He shook his head. "Lavonn thinks he's some kind of d.a.m.ned savior. Bought that house in Glendale, and a big-a.s.s Cadillac."

"Where'd he get the money?"

He shrugged. "Not all a.s.sholes are morons. I heard he got a scholarship to some Ivy League school. Made a s.h.i.tload of money in biochemistry or something, then came back here to save us poor n.i.g.g.e.rs."

"How do you mean?"

"He got some investors together, bought up a bunch of property on the east side. Tried to ..." He made air quotes ... "save the culture."

"Didn't work?"

"Place is a f.u.c.king wasteland."

"He must have lost some money in the deal."

"You'd think, wouldn't you?"

"So how'd he recoup?"

"I have no idea."

He drew air slowly through his nostrils, thinking as he scowled. "Turns out he wasn't on drugs."

"The reports came back clean?"

"And they didn't find anything in his house."

"Which means you may have more trouble getting custody than you had hoped."

"It means he's a f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he said, and clenching his teeth, ran his palms down his black denim pants legs.

I gave that some judicious consideration, but couldn't quite make sense of it.

"At least if he was high he would have had an excuse," he said.

It seemed like there was some problem with that logic, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

"What about Lavonn?" I asked. "Was she tested?"

"Clean, too," he said.

I remembered the woman's wide pupils, her erratic behavior, juxtaposed against her beau's dreamy persona. I also remembered a possible drug called Intensity, but I wasn't ready to mention that to Micky. "Maybe Jackson's frightening behavior will convince her to ditch him."

He looked at me, dark face inscrutable. "You believe in the Tooth Fairy, too?"

"Please don't," I said, then continued without explaining Laney's threat about Santa Claus. "People change, Micky," I said. "You did."

"Did I?" There was tight anger in his tone.

"Yes."

"Then why was it my first instinct to shoot?" he asked.

"Is that why you went to Glendale? To kill Jackson?"

"I went to see my son," he said, and rose jerkily to his feet. "Shooting that a.s.shole was just a bonus."

I watched him pace. "If it was so much fun, why the guilt?"

He shut his eyes. A muscle danced taut and jittery in his jaw. "She never cried," he said, and stared out the window, fists deep in his front pockets.

I waited for him to continue, but Micky always had more patience than I.

"Lavonn or-"

"Kaneasha. When I ..." His jaw jumped again. "When I raped her," he said. "She just looked at me. Like Jamel does sometimes. Like they expect more. Like they expect better."

I let those words steep in the air for a moment. Seconds ticked away, thick with regret, sticky with self-loathing.

"Then give them better," I said finally.

"I can't!" He turned on me like a snarling Rottweiler. "Don't you see that? This is what I am." He thumped his chest with stiff fingertips and took a terse step toward me. "You can't change what you are."

Rottweilers are scary as h.e.l.l, and I didn't like being intimidated in my office by wild dogs, so I raised my chin and gave him my best bad-a.s.s glare. "Not if you stand there and whine about it, you can't," I said.

He glowered at me for half of forever, then snorted his disdain. "Where did you grow up? Disneyland or something? I bet you had yourself a daddy who thought the world revolved around your pinky finger."

I gave that a moment's thought. On my good days, Dad had referred to me as "the girl" and treated me as if I had a chronic case of the pox, but that was hardly the point, was it?

"You deserved better," I said. "No one's denying that."

"d.a.m.ned right, I did," he snapped. "I deserved-"

I closed the trap with hardly a tickle of guilt. "And so does Jamel."

He paused, eyes gleaming, then gritted his teeth and sat down. Seconds ticked away like time bombs. "You think he's better off with me?"

"Than with Lavonn and Jackson?"

He nodded.

In my own little mind, I thought living with a pack of man-hungry hyenas would be preferable to living with Lavonn and Jackson, but I smugly kept that opinion to myself. "What do you think?"

He glanced toward the window, expression solemn, dark eyes so sad they would have made a weaker woman cry. "A boy needs a mother," he said.

"Even if she's a mother on drugs?"

The muscle jumped in his jaw again. "I don't even have a girlfriend."

I refrained from asking if he wanted one, even though the sight of him, introspective and broken, weakened some part of me that was generally as hard-a.s.sed and grumpy as a curmudgeon. "You have a grandmother."

He gave me a look from the corner of his dark eyes. "I'm hard up," he admitted, "but I think Grams is a little old for me. And aren't incestuous relationships still frowned upon?"

I didn't honor his facetiousness with a response, though high-sarcasm often garnered awards in a clan as obnoxious as the McMullens. "How did she and Jamel get along?"

"She made him eat All Bran. For roughage," he said. "All Bran tastes like sidewalk chalk."

