Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,18

die, I wanna die big.”

“Geez, you don’t get it, Mom,” someone mimicked from behind her and Nora turned to see Mike leaning in the doorway. “Did you just get home?”

Nodding, she stood as Henry’s fighter jumped, flipping around in a physics-defying attack. He flew through the air, mouth open, a halo of energy radiating from his feet and fists, and for one brief second Nora thought he might win, but before Henry could land the move, the other fighter blasted a jet of blue energy at him and Henry’s avatar fell to the ground, dead.

“See, I told you,” he said. “At least I went out big.”

Nora surveyed her son’s room, looking for an excuse to stay longer, but he kept an improbably neat space. His Lego creations were displayed on the window ledge, dirty clothes all piled in the hamper. He’d even pulled his bedspread up over the mattress. The room, like the boy, was almost completely autonomous.

“Can I have dinner at Nathan’s house?” Nathan lived in the mansion side of Steeplechase with his heirloom tomato-growing parents.

“Your mom just got home. You’ve barely seen her all week.” Mike pushed away from the doorframe, but Nora waved him off. What ten-year-old wanted to sit through adult conversation when he could spend the evening playing with a friend?

“No, that’s fine. You can go.”

A few minutes later Nora watched Henry walk up the cul-de-sac, a hint of young man already lurking in his meandering stride. He was getting so tall.

Nora’s mother always said a parent’s job was to become obsolete, and they’d enacted their philosophy thoroughly with Nora, removing themselves from her life so quickly she felt breathless from it. Her father refused to speak to her in the wake of his best friend’s death and her mother gave up after a few stilted phone calls. They’d invested more than Nora had realized in Sam White’s company, and had been forced to sell their house when the Computech stock turned to junk. They lost their lifestyle, their friends, yet it had still been a shock when they chose to lose their daughter, too. But she had to give them credit. They’d warned her they would make themselves obsolete, and they did.

That was why—when Henry took these small steps away from them, when he exerted his budding independence in something as simple as a video game or his dinner company—Nora smothered the instinct to hold him closer. It was better this way, she repeated to herself as he disappeared around the end of the street, better for him to be the one to turn away first. She encouraged every gradual step so, when she became obsolete too, he wouldn’t even notice.

“How was Logan boot camp today?” Mike joked when she came back into the kitchen.

He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and the scruff suited his round, peach-colored face and twinkling eyes. He padded barefoot over to the table and set a salad down next to two bowls of pasta. The candles on the dining room table were lit, but she didn’t join him.

“I didn’t go to Strike today.” She couldn’t tell him that Strike had come to her. All of their clients and investigations were strictly confidential.

“Afternoon delight?” Mike cocked an eyebrow hopefully. Nothing in a marriage was ever equal and, in that way, their agreement to see other people was just like washing the dishes or taking out the trash. Mike, it seemed, always had more. More chores. More dates. Which was maybe why he was more excited on the few occasions Nora had a conquest to share.

“That would have been preferable.” Nora picked up the briefcase she’d left by the garage door and fiddled with the handle. “We had an emergency client meeting. Corbett wants me to lead the investigation.”

“You were gone practically all of June. Now it’s going to be July, too?” Mike took a drink and set the wineglass down hard enough to make it ping against the table.

“This would be in Minneapolis.”

“Oh, well, I guess that’s better.”

Nora shifted from foot to foot, still hovering on the far side of the kitchen. When she’d first joined Strike, Mike had already known it was Logan Russo’s gym. They’d even watched some of Logan’s old fights together on YouTube, Nora silently mesmerized while Mike provided a shouting and whistling soundtrack to the announcer’s commentary. What would Mike say if she told him she’d accidentally slept with Logan Russo’s husband? And that she was more worried about what Logan would think of