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.

“It’s okay, Mickey. Shh, it’s going to be okay.”

But I didn’t believe it. Worse, I didn’t believe her.

I put myself together a piece at a time. When I could finally speak, I said, “I need to ask you something.”

“What is it, sweetheart?”

I lifted my head. I wanted to look into her eyes when I asked. I wanted to see her reaction. “It’s about Dad.”

She winced. My parents loved each other. Oh, sure, right, lots of people’s parents do. But not like this. Their love was embarrassing. Their love was complete and whole and the problem with that kind of love, the problem with two becoming one, is what happens when one dies?

By definition, so must the other.

“What about your father?” she asked.

“Why did you have him cremated?”

“What?” She sounded more confused than shocked.

“I saw the paper you signed. I’m not mad or anything. I get it. But I don’t know why—”

“What are you talking about? He wasn’t cremated.”

“Yes, he was. You signed for it.”

Her eyes blazed now, boring into mine. I don’t think I had ever seen them this clear. “Mickey, listen to me. We buried your father in Los Angeles. I never had him cremated. Why would you think such a thing?”

She waited for the answer. I believed her. She hadn’t been in a drug stupor or anything like that. I could see it in her face. And I could see something else in her face too.

We had all been pretending.

My mother wasn’t going to get better. She was broken. Christine Shippee might be able to repair her for a little while, but she would just break again. There was only one hope for her. I knew that. When my father died, she died too. That was why I was willing to risk her treatment. That was why I didn’t care about the threats to throw her out of rehab. Rehab wouldn’t do any good. Right now, without my father, you were sticking a tiny bandage on a limb amputation.

My mother was lost to me forever. There was only one hope.

“Mom?”

“Yes.”

I kept my tone strong. “I need you to get better.”

“Oh, I will,” she said, and, man, it sounded like a lie now.

“No, not like that. Not like last time. Things have changed.”