He was waiting for my reply.
“My name is Mickey Bolitar. I’m looking for Jared. I don’t mean him any harm.”
“So why are you looking for him?”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
He just stood there dripping in his towel and waited.
“You saw my friend,” I said.
“The goth girl?”
“Right. She’s a friend of his. Online friend anyway. He suddenly stopped communicating. She was worried about him.”
He frowned. “You came all this way for that?”
It did sound pretty lame, but I said, “Yes.”
“And you came with her because…?”
“She’s my friend. I’m trying to help her.”
He stood there in his towel, no shirt, water dripping off the mop of hair. “Is she some kind of a cyberstalker or something?”
“No. Look, I just need to see him and make sure he’s okay.”
“Just because he stopped texting her back or whatever?”
“There’s more to it than that. But all I need to do is make sure he’s okay.”
“That’s weird,” the kid said. “You get that, right?”
“I do,” I said.
He took a deep breath. This was surreal, talking to this preppy boy just standing there in his towel. “Do you play basketball?” he asked me.
You get this question a lot when you’re six-four. “Yes.”
“Me too. My name is Tristan Wanatick. I’m the point guard on the team here. Jared and I are co-captains. Seniors. It’s our last year. We were supposed to have a great season.”
I felt a small chill. “Supposed to?”
“We still will,” Tristan said, trying to sound defiant but not quite getting there. “I mean, he said he’ll be back.”
“Jared?”
“Yeah.”
“So he’s not at school?”
Blond Mop shook his head.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Something happened.”
Another chill, bigger this time. “What?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of family emergency. He left school a few days ago. Right in the middle of the semester. More than that-right at the start of basketball season.”
“Where did he go?”
“Home.”
“And you don’t know why?”
“All I know is it was something sudden,” he said. “But if Jared is missing basketball, it has to be something really, really bad.”
CHAPTER 24
I promised Tristan I would let him know if I learned anything.
There was nothing more for us to do here. Ema and I caught the next bus back. I headed straight to school for basketball practice. It felt great, of course, to disappear in the sweat and strain and beauty. I sometimes wondered what my life would be without having the court as a place to escape.
When I got out, I was surprised to see a familiar car waiting for me.
Uncle Myron’s.
He lowered the window. “Get in,” he said.
“Something wrong?”
“You wanted to see your mother, right?”
“Right.”
“Get in.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I circled around and hopped into the front passenger seat. Myron pulled away.
“How did you get permission?”
“You said it was important.”
“It is.”
Myron nodded. “I explained that to Christine.”
Christine Shippee ran the Coddington Rehabilitation Center, where my mother was being treated for her addiction. Christine had told me in no uncertain terms that my mother would not be allowed any visitors, including her only child, for at least another two weeks.
“And she accepted that?” I asked.
“No. She said that you couldn’t come.”
“So how-?”
“Your mother isn’t in jail, Mickey. She’s in rehab. I told her that we were pulling her out of the program if she doesn’t let you see her.”
Whoa, I thought. “What did Christine say to that?”
I saw Myron’s grip on the steering wheel tighten. “She said that we’d have to find your mother a new facility.”
“What?”
“You said it was important.”
“It is.”
“So understand: Christine said that if we broke their protocol-if you saw her-then your mother would get thrown out.”
I sat back.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well, what?”
“What do you want to do, Mickey? Do we go and see your mother right now? Or do we let her stay in the program and get the help she needs?”
I thought about it. He made the right turn and up ahead, not more than another mile, was the Coddington Rehabilitation Center.
“What do you want to do?” Myron asked again.
I turned toward him. “I want to see my mother.”
“Even if that means getting her thrown out of the program?”
I sat back, crossed my arms, and said with more confidence than I really had: “Even if.”
CHAPTER 25
“I don’t understand this,” Christine Shippee said.
“I just need to talk to her. It won’t take long.”
“She’s going through withdrawal. You know what that is?”
“Yes.”
“She’s in tremendous pain. Her body is craving the drug. You have no idea how hard this part is on a person.”
I had learned in life to compartmentalize. I understood what she was saying. More than that, I felt her words. Physically. I felt them like a hard blow to the stomach. But I had come to a horrible realization. This wasn’t my mother’s first stint in rehab. Kitty Bolitar, my mother, had gone through the pain of withdrawal before, just a few months ago. Kitty had convinced everybody that she was fine and then she had gotten out and smiled at me and taken me to school and promised to make me my favorite dinner with my favorite garlic bread and then I went to school and she went to a motel and shot that poison back into her veins.
That was why we were back here.
“It didn’t work last time.”
“That’s not uncommon,” Christine Shippee told me. “You know that.”
“I do.”
“Mickey, we are doing what’s best for her. But I meant it. If you insist on seeing her tonight, you will break our protocol. We can no longer be her facility.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Christine Shippee looked toward Myron. “He’s a minor. This is your call, not his.”
Uncle Myron turned to me and met my eye. I kept my gaze on him. “You’re sure?” he asked me.
I was.
Christine Shippee shook her head. “You know where her room is,” she said in a voice of both exhaustion and exasperation. “Myron, you can stay with me and sign the release papers.”
She hit a button and I heard the familiar buzz of the door. I opened it and started down the narrow corridor. When I found my mother, she was asleep. Her ankles and wrists were restrained. Still, I felt somewhat lucky. I had caught her in a peaceful moment, deep sleep, escape from the pain.
For a few moments I stood in the doorway and watched her. She had given up her tennis career-the fame, the fortune, the passion, all of it-to keep me. She had loved me and taken care of me my whole life until… until she couldn’t anymore. I have heard that the human spirit is indomitable, that it can’t be beaten or destroyed, and if you want something bad enough, the human spirit is impossibly strong.
That’s total crap.
My mother wasn’t weak. My mother loved me with everything that she had. But sometimes a person can break, just like Bat Lady’s stupid refrigerator. Sometimes they break and maybe they can’t be fixed.
“Mickey?”
Kitty Bolitar smiled at me, and for a moment, her face beamed. She was my mom again. I ran over to the side of the bed, transformed suddenly into a little boy. I collapsed to my knees and lowered my head onto her shoulder and then I, too, broke down. I sobbed. I sobbed on her shoulder for a very long time. I could hear her making a gentle shushing sound, a sound she made for me a hundred times before, trying to comfort me. I waited for her to put her hand on my head, but the restraints wouldn’t allow it.