I stand there for a few seconds, letting myself feel the wonder of a first kiss, even if it was just on the cheek. It was still sweet, still precious.
I tilt my head upwards, but there are still no stars. Yet as I gaze at the heavens and that pale slice of moon, the first snowflakes begin to fall.
20
ALLY
Nick and I don’t have a chance to talk to Josh for three days. I’ve been on high alert the whole time, full of nervous energy, unable to concentrate on work, even though now I have the luxury of six hours to myself every day. Still, our schedules demand we wait till Friday.
On Wednesday, Nick has a conference call in the evening, and on Thursday Josh has training and I have to take Dylan to the dentist after school. Apparently Dylan had never been to the dentist, so I suppose it should not have been a surprise that he needed four fillings, but I still felt shocked. That little voice of judgment I kept trying to silence spoke a bit louder. What kind of mother doesn’t even take her son to the dentist?
What kind of mother has a son who deals drugs?
I schedule the fillings for the next week, dreading how Dylan might handle the whole process—the Novocain, the needle, the drilling. All with the potential to set him off.
Admittedly, he’s gotten so much better. He only had one meltdown today, when the dentist closed the door behind him, and it ended as soon as I asked him to leave the door open a little bit. I do think Larissa, his special-ed assistant, along with the therapy sessions, are helping him. They seem to be.
So all that meant we couldn’t talk to Josh until now, and I think both Nick and I have been feeling the strain of not knowing. We are certain
ly both edgy by the time I put Dylan to bed and we call Josh down to the family room for the Big Talk.
Josh slouches into the room, wearing a black hoodie and sweat pants, his brows drawn darkly over his eyes as he looks between us suspiciously. We are caricatures of concerned parents—Nick standing self-righteously in front of the fireplace, and me perched on the edge of the sofa, my hands tucked between my knees, deferring to my husband for the initial attack.
“What’s up?” Josh asks. He stands on the step leading down into the family room, clearly not wanting to go any further and commit to this conversation.
“Come sit down, Josh.”
Josh doesn’t move. “What’s up?”
“Come sit down,” Nick practically barks, and I wonder why we are arguing about this instead of the money that is no longer in his drawer.
Josh looks between us both and then silently steps down into the room. He doesn’t sit down. He and Nick lock gazes for a moment before Josh drops his, shifting impatiently where he stands.
“What is this all about?” he asks in a surly voice.
“Josh, your mother found a rather large amount of money in your underwear drawer.” Nick has a tendency to sound pompous in moments like this, his instinctive default when he’s uncertain or nervous, but right now it feels needed. It lends an import to this moment that would otherwise feel like just another battle about Josh’s phone or the PlayStation, except we stopped bothering with those battles, and I’m not even sure when.
Josh lifts and drops shoulders, a negligent gesture. “So?”
“Where did you get that money?”
His gaze slides away before returning inexorably to the middle space between us. “I saved it.”
“How?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because I can’t imagine how you’ve managed to save that amount of money.”
Another rise and fall of his shoulders. “Well, I did. Allowance… birthdays… Christmas. Grandma gave me a hundred dollars when I turned sixteen.”
For a second, Nick and I both tense and I know he is wondering if we’ve got this all wrong. It would be such a relief, but based on the way we’ve approached this whole conversation, it would also be a major mistake. I am already bracing myself for Josh’s sneering fury—what, you thought I was doing drugs?—when I remember that I deposited my mother’s birthday check to him into his savings account.
“No, Josh,” I say quietly, the first time I’ve spoken. “That money from Grandma is in your savings account.”
Josh shrugs yet again. “I don’t know, then. I just saved it, all right?” His bullish defensiveness rings a horribly false note. We’ve already got him on the ropes, and that is not good.
“How?” Nick says quietly. He’s dropped the imperious bluster, replaced it with something more serious.