“You’re a big boy. Don’t ask me. Handle it. I gotta go. What a waste of time.” Alek turned away, got in the car, and started the engine.

Chris watched him go, wishing the Rabbi had come. Together they would have assessed the risk and figured out what to do about Abe.

But if Chris had to handle it on his own, he would.

Chapter Twenty-three

Saturday morning dawned sunny, and Susan put on her sunglasses as she drove Raz to baseball practice. He kept his head turned to the window, cell phone in hand and listening to music through his earbuds. She’d hardly slept a wink, her thoughts on Raz and Ryan, torn between the two of them like when they were young and fought over the same toy. They’d tantrum, and she’d tended to get down in the weeds with them, but Neil would tell her:

Honey, when they fight, they spiral down. Don’t go into the spiral. You’re the parent, remember? If you go down the spiral, you’ll all end up in the toilet.

Susan remembered his words as clearly as if it were yesterday, which was the problem. She remembered everything about Neil, how he had acted, what he had said, the jokes he’d made, the way they’d made love. She wished she remembered less. She wished he wasn’t so present all the time, in her head and her heart.

Susan drove ahead, her thoughts churning. It had been almost a year since Neil died, and a year was the grief cutoff. He died in August and it was already April, so she had only four months left. Nobody said so explicitly, but she got the message. She saw an article in the paper that said, most widows return to their “pre-loss level of life satisfaction” after a year. So she knew she had four months to become a normal person. Still she didn’t believe there could be a deadline to mourning the dead.

Susan stopped at a light. She knew what they were saying at work, behind her back. She was milking it. She just wanted the sympathy. She was wallowing in grief and not moving on. She was dragging down her sons, too. They’re spiraling down to get swallowed up by the grief toilet.

The light turned green, and Susan glanced over at Raz. They were only a few blocks from school, and she wanted to make sure they understood each other.

You’re the parent, remember?

“Raz?” Susan said, but there was no reply. “Raz.”

“What?” Raz turned to her, his expression slack and his skin pale. His eyes looked bloodshot and puffy. His hair was wet from the shower, dripping onto his blue Musketeers T-shirt, darkening it around the neckline. He had on his gym shorts and sneakers, his feet resting on his backpack in the well of the passenger seat.

“I want to talk to you.”

“So, talk.” Raz blinked.

“Please take out your earphones.”

“I can hear you.”

“I’m not going to talk to you with your ears plugged up. This is important.”

“Fine,” Raz said tonelessly. He pulled out one of his earphones.

“Both, please.”

Raz pulled out the other one.

Susan reminded herself to be patient. Neil had been, above all things, unbelievably patient. “Okay, so first thing this morning, what are you supposed to do?”

“Mom, I know.”

“Yes, but tell me. I want to hear what you’ll say.”

“You mean like a rehearsal?” Raz’s weary eyes flared in disbelief.

“Yes, exactly.” Susan returned her attention to the road because his expression only made her angry. She drove ahead, passing the tall oaks, the clipped hedges, and the clapboard colonials with their shiny PVC fences.

“Okay, well, whatever, first I’m going to Coach Hardwick. I’m going to tell him I’m sorry I threw the bat.”

“Right.” Susan kept her eyes on the road. “Remember, the first words out of your mouth are ‘I’m sorry.’ Lead with ‘I’m sorry.’”

“I know that. I said that.”

“I want you to go to him before practice even starts.”

Raz sighed heavily. “That’s not going to be that easy, Mom. He’s busy.”

“Just go up to him and say ‘excuse me.’”

“He doesn’t like to be interrupted.”

“He won’t mind after he hears you say ‘I’m sorry.’”

“Should I say I’m sorry for interrupting, too? How many things am I sorry for, Mom? Am I sorry for breathing?”

“Don’t be fresh,” Susan said, then an awful thought struck her.

I’m sorry for breathing.

It was true. She was sorry that she was breathing, when Neil was not. She wished she were dead, and her husband was the one dealing with these angry, thankless children, who acted like they were the only ones who lost him, when exactly the opposite was true. Neil might have been their father, but he was her husband. She’d been there first. She’d loved him longer. He was more hers than theirs. She was his lover, his wife.

Susan’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and she gritted her teeth not to turn around to Raz and smack him in the face. That’s what she actually thought, a vicious notion that came out of nowhere, shocking her. My son is driving me so crazy that I want to smack him.

“Then I have to go to Coach Brennan and tell him I’m sorry that I ruined his party, even though I didn’t ruin his party. They stayed after. They had a good time. It didn’t end or anything. Jordan was fine, he didn’t have to get stitches.”

Susan roiled inside, enraged at his freshness, at his attitude, at his selfishness. He used to be a fun little boy, but he had turned into a total brat.

“Then I go to Jordan and tell him I’m sorry that I hit him. I’m not allowed to say that I didn’t mean to hit him, because like you always say, ‘When you do the act, the consequences always go with it.’”

Susan tried to press away her horrible thoughts. The high school was in sight. She breathed in and out, trying to calm down.

“Then, after I apologize to everybody at practice, I have to call Mrs. Larkin and apologize. I have to tell her I’m happy for Jordan if he’s the starting pitcher because ‘that’s what friends are for.’” Raz made air quotes, and Susan turned left into the school grounds.

The road ran uphill, and she passed the student parking lot on her left. She glanced over at the entrance, where several Central Valley police cruisers sat in front of the school. She looked away, having seen quite enough police cars recently.