After the cops left, I relaxed a little. It felt like Shan did too. Maybe she was just getting used to having me around. Now the only ones I hadn’t met were Danny’s mom, Carleen, and his half-brother, Tyson. Peterborough, where Tyson lived, was half an hour north, but he’d had his license suspended for DUI. He’d also had his car repo’d. It didn’t look like he was going to be much of a player.
Carleen, though, she was another story. I knew she was close by. Shan kept saying she’d be coming over soon. A couple times I heard Shan talking on the phone, and I got the feeling she was talking to Carleen. I don’t know why exactly—just an edge in her voice that put me on edge. For a whole week Carleen didn’t show. At first I worried that it was weird, a mother not coming to see her long-lost kid. Then I remembered Shan had said that things had been bad between Carleen and Danny before he disappeared, and that she’d been pretty messed up back then. Maybe she was worried about what I was going to do or say. Besides, what did I know about mothers? Whoever my mother was, visiting wasn’t at the top of her list either. Finally, I decided not to worry about it. As long as Carleen wasn’t around, she was one less person to fool.
I’d gone to the library a couple more times and gotten my card. I wanted to see if I could find that girl again. I just couldn’t believe I’d seen Gilly on her name tag. It became a kind of good-luck thing for me. I thought if I could see the name and it was Gilly, then it would be some kind of sign that somehow things were going to work out all right. I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
Harley could be like that too—watching for signs that his luck was running. He’d glued a little tourist-shop carving of a totem pole on the dash. He’d reach over, tap it and say, “touch wood” any time he was talking about how a deal should go. Other times, though, when he’d had a few beers or when he saw people lined up to buy lottery tickets, he’d start in on how there was no such thing as luck. “Luck is what you make for yourself,” he’d say. “Luck didn’t buy this watch.” Then he’d flash his big silver watch at me. Which was kind of funny, because Harley was right. Luck hadn’t bought it, he had, for ten bucks from a bald guy named Charlie, who’d had a gym bag full of fake Rolexes and Tag Heuers. I’d been with him. Sometimes Harley could get so into it that he’d forget what was a scam and what was real. Maybe that’s what made him so good.
Whatever her name was, the girl never showed up at the library. I told myself that was okay, that it didn’t mean I’d read the tag wrong. As long as I didn’t know for sure, my luck was still holding.
Another thing about the library was, it was the perfect place to get away from everybody. With Harley I’d been like a con-game sprinter; now it was starting to feel as if I were running a marathon.
The getaway part backfired, of course. Shan was impressed that I liked books. “It’s so great,” she said. I was lazing on Roy’s recliner, which was a no-no. I knew Roy was also ticked about how much hot water I used. “Reading was such a problem for you. Remember how you used to hate it?” She was always saying stuff like that to me. Remember how and remember when or, holding something up, remember this? Sometimes I wondered if she was testing me, sometimes it was almost like she was coaching me. But I only thought like that when I was really uptight. Mostly it felt as if she just wanted someone to remember with her. It made her happy. That was my job, to make her happy.
Anyway, I wasn’t surprised to hear about Danny not reading, and it was easy to handle. “There was no TV,” I said. “Just a bunch of old books. I didn’t have any choice. Now it’s a habit, I guess.”
“Good,” she said. “I hope it rubs off on Matt.” Then came the catch. “Listen, do you think you could take Brooklynne to the library? I haven’t got time, and it would be so good for her.”
What could I say? I took Brooklynne. She wanted me to read to her. It wasn’t so bad; I like little-kid books. I don’t remember anyone ever reading to me, so it was like I was reading for myself too.
When we came back to the house, we went around to the backyard. Shan was standing in the wading pool. In front of her, smoking a cigarette, was a skinny woman in denim cutoffs and a sleeveless yellow top. She had a tattoo of a dragon or something twisting up one arm. It sounded as if they were arguing, but they cut it off and turned when they heard us. Shan’s face was red.
“Gramma,” Brooklynne said.
So this was Carleen.
I used to have a dream about my mom. She was darkhaired, young and pretty, but still mom-looking. She’d have on a hair band and a blue gingham shirt and jeans, and she’d be smiling as she served me pancakes. I held on to that until the day I saw her doing the same thing on TV to a gap-toothed kid with freckles and realized I’d been rerunning a syrup commercial in my sleep.
For a while after that, I figured my mom was more likely a crack whore and probably dead. I wasn’t even sure what a crack whore was, but it sounded like the worst thing you could be, and that had to be her. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she come get me? Then I made her into someone more exotic who couldn’t get to me, or didn’t know about me. A cool spy who couldn’t risk blowing her cover because her family would be in danger, or an heiress who’d had me when she was sixteen and whose evil family gave me away and told her I’d died, but she’d always kept a baby picture of me and one day she’d find me and take me home and I’d be rich.
Carleen wasn’t any of those things. She was thin-faced, with streaked blond hair, pinched lips and eyes like bruises. Harley would have said she looked as if she’d gone ten rounds with the world. All I could say was, “Momma.”
Carleen’s whole body stiffened. She jammed her cigarette to her lips and sucked hard. Then she threw the butt away and stepped toward me, shakily blowing smoke as if she were the dragon on her own arm. “Danny.”
Up close, I could smell weed under the tobacco. I still had my shades on. I wasn’t much taller than she was. She clutched at her tattooed arm and twitched a smile together. Her eyes were flat and glassy as she stared at Bart Simpson’s face on a T-shirt I’d borrowed from Matt. “It’s been…It’s…it’s gr—it’s good…it’s…”
You could tell she didn’t like hugging any better than I did, but she started for it, then stopped halfway and just held onto my arms. “Lissen.” She gave me a little shake, still staring at Bart. “Lissen, um, sorry I haven’t, ah, been by, but there’s been things, you know. Life, like.” She shot a look back at Shan. “But now…you’re here.”
“It’s good to be back,” I said.
“Are you?” she said. She finally looked at me. It was the blankest look I’ve ever seen. It was as if she wasn’t behind her own eyes. At the time, I put it down to the weed and whatever else she was on. I’d been on a winning streak, and I’d started to think I could handle anything the Dellomondos threw at me. Maybe I was wrong.