“No. Not you. You can go wherever you were going.”
“You can’t just take him away from me, Hank.”
“And you can?”
“What’s going on here?” This from the lawman standing in the road behind Jack’s mother. “Hank, what can you tell me?”
Two town cops have spilled out of the cruiser. Jack recognizes the one doing the talking, one of his father’s friends, a hefty white-haired cop with a swollen nose full of twisty purple veins. The other is a scrawny kid who hangs a few steps back, hands resting on his gun belt. A white stick pokes out of the corner of his mouth. A lollipop, maybe.
“My wife decided to walk off with the boy, take him who knows where without discussing it.”
“He’s my son,” Bloom says.
“He’s Hank’s son, too,” says the white-haired lawman. Spaulding. Rudy Spaulding. That’s his name. “Are you leaving your husband, Mrs. McCourt?”
“We’re both leaving him,” Bloom says. She glares at Hank, both of them clutching the handle of her suitcase.
Hank looks past her to Spaulding. “She’s a danger to my son, Rudy. She’s probably a danger to herself, too, but I can’t do anything about that. I want my kid home, with me, and with his educator, Beth. She handles the homeschooling.”
“We do the homeschooling,” Bloom says. She wrenches at the suitcase. “Will. You. Let. Go?”
Hank gives it a twist as he releases his grip, and the suitcase falls open. Piles of clothes flop onto the gravel. A bottle of gin strikes the pavement with a clink. Bloom’s shoulders leap in surprise.
“That’s not mine,” she says. “I don’t drink anymore. I didn’t—”
She raises her head and stares at Hank, spots of color high in her cheeks.
“This isn’t yours either,” Hank says, bending and digging through the pile and coming up with a money clip stuffed full of twenties. He looks at Rudy Spaulding. “I was on my way to Wichita when I noticed I didn’t have this. That’s why I turned around.”
“He’s lying,” Bloom says. “I didn’t take his money. He planted that, like he planted the bottle.”
“What about these pills?” Spaulding asks, bending and picking up an orange plastic tube. “He plant these, too?”
“I have a prescription for those,” Bloom says. She snatches for the bottle, but Spaulding turns a shoulder to her, keeps it out of reach. “I need those.”
“What for?” Spaulding asks, squinting at the label.
“I get bad ideas,” she says.
“You said it. Running off with my kid was one of them,” Hank tells her.
“They help. Jack needs help also. It’s not too late. He doesn’t have to wind up with a head full of my crazy—or yours, Hank.”
“The only thing he can get from the mainstream medical establishment is a bunch of feel-good pills to make him docile. Easy to herd. No thank you.”
Spaulding grips Bloom’s arm. “Tell you what, Mrs. McCourt. Why don’t you come into town and unload your troubles to me? I’m a good listener.”
“Fuck you, Rudy Spaulding,” Bloom spits. “He’s setting me up with his money clip and his bottle of gin, and you’re helping him because you want to suck his dick. You want to get down on the gun range with him and oil his pistol.”
“Oh, goodie,” Spaulding says. “I get bored doing things the nice way.” He turns her suddenly, almost yanking her off her feet, spinning her to face his cruiser. “Let’s take a walk.”
She shoots a furious look over one shoulder. Hank stares back from behind his mirrored shades.
“I’ll get a lawyer,” she says. “I’ll drag your fascist ass into court.”
“Do that. See who a judge thinks should have custody of our kid. An unstable drunk with a history of mental illness and an arrest record long as my arm? Or a decorated former marine who makes a point of employing disabled vets? We’ll see how it goes. Rudy, that’s good gin. All yours if you want it.”
Rudy Spaulding frog-marches Bloom to the cruiser while she twists and spits. The young cadet tugs the bottle of gin out of the pile of clothes. He turns it flashing in the sunlight to inspect the label.
“Is Mom getting arrested?” Jack asks.
Hank puts his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Probably. But don’t let it weigh on your mind. She’s had plenty of practice.”
2.
Jack sits with his legs hanging over the side of a hole gouged deep into the earth. His mother stares up at him from the bottom of the pit with a sad, apologetic smile. She’s buried to her neck so