Hold Tight
“He’s my godson. I have his best interest at heart too.”
“He’s not your godson. And based on what you just argued, there is no one who has a greater interest than his parents. And as much as you might care about him, you don’t fit that category.”
He just stared at her.
“What?”
“I hate it when you’re right.”
“How do you think I feel?” Tia said. “I was sure spying on him was the way to go until you agreed.”
Mike watched. Tia kept plucking her lower lip. He knew that she only did that when she was panicking. The joking was a cover.
Mike said, “Mo.”
“Yeah, yeah, I can take a hint. I’m out of here. One thing though.”
“What?”
“Can I see your cell phone?”
Mike made a face. “Why? Doesn’t yours work?”
“Let me just see it, okay?”
Mike shrugged. He handed it to Mo.
“Who’s your carrier?” Mo asked.
Mike told him.
“And all of you have the same phone? Adam included?”
“Yes.”
Mo stared at the cell phone some more. Mike looked at Tia. She shrugged. Mo turned the phone over and then handed it back.
“What was that all about?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Mo said. “Right now you better take care of your kid.”
5
“SO what did you see on Adam’s computer?” Mike asked.
They sat at the kitchen table. Tia had already made coffee. She was drinking a decaf Breakfast Blend. Mike was going with pure black espresso. One of his patients worked for a company that made coffee machines with pods rather than filters. He gave Mike one as a gift after a successful transplant. The machine was simple: You take your pod, you put it in, it makes the coffee.
“Two things,” Tia said.
“Okay.”
“First off, he’s invited to a party tomorrow night at the Huffs,” Tia said.
“And?”
“And the Huffs are away for the weekend. According to the e-mail, they will all spend the night getting high.”
“Booze, drugs, what?”
“The e-mail isn’t clear. They plan on coming up with some excuse to sleep over so they can get—and I quote—‘totally wasted.’ ”
The Huffs. Daniel Huff, the father, was the captain of the town police force. His son—everyone called him DJ—was probably the biggest troublemaker in the grade.
“What?” she said.
“I’m just processing.”
Tia swallowed. “Who are we raising, Mike?”
He said nothing.
“I know you don’t want to look at these computer reports, but . . .” Her eyes closed.
“What?”
“Adam watches online porn,” she said. “Did you know that?”
He said nothing.
“Mike?”
“So what do you want to do about that?” he asked.
“You don’t think it’s wrong?”
“When I was sixteen, I sneaked Playboy.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it? That’s what we had then. We didn’t have the Internet. If we did, sure, I probably would have gone in that direction—anything to see a naked woman. It’s society today. You can’t turn anything on without getting an eye- or earful. If a sixteen-year-old boy wasn’t interested in seeing naked women, that would be bizarre.”
“So you approve?”
“No, of course not. I just don’t know what to do about it.”
“Talk to him,” she said.
“I have,” Mike said. “I’ve explained the birds-n-bees. I’ve explained that sex is best when blended with love. I’ve tried to teach him to respect women, not objectify them.”
“That last one,” Tia said. “He’s not getting that last one.”
“No male teenager gets that last one. Hell, I’m not even sure any male adult gets that one.”
Tia sipped from her mug. She let the unasked question hang in the air.
He could see the crow’s-feet in her eyes. She stared at them in the mirror a lot. All women have body-image issues, but Tia had always had a great deal of confidence in her looks. Lately, though, he could see that she was no longer looking at her reflection and feeling okay. She had started coloring her gray. She was seeing the lines, the sags, the normal aging stuff, and it was bothering her.
“It’s different with a grown man,” she said.
He was going to try to say something comforting but decided to quit while ahead.
Tia said, “We’ve opened a Pandora’s box.”
He hoped that she was still talking about Adam. “We have indeed.”
“I want to know. And I hate knowing.”
He reached out and took her hand. “What do we do about this party?”
“What do you think?”
“We can’t let him go,” he said.
“So we keep him in the house?”
“I guess.”
“He told me that he and Clark were going to Olivia Burchell’s to hang out. If we just forbid him to go, he’ll know something is up.”
Mike shrugged. “Too bad. We’re parents. We’re allowed to be irrational.”
“Okay. So we tell him we want him home tomorrow night?”
“Yep.”
She bit her lower lip. “He’s been good all week, did all his homework. We normally let him go out on Friday nights.”
It would be a battle. They both knew that. Mike was ready for a battle, but did he want one here? You have to choose your spots. And forbidding him from going to Olivia Burchell’s house—it would make Adam suspicious.
“How about if we give him a curfew?” he asked.
“And what do we do when he breaks it? Show up at the Huffs?”
She was right.
“Hester called me in her office,” Tia said. “She wants me to go to Boston tomorrow for a deposition.”
Mike knew how much that meant to her. Since going back to work, most of her assignments had been scut work. “That’s great.”
“Yeah. But that means I won’t be home.”
“No problem, I can handle it,” Mike said.
“Jill is having a sleepover at Yasmin’s. So she won’t be around.”
“Okay.”
“So any idea how to keep Adam from going to this party?”
“Let me think about it,” Mike said. “I may have an idea.”