Harlan Coben - Live Wire

“Can I go in with her?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“But I want to see her room,” Mickey said.

“And I want to mud wrestle with Hugh Jackman. Neither is happening. Say good-bye and then move on.”

Mickey did not back down. “When can I visit?”

“We’ll see. Your mother needs to detox.”

“How long will that take?” Mickey asked.

Christine looked at Myron. “Why am I talking to a kid?”

Kitty still had a bad case of the shakes. “I don’t know about this.”

Mickey said, “If you don’t want to go inside-”

“Mickey,” Myron said, cutting him off. “You’re not helping.”

He said in an angry sotto voce: “Can’t you see she’s scared?”

“I know she’s scared,” Myron said. “But you’re not helping. Let the people here do their job.”

Kitty clung to her son and said, “Mickey?”

Part of Myron felt great sympathy for Kitty. A far bigger part of Myron wanted to rip her away from her son and kick her selfish ass through the door.

Mickey moved toward Myron. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t.”

“I’m not leaving her here.”

“Yeah, Mickey, you are. It’s that or I call the cops or social services or whoever else.”

But now Myron could see that it wasn’t just Kitty who was scared. It was Mickey. He was, Myron reminded himself, still a kid. Myron flashed back to those happy family photographs-Dad, Mom, Only Son. Mickey’s father had since vanished someplace in South America. His mother was about to go through a heavy security door and enter the harsh solo world of detoxification and drug rehabilitation.

“Don’t worry,” Myron said as gently as he could. “We’ll take care of you.”

Mickey made a face. “Are you for real? You think I want your help?”

“Mickey?”

It was Kitty. He turned to her, and suddenly the roles were back to where they should have been: Kitty was the mother and Mickey was her child again. “I’ll be fine,” she said in as firm a voice as she could muster. “You go and stay with your grandparents. You come back and see me as soon as you can.”

“But-”

She put her hands on his face again. “It’s okay. I promise. You’ll visit soon.”

Mickey lowered his face into her shoulder. Kitty held him for a moment, looking past him at Myron. Myron nodded that he’d be fine. The nod gave her no solace. Kitty finally pulled away and headed to the door without another word. She waited for the receptionist’s buzz and then disappeared inside.

“She’ll be fine,” Christine Shippee said to Mickey, finally a little tenderness in her voice.

Mickey turned and stomped out the door. Myron followed him. He clicked the remote, unlocking the car door. Mickey reached to open the back door. Myron clicked the remote again, locking it on him.

“What the hell?”

“Get in the front,” Myron said. “I’m not a chauffeur.”

Mickey slid into the front passenger seat. Myron started up the car. He turned to Mickey, but the kid had the iPod jammed back into his ears. Myron tapped the kid’s shoulder.

“Take them off.”

“Really, Myron? Is that how you think we’re playing this?”

But a few minutes later, Mickey did as he was asked. The boy gazed out the window, giving Myron the back of his head. They were only about ten minutes from the house in Livingston. Myron wanted to ask him more, wanted to push him to open up, but maybe it had been enough for one day.

Still gazing out the window, Mickey said, “Don’t you dare judge her.”

Myron kept his hands on the steering wheel. “I just want to help.”

“She wasn’t always like this.”

Myron had a thousand follow-up questions but he gave the kid space. When Mickey spoke again, the defensive tone was back. “She’s a great mom.”

“I’m sure she is.”

“Don’t patronize me, Myron.”

He had a point. “So what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said she wasn’t always like this. Do you mean a junkie?”

“Stop calling her that.”

“You pick the term then.”

Nothing.

“So tell me what you meant by ‘she wasn’t always like this,’ ” Myron said. “What happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened?” He swerved his gaze to the front windshield, staring at the road a little too intensely. “Dad happened. You can’t blame her.”

“I’m not blaming anyone.”

“She was so happy before. You have no idea. She was always laughing. Then Dad left and…” He caught himself, blinked, swallowed. “And then she fell apart. You don’t know what they meant to each other. You think Grandma and Grandpa are a pretty great couple, but they had friends and a community and other relatives. My mom and dad only had each other.”

“And you.”

He frowned. “There you go with the patronizing again.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t get it, but if you ever saw them together, you would. When you’re that much in love-” Mickey stopped, wondered how to continue. “Some couples aren’t built to be apart. They’re like one person. You take one away…” He didn’t finish the thought.

“So when did she start using?”

“A few months ago.”

“After your father vanished?”

“Yes. Before that, she’d been clean since I was born-so before you say it, yes, I know she used to do drugs.”

“How do you know?”

“I know a lot,” Mickey said, and a sly, sad smile came to his face. “I know what you did. I know how you tried to break them up. I know you told my father that my mother got knocked up by another guy. That she slept around. That he shouldn’t quit school to be with her.”

“How do you know all that?”

“From Mom.”

“Your mother told you all that?”

Mickey nodded. “She doesn’t lie to me.”

Wow. “So what else did she tell you?”

He crossed his arms. “I’m not going through the last fifteen years for you.”

“Did she tell you I hit on her?”

“What? No. Gross. Did you?”

“No. But that’s what she told your father to drive a wedge between us.”

“Oh man, that is so gross.”

“How about your father? What did he tell you?”

“He said that you pushed them away.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Who cares what you meant? You pushed them away.” Mickey let loose a deep breath. “You pushed them away, and now we’re here.”

“Meaning?”

“What do you think I mean?”

He meant that his father was missing. He meant that his mother was a junkie. He meant that he blamed Myron, that he wondered what their lives would have been like if Myron had been more accepting way back when.

“She’s a good mother,” Mickey said again. “The best.”

Yep, the heroin junkie was Mother of the Year material. Like Myron’s own father had said just a few days ago, kids have a way of blocking out the bad. But in this case, it seemed almost delusional. Then again, how should you judge the job a parent does? If you judged Kitty by the outcome-the end result, if you will-then, well, look at this kid. He was magnificent. He was brave, strong, smart, willing to fight for his family.

So maybe, crazy, lying junkie and all, Kitty had indeed done something right.

After another minute of silence had passed, Myron decided to rev up the conversation with a casual starter: “So I hear you play a mean game of hoops.”

Mean game of hoops? Oy.

“Myron?”

“Yes?”

“We’re not bonding here.”

Mickey put the headphones back in his ears, cranked the volume to an undoubtedly unhealthy level, and stared back out the passenger window. They made the rest of the way in silence. When they pulled up to the old house in Livingston, Mickey turned off his iPod and stared out.