“Yes?”

“I think I know how my father may have overexerted himself.” I think I know—not I think or I know—in short, nervous child speak. “Last night”—Myron had no idea exactly how to put it—“my nephew and I got into a tussle.” He explained how Dad had run outside and broken it up. As he spoke, Myron felt his eyes well up. Guilt and—yep, like when he was ten—shame washed over him. He spotted Mom out of the corner of his eye. She stared at him in a way he had never seen before. Ellis listened, nodded, and said, “Thank you for the information” before disappearing down the corridor.

Mom was still staring. She turned her laserlike eyes to Mickey then back to her son. “You two got into a fight?”

Myron almost pointed at Mickey and shouted, “He started it!” but instead he lowered his head in a nod. Mickey kept his eyes up—the kid redefined stoic—but his face had lost all color. Mom kept her gaze on Myron.

“I don’t understand. You let your father get involved in your fight?”

Mickey said, “It was my fault.”

Mom turned and looked up at her grandson. Myron wanted to say something to defend the kid, but at the same time he didn’t want to lie. “He was reacting to something I did,” Myron said. “It’s on me too.”

They both waited for Mom to say something. She didn’t, which was a hell of a lot worse. She turned away and sat back in her chair. Mom put her shaking hand—Parkinson’s or worry?—up to her face and tried very hard not to cry. Myron started toward her but pulled up. Now wasn’t the time. He flashed again to that scene he always imagined, the one where Mom and Dad pull up to the house in Livingston for the first time, baby in tow, starting off on the El-Al family journey. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was the final chapter.

Mickey moved to the other side of the waiting room and sat in front of a mounted TV. Myron paced some more. He felt so damn cold. He closed his eyes and started making deals with whatever higher power—what he would do and give and trade and sacrifice if only his father would be spared. Twenty minutes later, Win, Esperanza, and Big Cyndi appeared. Win informed Myron that Dr. Mark Ellis was supposedly great, but Win’s friend, the legendary cardiologist Dennis Callahan from New York-Presbyterian, was on the way. They all moved into a private waiting room, except Mickey, who wanted no part of any of them. Big Cyndi held Mom’s hand and cried theatrically. It seemed to help Mom.

The hour passed in torturous slow motion. You consider every possibility. You accept and reject and rail and cry. The emotional wringer never lets up. A nurse came in several times to tell them that there was no new news.

Everyone fell into an exhausted silence. Myron was wandering the hallways when Mickey came rushing up to him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Suzze T is dead?” Mickey asked.

“You didn’t know?”

“No,” Mickey said. “I just saw it on the news.”

“That’s why I came to see your mom,” Myron said.

“Wait, what does my mom have to do with it?”

“Suzze visited your trailer a few hours before she died.”

That made Mickey take a step back. “You think Mom gave her the drugs?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. She said she didn’t. She said she and Suzze had a big heart-to-heart.”

“What kind of heart-to-heart?”

Myron remembered something else Kitty had said about Suzze’s OD: “She wouldn’t do that. Not to the baby. I know her. She was killed. They killed her.” Something clicked in the back of Myron’s brain.

“Your mom seemed sure someone killed Suzze.”

Mickey said nothing.

“And she seemed even more scared after I told her about the OD.”

“So?”

“So is this all connected, Mickey? You guys on the run. Suzze dying. Your father missing.”

He shrugged a tad too elaborately. “I don’t see how.”

“Boys?”

They both turned. Myron’s mother was there. Tears were on her cheeks. A tissue was balled up in her hand. She dabbed at her eyes. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“With what?”

“Don’t start that with me,” she said in a voice only a mother can use on her son. “You and Mickey get into a fight—then suddenly he’s going to live with us. Where are his parents? I want to know what’s going on. All of it. Right now.”

So Myron told her. She listened, shaking, crying. He spared her nothing. He told her about Kitty in rehab and even about Brad vanishing. When he finished, Mom moved closer to them both. She turned first to Mickey, who met her eye. She took his hand.

“It’s not your fault,” she said to him. “Do you hear me?”

Mickey nodded, his eyes closing.

“Your grandfather would never blame you. I don’t blame you. With the amount of blockage he had, you may have inadvertently saved his life. And you”—she turned toward Myron—“stop moping and get out of here. I’ll call you if something changes.”

“I can’t leave here.”

“Of course you can.”

“Suppose Dad wakes up.”

She moved closer to him, craning her neck to look up at him. “Your father told you to find your brother. I don’t care how sick he is. You do what he says.”

27

So now what?

Myron pulled Mickey aside. “I noticed a laptop in your trailer. How long have you owned it?”

“Two years maybe. Why?”

“Is it the only computer you guys had?”

“Yes. And again I’m asking, why?”

“If your father used it, maybe there’s something on it.”

“Dad wasn’t much with technology.”

“I know he had an e-mail address. He used to write your grandparents, right?”

Mickey shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Do you know his password?”

“No.”

“Okay, what else of his do you still have?”

The kid blinked. He bit down on his lower lip. Again Myron reminded himself of where Mickey’s life was right now: father missing, mother in rehab, grandfather suffering a heart attack, and maybe you’re to blame. And you’re all of fifteen years old. Myron started to reach out, but Mickey stiffened.

“We don’t have anything.”

“Okay.”

“We don’t believe in having a lot of possessions,” Mickey said defensively. “We travel a lot. We pack light. What would we have?”