Authors: Dani Alexander
Cordova stepped between Rosa and Peter. “I think you should leave, Mr. Dyachenko.”
“Knock it off, Peter,” I said. “This can wait.” Rosa looked unsure, her eyes darting down. “He wants come with me.”
“Bullshit!” But Cai’s fingers dropped from Peter, and he blushed guiltily, tears wiped away before they fell. Peter looked at his arm where Cai’s hand had rested and then turned in slow motion to face his brother. “Cai?”
“We have to go,” the boy whispered and looked at me with despair.
I didn’t know which of them sounded more in pain. But I knew Cai was the one going to jail if he missed his psychiatrist appointment.
“Let me get my shirt on and some shoes, and I’ll take you.
Come upstairs and wait.” I smiled in what I hoped was reassurance and followed him up. Peter and his chewed lip would have to wait. Darryl and his tears would have to wait.
Rosa and her bodyguards, my breakfast, my career, the case—all of it would have to wait.
How to Adopt a Teenager Without Your Consent Cai sat on the bed while I finished getting dressed. When I turned around, he was tearing off the end of his fingernail, a line of red surfacing where the nail had been decimated. He stared at the blood for a second, then went to work on the next finger.
I knew he needed to talk, but we needed to go. If he was late, or didn’t show up, he would violate the terms of his home monitoring. Time was ticking away while I stood across from him, sneakers and socks dangling at my thigh. I struggled with how to handle him.
The problem was that I didn’t know where to start. Why was he crying? Was it his disorder? Was he having a depressive episode? That could only be solved with medication. Which just made me antsier to get him to the doctor’s office.
Or was he embarrassed about downstairs? Was he upset about Peter? The trial? The rape?
Christ. When I listed it like that, I was surprised the kid wasn’t a basket case. What was I supposed to say here anyway?
It’ll be okay?
What a crock of shit. Nothing for this kid was going to be okay.
Suck it up?
I think Peter might actually shoot you if you say that to his brother.
A nervous laugh erupted from me and brought Cai’s eyes to mine. He fought a flow of tears, blinking and squeezing his lids tight. Only a few escaped and slid down his cheeks.
Shit. If this kid stuck around long enough, I was going to teach him how to be a real man. You know, by bottling up his feelings and letting them fester until an ulcer formed. A man wasn’t a man until the denial of feelings made him physically sick.
“What’s the address of the doctor?” Changing the subject.
Genius!
“Dunno.” He sniffed and brutally wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. There were still droplets of water cascading from his wet hair over his cheeks. But fewer tears.
“Do you know the way there?” My genius tactic was working; the tears had almost stopped.
He shook his head and began to shiver violently. “N-never b-been there.” I needed to reset my air conditioning. On the other hand, he should have dried off before getting dressed and not have expected me to look out for him. I wasn’t his fucking
father.
“Never been there?” I said more tersely than I meant to.
“N-new doctor. Miss J-Jackson set it up.” “New doc— Was her name Kate?” He nodded. I wasn’t surprised. Over the years I had sent Angelica many juveniles to defend. More often than not, she put them in therapy with Kate Sherman. I took a seat beside Cai, making sure to give him space while I hurriedly stuffed my feet into my shoes. “We’ll talk in the car. Okay?”
“I’m f-fine.” The boy took a breath, steeling himself, rubbing hard at his face. He plastered on a smile so genuine that I was stunned. After one more shaky breath, the only way anyone could tell he’d been crying was the slight redness around his eyes. He even attempted to control his shivers.
I felt guilty for blaming him for crying. “You don’t need to hold it together, Cai. No one is going to mock you for feeling. If anyone has a right to cry, it’s you.” What happened to making him a man?
Damn kid is getting to you.
He pulled out a packet of candy and emptied a handful of orange and brown pieces into his mouth. “I’m fine.” I was blasted by the scent of peanut butter.
“We
will
talk in the car.” After lacing my shoes, I yanked the bag of candy away. “And stop trying to get high off sugar.
