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“You’ve been avoiding my calls.” Mom sounds amused rather than annoyed. “Your grandfather said you were feeling better. He says that boys who feel better don’t call their mothers. That true?”
“I’m tip top,” I tell her. “The peak of health.”
“Mmm-hmm. And you’ve been sleeping well?”
“In my own bed, even,” I say cheerfully.
“Funny,” she says. I can hear the long exhalation that tells me she’s smoking. “That’s good, I suppose, that you can still be funny.”
“Sorry,” I say again. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Your grandfather said that, too. He said you were thinking a lot about a certain someone. Thinking leads to talking, Cassel. Other people were there for you back then. Be there for them and forget about her.”
“What if I can’t?” I ask. I don’t know what she knows or whose side she’s on, but some childish part of me wants to believe she’d help me if she could.
There is a moment’s hesitation. “She’s gone, baby. You’ve got to stop letting her have power over—”
“Mom,” I say, interrupting her. I’m walking farther from the kitchen, until I stand near the picture window in the living room, close to the front door. “What kind of worker is Anton?”
Her voice drops low. “Anton is Zacharov’s nephew, his heir. You stay away from him and let your brothers look out for you.”
“Is he a memory worker? Just tell me that. Say yes or no.”
“Put Philip back on the phone.”
“Mom,” I say again, “please. Tell me. I might not be a worker, but I’m still your son. Please.”
“Put your brother back on the phone, Cassel. Right now.”
For a moment I consider hanging up. Then I consider chucking the phone against the floor until it breaks. Neither option will give me anything but satisfaction.
I walk through the house and put the phone down next to Philip’s plate of pie.
“In my day,” Grandad says. He’s in the middle of one of his speeches. “In my day workers were still respected. We kept the peace in neighborhoods. It was illegal, sure, but the cops looked the other way if they knew what was good for them.”
He’s clearly drunk.
* * *
Barron and Grandad go into the living room to watch television, while Philip talks to Mom on the extension in the loft. Maura stands at the sink, scraping food into the whirring garbage disposal. She scrubs a pot, and her lips draw back from her gums like a dog before it bites.
I want to tell her about the missing memories, but I don’t know how to do it without pissing her off.
“Dinner was good,” I say finally.
She spins around, relaxing her features into some pleasant and vague expression. “I burned the carrots.”
I put my hands in my pockets, fidgeting. “Tasty.”
She frowns. “Do you need something, Cassel?”
“I wanted to thank you. For helping me out the other day.”
“And lying to your school?” she asks with a sly smile, drying the pot. “They haven’t called yet.”
“They will.” I pick up another dish towel and start mopping the water off a knife. “Don’t you have a dishwasher?”
“It dulls the blade,” she says, taking it from me and sliding it into a drawer. “And the pot had too much gunk stuck on the bottom. Some things you still have to do by hand.”