For a moment I almost asked just when he had become aware of the similarities. He'd never mentioned having brothers like mine-inclined to "encourage" siblings to try new delicacies.

"And she smells funny," he added.

"Is that your opinion or Jamel's?"

"Both." He said the word with some feeling, but I contained my laughter. My grandmother had smelled funny, too, but she could still make my mother grovel, and for that I would be eternally amazed.

"I don't think odor precludes a person from parenting," I said.

"How about great-grandparenting?"

"Probably not," I said, but he was already shaking his head, leaning his close-cropped skull against the couch's cushion, sighing.

"You have any idea how old she is?" he asked.

"How old?"

"I don't know," he said, and looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. "f.u.c.k. You don't think I'm b.a.l.l.sy enough to ask her, do you?"

I liked this woman more every moment. "Maybe age doesn't preclude a person from parenting, either."

He exhaled heavily. "She gave up her life for me," he said, and winced, remembering. According to his stories, he hadn't made it easy. "I couldn't ask her to do more."

"Are you sure you'd have to?"

He glanced at me.

"Are you sure you'd have to ask," I explained.

He said nothing. I changed tack.

"I thought you had decided not to tell her about Jamel yet," I said.

"I didn't didn't tell her. I planned to introduce them. But not like that. Not ..." He paused, grimaced. "I didn't want her to think I was a f.u.c.kup. Not again. Not anymore." He chuckled. Humorless. "All grown up and still trying to impress my grams." tell her. I planned to introduce them. But not like that. Not ..." He paused, grimaced. "I didn't want her to think I was a f.u.c.kup. Not again. Not anymore." He chuckled. Humorless. "All grown up and still trying to impress my grams."

"Maybe it's admirable," I said.

"Yeah." He snorted, then scowled at me, curious. "How about you, Doc? You still trying to make your parents proud?"

His question spurred some hidden part of me, because deep inside I was pretty sure I had given up even before I had yanked my proverbial roots and escaped to the desert.

"You don't think your grandmother is proud?" I asked.

"She didn't cry, either," he said. "Not when she saw Jackson on the floor. Not when she came to see me in jail. She didn't even look surprised. Just disappointed. Just ..." He exhaled, sliding into the black hole of self-recrimination. "Like Kaneasha. Like-"

"Did you lie to me about the events that night?" I asked, tugging gently at the rope that kept him swinging above the bottom of the abyss.

"What?"

"About how Jackson was shot. You said it was his gun. You implied that he would have killed you if you hadn't stopped him."

He looked away, face hard. "Maybe that's how it should have gone down. Maybe he should should have shot me." have shot me."

My stomach churned like a cement mixer. Some people believe therapists shouldn't get involved with their clients. Obviously I'm not the only one who believes in fict.i.tious characters.

"So you think it would be good for Jamel if his aunt's boyfriend killed his father?"

He looked at me, eyes solemn. "f.u.c.k," he said finally, but softly.

"Did you lie to me?" I asked. "About that night?" He stared at me, eyes angry and strangely accusatory, but I continued. "Was the gun his?"

His face was devoid of expression. "He pulled it out of his waistband." He swallowed, reliving. "He had that look," he said. "That c.o.c.ky-a.s.s 'I'm invincible' look. I've seen it before. Seen it. Lived it." His lips jerked spasmodically.

"What should you have done differently?"

"I don't know." He dropped his eyes closed for a moment, then shook his head. "s.h.i.t! I ..." He exhaled a laugh. "Lavonn had bruises on her throat. You see that? I swore at him. Called him a f.u.c.king coward." He laughed again, but his eyes showed his agony. "You know what you shouldn't do?"

"Call a man names when he's holding a gun?"

"See." He flipped a tense hand at me. "Normal folks know those things."

"Are you referring to me?"

He almost grinned, though the sadness never left his eyes. "If it had been you, Jackson wouldn't have been in the hospital."

I considered telling him that if Jackson had pulled a gun on me there was a fair chance I would have peed my pants and swooned like a debutante, but I'm a professional. "Jamel wouldn't be better off with Lavonn than with you," I said.

He raised his brows in surprise. "You actually giving me your opinion, Doc? I thought that was against shrink code or something."

"They'll probably forgive me if they find out I'm suggesting that you have something to live for."

He watched me for a moment longer, then nodded. "Jamel," he said.

"I think a boy needs a father father, too."

He sighed, frowned. "I f.u.c.ked up."

"Sometimes there are no perfect options."

"Well, there should be." He rose to his feet again, restive. There had been a time, early in our relationship, that I thought he might be using, but I had learned since then that thoughts of his past made him jittery. "There should should be choices: education, consideration, kindness ..." He paused, all but breathless. be choices: education, consideration, kindness ..." He paused, all but breathless.