Fuckssake. Next bill I get for you is probably going to be the dentist bankrupting me.” I crushed the packet and tossed it in the trash on my way out.
Halting in the doorway, I twisted to view Cai behind me. He blinked and rubbed his arms, brows rising in question. If I still had the candy, I would have grabbed his hand and jammed the
package back in it.
When did I start sounding like a parent?
Arturo Sees More Action Than Reality TV
Peter was waiting on the bottom step. Darryl was leaning on the bannister, looking up at us. I wasn’t surprised. I had figured Cai and I wouldn’t be going alone to the shrink’s office. The moment the kid appeared behind me, they both started talking at once. I cut them off.
“Let’s go.” I turned to Rosa who was clanking about in the kitchen, loudly passive-aggressive in every slam of the pot.
“They can stay,” I told her, “if you want to ride along.” “The fuck we can,” Peter said. Darryl snarled at the same time, “No we fucking can’t!”
Rosa came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
It didn’t do any good. She took her son’s cheeks in her palms, leaving flour along his temple and near his ear. “You call when finished so I have lunch ready, yes?” “Sure, mamma.” He smiled and kissed her cheek. She waited for the others to follow suit. Darryl gave her a reluctant peck, but Peter stormed out of the house, the door making a splintering sound as it bent on the hinges from the force of his anger. I cringed. Cai flinched. Darryl followed him out. And I’d swear my door whimpered.
“Why must he abuse my door? It’s the only fucking piece that isn’t suicidal cream or bowel-movement brown.” “He’s so mad,” Cai said.
“At me, Nikë, not you. He loves you. Go now.” Rosa brushed his face free of flour and flitted us out the door.
In the parking lot Darryl stood at the passenger side, waiting with the door open and the seat tilted. Peter was in the back with Cai. I carefully slid into the driver’s seat and joined everyone in silence.
Ten minutes into the drive, I started tapping on the steering wheel and shifting off my ass cheek. Darryl flipped through radio stations. Peter stared at Cai. Cai drew breath pictures on the window.
No one would ever mistake this for a joyride. “No, this isn’t awkward at all,” I mumbled.
The tension shattered with thunder from Darryl. “You can’t leave, you ungrateful little dipshit!” He turned partway in his seat.
Cai sighed and continued his mist sketching. My eyes drifted to Peter. I finally got a glimpse of why Cai had nicknamed him Rabbit. He ripped pieces of his bottom lip with his front teeth and stared at my seat. His nose continuously twitched, eyes blinking rapidly. I hadn’t seen the manifestation of his Tourette’s until now. It was painful to watch him come apart and know there was nothing I could do about it. Legally, Rosa was Cai’s mother. If she wanted him with her….
“We’ll never see you again, Cai. That’s what they do. They take you away and cut off contact with everyone else,” Peter murmured.
“It’s only for a couple of years, Rabbit. Until I’m eighteen.” “Just…I know things have been…bad the last few months.” “We’ll do better, kiddo,” Darryl promised vehemently.
Cai said nothing the rest of the drive.
Kate’s building took up the entire block at the top of the
16th Street Mall, intersecting with the busiest street in Denver.
Businesspeople trickled out the revolving doors, onto the plaza or took seats on the marble single-seat benches near the walkway.
Pulling in front, I turned the car off and watched Peter in the rearview mirror. His hands rubbed up and down his thighs, nose twitching even while he pulled his top lip into his mouth. I rubbed the ache in my chest and checked the time, disappointed that there wasn’t enough of it to climb back there to console him. “His appointment is in ten minutes. Let’s talk about this when he’s done. 18th floor, that building there.” I pointed and waited for a nod from the kid that he heard me. I would have missed it if I hadn’t been staring intently at him.
No one was talking. No one was moving. I motioned to Darryl. He pinched his lips and threw open the door, yanking the seat up. I resisted petting my poor abused car.
Cai picked a loose thread in his jeans, jaw trembling. “Let me go, Rabbit. I can’t live like this,” he pleaded. “I can’t be your penance anymore.”
