Page 9 of Summer of the Boy

“If I don’t, she’ll come here. I saw you, you heard. She’d bring the cops even if they couldn’t do anything. I don’t want her coming here.” Open. Close.

Open.

Close.

“Will you take me home, please?” He asks, his rising panic hurts my heart. The last thing either of us needs is for him to have a meltdown.

“Do you still want me to hang with you at work tomorrow?”

A Ridley smile, even through the mounting attack.

“Yeah, I’ll take you home.”

Fifteen minutes Rid lives from me. Fifteen minutes, and his mother stands out on her front lawn, arms crossed over her chest, where she’s probably been since he hung up on her at my house, scowling at me through my windshield as I park in the drive.

“I’ll talk to her.” Ridley seems ashamed, rocking ever-so-slightly in the seat and chipping at his fingernails instead of talking directly to me. “You promise to show up tomorrow?”

“Promise.”

You would think he’s turning ten not twenty with the way she scolds him all the way inside the house. It takes everything in me not to get out, to defend him. It’s just not my place, not yet. I get the feeling it will be my place soon. Very soon.

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