"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 s.p.a.ce. 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.senger 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.

"See that window up there?" Myron said. "The one with the decal on it?"

Mickey looked out, said nothing.

"When we were kids, that's where your dad and I shared a bedroom. We used to play Nerf basketball and trade baseball cards and we invented this hockey game with a tennis ball and the closet door."

Mickey waited a beat. Then he turned toward his uncle and said, "You guys must have been the b.a.l.l.s."

Everyone's a wisea.s.s.

Despite all the horrors of the past twenty-four hours-or maybe because of them-Myron couldn't help but chuckle. Mickey got out and headed up the same path where last night he'd jumped Myron. Myron followed and for a moment he was tempted to fun-tackle his nephew. Funny what flies through the brain at the strangest times.

Mom was at the door. She hugged Mickey first, the way only Mom could. When Mom hugged, she gave it her all-holding nothing back. Mickey closed his eyes and soaked it in. Myron waited for the kid to cry, but Mickey wasn't one for waterworks. Mom finally released him and threw the hug at her son. Then she stepped back, blocked their entrance, and fixed them both with a killer glare.

"What's going on with you two?" Mom asked.

Myron said, "What do you mean?"

"Don't hand me 'what do you mean.' Your father just tells me Mickey is staying here for a while. Nothing else. Don't get me wrong. Mickey, I'm thrilled you're staying with us. Too long in coming, you ask me, all this overseas nonsense. You belong here. With us. With your family."

Mickey said nothing.

Myron asked, "Where's Dad?"

"He's in the bas.e.m.e.nt getting your old bedroom ready for Mickey. So what's going on?"

"Why don't we get Dad and we can talk about it?"

"Fine with me," Mom said, wagging her finger at him like, uh, a mother, "but no funny stuff."

Funny stuff?

"Al? The kids are here."

They entered the house. Mom closed the door behind them.

"Al?"

No reply.

They all shared a look, no one moving. Then Myron headed for the bas.e.m.e.nt. The door down to Myron's old bedroom-soon to be Mickey's-was wide open. He called down to his father. "Dad?"

Still no answer.

Myron looked back at his mother. She looked more puzzled than anything else. Panic snaked its way into Myron's chest. He fought it off and half jumped, half ran down the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs. Mickey followed close behind.

Myron pulled up short when he got to the bottom of the stairs. Mickey crashed into him, knocking him a little forward. But Myron didn't feel a thing. He stared in front of him and felt his entire world begin to crumble.

26.

When Myron was ten years old and Brad was five, Dad took them to Yankee Stadium for a game against the Red Sox. Most boys have a memory like this-that major-league baseball game with your dad, the perfect July weather, that jaw-dropping moment you come out of whatever tunnel and see the ballpark for the very first time, the almost-painted green of the gra.s.s, the sun shining as though it were the first day, your heroes in uniform warming up with the ease of the gifted.

But this particular game would be different.

Dad had secured tickets in the nosebleed upper deck, but at the last minute, a business a.s.sociate gave him two tickets three rows behind the Red Sox bench. For some odd reason-and to the horror of the rest of his family-Brad was a Red Sox fan. Actually, the reason wasn't all that odd. Carl "Yaz" Yastrzemski was Brad's first baseball card. That might not seem like a big deal, but Brad was one of those little kids who became fiercely loyal to his firsts.

Once they sat, Dad produced the great seats with a magician's flourish and showed them to Brad. "Surprise!"

He handed the tickets to Myron. Dad would stay in the upper deck, sending his two sons down to the box seats. Myron held an excited Brad's hand and made his way down. When they arrived, Myron couldn't believe how close to the field they were. The box seats were, in a word, awesome.

When Brad spotted Yaz scant yards away, his face broke into a smile that even now, if Myron closed his eyes, he could still see and feel. Brad started cheering like mad. When Yaz got into the batter's box, Brad truly lost it. "Yaz! Yaz! Yaz!"

The guy sitting in front of them whirled around, frowning. He was maybe twenty-five and had a scruffy beard. That was another thing Myron would never forget. That beard.

"That's enough," the bearded guy said to Brad. "Quiet down."

The bearded guy turned back to the field. Brad looked as though someone had slapped him in the face.

"Don't listen to him," Myron said. "You're allowed to yell."

That was when everything went wrong. The bearded man spun back around and grabbed Myron-Myron who was ten years old at the time, a tall ten-year-old, but ten nonetheless-by the shirt. The man bunched the Yankee emblem tee in his adult fist and pulled Myron close enough for him to smell the stale beer on the man's breath.

"He's giving my girlfriend a headache," the bearded man said. "He shuts up now."

Myron was stunned. Tears pushed their way into his eyes, but he wouldn't let them out. He felt his chest hitch in fear and, strangely, shame. The man held on to Myron's shirt for another moment or two, then he pushed him back into his seat. The man turned back to the game and put his arm around his girlfriend. Afraid that he'd cry, Myron grabbed Brad's hand and hurried back to the upper deck. He didn't say anything, not at first, but Dad was perceptive and ten-year-old boys are not the world's best actors.

"What's wrong?" Dad asked.

His chest hitching with that combination of fear and shame, Myron managed to tell his father about the bearded man. Al Bolitar tried to stay calm as he listened. He put his hand on his son's shoulder and nodded along with him, but Dad's body was actually shaking. His face reddened. When Myron got to the point in the story where the man grabbed his shirt, Al Bolitar's eyes seemed to explode and go black.

In a too-controlled monotone, Dad said, "I'll be right back."

Myron watched the rest through the binoculars.