Peter clasped his hands and viciously rubbed his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “He’s dead, Rabbit. They’re both dead. You killed mine,“ Peter’s head shot up, eyes widely staring at his brother, “—and I killed yours, and it’s over. They’re dead. Don’t look at Dare. It was Uncle Nikki who told me. He sat there that night, laughing.
Bragging
. Making his hand into a gun. Laughing about it.” Cai’s plucking became more intense, until a ribbon of flesh peeked through the cotton.
Eight minutes until his appointment.
Darryl sat on the car edge, head hanging between his slumped shoulders. “What a fucking mess.”
Peter’s twitching became cataclysmic. He reached for Cai, drew back and gripped his own knees. “He made me. I swear to God, Cai, he made me.”
The hole in Cai’s jeans grew. “I know he did, Rabbit! That’s why you need to let it go.”
“It’s not that simple.” Peter rubbed his forehead raw.
I shifted in my seat in the ensuing uncomfortable silence.
Peter’s mouth opened and closed randomly like he was searching for something to say. Darryl hadn’t moved a muscle.
Four minutes until his appointment. Cai had stopped responding, but still hadn’t made a move to exit the car. My fingers drummed again while I decided whether to break this up or let them work it out. It was an unbelievably inappropriate time to hash out a really-needed-to-be-hashed-out problem.
Finally, Cai pulled himself out of the car and looked at me briefly before staring at the ground. “Let it go, or I’m leavin’, Rabbit,” he whispered. “You ‘n’ Dare gotta just let go. You gotta get your own lives, and you gotta let me have one, too.” Slapping away tears, he walked stiffly through the courtyard to the entrance of the building. Peter scooted out after him, stopping him just outside the doorway and pulling him into a hug. Cai’s hands hung at his sides for a few seconds and then scrunched into Peter’s shirt as he buried his face in his brother’s neck.
11:01. The kid was late. And I didn’t see this ending soon. If this took much longer, it would be called in to dispatch. Cai would be arrested. Someone had to light a fire under their asses.
“You’re not going over there?” I asked while hunting through my virtual rolodex for Kate’s number and slipping the headset over my ear.
“Right now they need to work it out,” Darryl said, flopping in the front seat.
I was going to point out that that wasn’t exactly true, but my phone rang. I pushed the button on the steering wheel to answer. “Glass.”
“Oz—”
“I was going to call you this morning.” “Shut up, and listen to me. Get the kid out of the building.” “Cai?” I unbuckled my safety belt and leaned forward. I spotted Cai and Peter pushing through revolving doors.
“Yes. I couldn’t stop it. They’re waiting for him at the shrink’s office.”
“Who?”
“You want me to explain or you want to get that kid before they take him?”
“What’s going on?” Darryl asked. The string to his pink hoodie was wrapped tightly around his finger. He yanked at it.
“Stay in the car,” I said. After waiting for a car to pass, I threw open the door and tore out of the seat.
“Hey! What’s going on? Is it Peter?” “Stay with the fucking car! In fact, get in the driver’s seat,” I yelled as I ran across the plaza, reaching into my back pocket for my phone. The Bluetooth was still streaming our call; I tore off the headset and hung up without a word to Dave. After nearly smacking my face into the revolving door, I stopped, scrolled to find Peter’s number and pressed ‘call’.
I spun to the right, toward the sound of the first ring. The second ring brought my hand to my right front pocket. By the third ring, I was holding Peter’s phone in my palm.
“Borrowed your jeans. Took them off again when I saw your bare ass.” “Fuck!” I raced to the elevators and machine-gun punched the up arrow until my thumb hurt. “I don’t give a damn how low my pants hang on you, Peter, this is the last time you borrow them!” And the phone was locked. I couldn’t even use it to call Cai. “Fuck me twice!”
I tossed Peter’s phone into my front pocket and used mine to redial Dave’s cell. Voice mail. I hung up and redialed, barely resisting slamming the phone against the wall when it clicked to voice mail again. The doors pinged open just as I dialed their home.