“No. But that’s what she told your father to drive a wedge between us.”

“Oh man, that is so gross.”

“How about your father? What did he tell you?”

“He said that you pushed them away.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Who cares what you meant? You pushed them away.” Mickey let loose a deep breath. “You pushed them away, and now we’re here.”

“Meaning?”

“What do you think I mean?”

He meant that his father was missing. He meant that his mother was a junkie. He meant that he blamed Myron, that he wondered what their lives would have been like if Myron had been more accepting way back when.

“She’s a good mother,” Mickey said again. “The best.”

Yep, the heroin junkie was Mother of the Year material. Like Myron’s own father had said just a few days ago, kids have a way of blocking out the bad. But in this case, it seemed almost delusional. Then again, how should you judge the job a parent does? If you judged Kitty by the outcome—the end result, if you will—then, well, look at this kid. He was magnificent. He was brave, strong, smart, willing to fight for his family.

So maybe, crazy, lying junkie and all, Kitty had indeed done something right.

After another minute of silence had passed, Myron decided to rev up the conversation with a casual starter: “So I hear you play a mean game of hoops.”

Mean game of hoops? Oy.

“Myron?”

“Yes?”

“We’re not bonding here.”

Mickey put the headphones back in his ears, cranked the volume to an undoubtedly unhealthy level, and stared back out the passenger window. They made the rest of the way in silence. When they pulled up to the old house in Livingston, Mickey turned off his iPod and stared out.

“See that window up there?” Myron said. “The one with the decal on it?”

Mickey looked out, said nothing.

“When we were kids, that’s where your dad and I shared a bedroom. We used to play Nerf basketball and trade baseball cards and we invented this hockey game with a tennis ball and the closet door.”

Mickey waited a beat. Then he turned toward his uncle and said, “You guys must have been the balls.”

Everyone’s a wiseass.

Despite all the horrors of the past twenty-four hours—or maybe because of them—Myron couldn’t help but chuckle. Mickey got out and headed up the same path where last night he’d jumped Myron. Myron followed and for a moment he was tempted to fun-tackle his nephew. Funny what flies through the brain at the strangest times.