I ignored the challenge in her voice. For all her attitude, and unlike her brother at her age, she at least obeyed me. For the moment that was enough.
“Have you decided whether you’re going to your party tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you have decided, or yes you’re going?”
“Yes, as in ‘I need a ride to the mall to buy a costume.’”
“Today?”
“It’s your fault, or have you forgotten you won’t let me wear the one I have?”
“I can’t take you to the mall. My party is at six.”
“You’re going to a party?”
Her surprised disbelief irked me, for it implied this was as rare an event as finding her in a good mood. Which was, in fact, the case.
“Yes, I am. I just told you. My agent invited me.”
“Then, you’re the one who needs to go to shopping. You have no costume.”
“It is not a costume party.” I frowned. “At least I don’t think it is.”
“You don’t know? Really Mom, you need help.”
“Okay. I’ll take you to the mall. You’re right. I need a dress.”
“Cool!”
Madison jumped from her bed and, in one of those sudden changes of mood I could never predict, sauntered over the piles of clothes scattered on the floor and hugged me. “I love you, you know?” she said.
“Yes, I know.”
“Now, about tonight,” I said as she started digging into her closet. “I will ask your brother to give you a ride at eight.”
Holding a pair of jeans small enough to fit a Barbie doll, she turned to me. “Are you kidding? He’ll be too stoned by then to drive.”
“Madison! Ryan has been clean for a year.”
“If you say so. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather ask Abby if her mom can drive us.”
I left her texting on her cell, and headed for my room. But her words about Ryan haunted me. Was she badmouthing her brother out of jealousy for all the attention he had gotten over the years by misbehaving, or had she seen something I’d missed?
But what? His urine tests, taken randomly since moving back in with us in late August, had been negative. And, as far as I knew, he had been attending his classes at the community college. A friend of mine taught there and I’d asked her to keep an eye on him. She would have called me had he missed too many classes.
As for his behavior, Ryan was polite to me, as polite as a teenager could be, and whenever he didn’t come home to sleep, he always let me know in advance. What else could I do? He was eighteen. I couldn’t tie him to a chair. That would be illegal, as the humorless psychologist had told me when I suggested it the previous year. The psychologist my ex had hired to evaluate us and advise the court on who should have custody of Ryan. I had meant it as a joke. He hadn’t.
I heard doors opening and closing and the water running in the shower. Drawn by fear and by the memory of a time when this was routine for me — the time last year, when I was trying to find proof that Ryan was using to force my reluctant ex to believe me — I stole into his room.
An unmade bed, a guitar against the wall, open books by the computer, and dirty clothes on the floor. Nothing obvious at first sight suggested drugs. No empty pens, no folded pieces of aluminum foil, and no dryer sheets. None of the paraphernalia I had found then, for at his worst, Ryan had not even tried to hide the evidence, as if he was too wasted to care, or maybe, on a subconscious level, crying for help.
No, nothing obvious, and I had become an expert at detecting everyday objects that could have another, lethal use, or unusual ones, like the glass container I was told was a bong by my friends at Because I Love You, the support group for parents like me. The glass container that, otherwise, I would have put on my mantelpiece. For it had that artsy look.
I bent down and picked up his rumpled jeans. With expert fingers, I checked his pockets: his cell phone as was expected, a box of matches from a club I memorized and, at the very bottom, a small piece of paper, rolled in itself.
I unrolled it distracted, my mind a thousand miles away, already considering what this meant, and the few possibilities I had to make it right, now that Ryan was eighteen. I held the paper in my hand. A business card, I noticed. Then I saw the name, Becquer’s name, beautifully rendered in the old-fashioned calligraphy I had seen earlier today. Becquer’s name yelling at me.
“Ma, what are you doing?”
Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t noticed the water in the shower had stopped running. But it had, and now Ryan stood at the door, a towel wrapped around his waist. The boy who once had fit so snugly in my arms, a boy no more, loomed over me, his dark brows raised in a question.
He wasn’t angry. Not yet. Only curious. He wasn’t angry, until I raised my hand and showed him the card. “Who gave you this?”
Fast and furious, Ryan reached forward and tore the card from my fingers. “What does it matter?” he asked as he squeezed it in his fist. “Are you spying on me?
“You don’t trust me, do you?” he continued, his voice getting louder with each word. “I did what you asked me, I took your dumb tests, and still you don’t trust me?”
“Have you met Becquer?”
“Why should I tell you anything? You won’t believe me, anyway.”
Before I could answer, he grabbed some clothes from the floor and left the room.
I sat on the bed.
My two worlds that until then I had kept apart, my writing and Ryan’s addiction, had unexpectedly collided and lay broken at my feet.
Was Ryan using again? Why had Becquer not mentioned he knew him?
Could it be he had met him, but didn’t know he was my son? Besides, even if Becquer knew who Ryan was and had given him his card, that didn’t mean they had been together when Ryan … It was only a rolled card. It didn’t have to mean he had been using. But if he hadn’t, why had he refused to answer me?
“Mom?” I looked up. Madison, dressed to kill in a short dress over tight pants, and wearing more make-up than I use in a month, stared at me. “Are you ready?”
“Ready?”
Madison pouted. “Don’t tell me you’re bailing on me? Whatever Ryan has done this time, we need to go to the mall.”
Lucky for me, I had somebody to set my priorities straight.
I knew better than to say that aloud, as Madison didn’t take well to sarcasm. Besides, she was right, we did need to go to the mall. As things stood between Ryan and me and, despite the fact that Becquer was not quite human and I barely knew him, my guess was I had a better chance to get an explanation from Becquer than from my son. And that meant I had to go to the party to talk to him, and thus needed a dress.
I stood up. “No. I’m not bailing on you.”
Chapter Three: Federico
Madison rolled her eyes when I pulled the black lace dress from the rack.
“That won’t do, Mom. It’s Halloween. It has to be a costume party. Why don’t you call and ask.”
But I couldn’t call because I didn’t have Becquer’s number with me. Thinking wearing no costume to a costume party would be less embarrassing than to show up in disguise to a regular one, I ignored Madison’s advice and bought the dress.
The dress was too fancy for me and much too expensive, but we didn’t have time to shop any longer. As it was I had barely finished my make-up when the doorbell rang.
