.

Momma was supposed to work because it was Tuesday, but there weren’t any numbers on the micro wave when I got home. I stood there for a long time, staring at the blank micro wave, getting that hurt feeling in my stomach when I think there’s no food. A toilet flushed. And then Bo came out.

He held out his arms like a scarecrow. “I’m your babysitter to -night,” he said. “Your mom’s working the night shift. Ain’t I a nice guy?” And then he laughed but it wasn’t like he thought something was funny. It was a Joker-smile kind of laugh.

I stayed in my room until I got too hungry and then I came out and said, “Will you make me a sandwich?”

He was watching a football game and he didn’t look over at me. He just said, “No.”

So I got the Salisbury steak TV dinner from the freezer and said, “Will you punch the numbers into the micro wave?”

He said, “What numbers?”

And I said, “I don’t know.”

He said, “Retard,” then he got up with a groan and shoved the box in the micro wave and hit some buttons and after the ding went off the steak was all rubbery. I ate it anyways.

I didn’t see Momma that night, but I saw her the next morning, dressed for work again. Bo was there, too. I think they had a sleepover. Momma’s mouth got the way it did when I was supposed to leave the room, but I think Bo got it that way, not me, and besides, I wasn’t done with my Corn Flakes.

They kept talking in quiet voices like I c ouldn’t hear but I was sitting right there.

Momma would say, “It’s too soon.”

And then he’d say, “It could save you some money, too, having me help out.”

And she’d say, “Not in front of him.” Or, “He doesn’t do well with change.” When she said, “Plus, we’re still getting to know each other,” he frowned and Momma looked like her stomach hurt.

Then he said, “Maybe that’s how you feel.”

She said, “I’m off at two. He doesn’t get home until three. We’ll discuss it then.” And she went to put her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

When I got home from school, the lamp by the couch was knocked over and that made me stop inside the door and scrunch my eyes shut. I was pretty sure I didn’t do it, but you never know when you’re gonna get blamed. In the dark, I said, “Momma?” but she didn’t answer me.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that Bo’s leather jacket was hung on the back of the kitchen chair. I went over and looked at it. It felt smooth and had lots of neat hidden pockets and stuff.

I said, “Momma?” again, but no one answered me. That almost made me forget how hungry I was.

I walked down the hall past my room and checked the bathroom. No Momma. I went in her room.

Momma lay on the floor with her mouth open. I thought she might be dead.

I said, “I want a sandwich.”

But she didn’t say anything back. Then I held out my toe and shoved her shoulder and she moved a little, but stiff, all at once. It was like the hamster babies in Mrs. Connelly’s class, who also went to heaven.

When I turned around, Bo was standing in the doorway behind me. He looked at Momma, then at me. He said, “What’d you do?”

And I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what I did.

He shook his head and made a tut-tutting sound. He had a book in his hand. He said, “You like stories, right?”

I nodded.

He said, “Come on, let’s get out of here. Away from what you’ve done.”

And we went in my room. He pushed me onto the bed and sat in the chair like he did last time when he read me Goodnight Moon . He took out this skinny book and said, “Here’s a book about a guy like you, retard. He’s a stone-cold killer.”

He read some then skipped a bunch of sections because there were no pictures and he probably got bored, too. There were these two guys who talked funny and one was tall and then there was a huge imaginary talking rabbit and someone died in a barn. That’s all I figured out. I would have rather watched Pokémon .

He closed the book when he was done. “Did you get it?” he asked.

And I nodded because people get mad at me when I don’t get it. And he said, “Every story has a moral. And the moral of this story is that people like you can’t be trusted.”

He walked out into the other room. After a while, I followed. He was wiping off doorknobs and the glasses in the sink with a rag.

He said, “People tell you you think different, right?”

I nodded.

Now he was wiping off the kitchen chairs. “I’m not really here, retard. I’m in your imagination, you hear? You ever seen Pinocchio ?”

I said, “I want to be a real boy.”

“That’s right. I’m like Jiminy Cricket. Or like that big rabbit in that book. I don’t exist. I’m a voice in your head. Got it?” He put on his leather jacket and walked out, using the rag to open the front door and close it behind him.

I stood there for a while. I went back into Momma’s room and looked at Momma. There was blue around her eye. Then I went in my room and read Batman again, up to page eleven. I checked the microwave but there were no numbers and I wasn’t sure how I would eat so I called 911.

The cops came in and looked in Momma’s room. Then they patted me down like Momma does at the diner after her shift when she’s looking for salt and pepper shakers. They sat me down on Momma’s bed and asked me some stupid questions. Then another guy showed up who I knew was a cop from the shiny badge on his belt even though he was too lazy to wear a uniform.

He came into Momma’s room, looked up, and said, “Holy Christ.”

I said, “You’d better not say that in front of Mrs. Connelly.”

He said, “Who’s Mrs. Connelly?”

And I said, “She’s Irish.”

He said, “Let’s get him out of here, Eddie.”

Eddie said, “Okay, detective.”

He and Eddie took me into the living room and I sat on the couch. Other cops were putting dust all over the glasses and the doorknobs and using makeup brushes to wipe it off, which didn’t make sense because why put it there in the first place? They kept shaking their heads. I didn’t blame them.