I had learned in life to compartmentalize. I understood what she was saying. More than that, I felt her words. Physically. I felt them like a hard blow to the stomach. But I had come to a horrible realization. This wasn’t my mother’s first stint in rehab. Kitty Bolitar, my mother, had gone through the pain of withdrawal before, just a few months ago. Kitty had convinced everybody that she was fine and then she had gotten out and smiled at me and taken me to school and promised to make me my favorite dinner with my favorite garlic bread and then I went to school and she went to a motel and shot that poison back into her veins.

That was why we were back here.

“It didn’t work last time.”

“That’s not uncommon,” Christine Shippee told me. “You know that.”

“I do.”

“Mickey, we are doing what’s best for her. But I meant it. If you insist on seeing her tonight, you will break our protocol. We can no longer be her facility.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Christine Shippee looked toward Myron. “He’s a minor. This is your call, not his.”

Uncle Myron turned to me and met my eye. I kept my gaze on him. “You’re sure?” he asked me.

I was.

Christine Shippee shook her head. “You know where her room is,” she said in a voice of both exhaustion and exasperation. “Myron, you can stay with me and sign the release papers.”

She hit a button and I heard the familiar buzz of the door. I opened it and started down the narrow corridor. When I found my mother, she was asleep. Her ankles and wrists were restrained. Still, I felt somewhat lucky. I had caught her in a peaceful moment, deep sleep, escape from the pain.

For a few moments I stood in the doorway and watched her. She had given up her tennis career—the fame, the fortune, the passion, all of it—to keep me. She had loved me and taken care of me my whole life until . . . until she couldn’t anymore. I have heard that the human spirit is indomitable, that it can’t be beaten or destroyed, and if you want something bad enough, the human spirit is impossibly strong.

That’s total crap.

My mother wasn’t weak. My mother loved me with everything that she had. But sometimes a person can break, just like Bat Lady’s stupid refrigerator. Sometimes they break and maybe they can’t be fixed.

“Mickey?”