Fireside Susan Wiggs (best free ebook reader for android .txt) 📖

When he spied Bo, his face softened with relief and despair. And whatever Bo had planned to do and say, it all flew out of his head. He opened his arms, grabbed the boy and held him close. AJ seemed to fit perfectly against his chest, warm and alive, smelling of shampoo and the city and peculiar smell that had no name. My son, Bo thought. I’m finally holding my son. Bo’s entire body shuddered with relief, intense and so sweet that it hurt.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” he said in a rough whisper. “Do you hear me? Don’t you run away again.”

AJ was trembling, but Bo felt him nod his head.

“Come on,” Bo said, his throat hurting with emotion. “It’s been a hell of a day. Let’s go.”

Out on the street, teenagers were circling around the car, tough-looking kids in sagging black clothes slashed with color. The roadster wasn’t the kind of car you saw in a neighborhood like this. Bo felt AJ stiffen beside him, and as soon as Bo hit the unlock button, the boy ducked into the passenger side and quickly slammed the door. Amid the murmured Spanish commentary, Bo caught gabacho—a term he knew well—but decided to ignore the derogatory comment. He nodded politely to the onlookers, then took his time getting in and heading for the expressway.

“You’re okay?” Bo asked.

“Yes.”

“Nobody messed with you?”

He noticed AJ twisting around in his seat, looking back through the window.

“Did those kids mess with you?” Bo persisted.

AJ turned back around and adjusted his seat belt. “No.”

“Some of them looked pretty tough,” Bo said, trying to get the boy to talk.

“You thought so?”

“Yeah. I grew up around kids like that,” he explained. “I got my ass kicked nearly every day at school or baseball practice.”

Finally, AJ showed a spurt of interest. “Why?”

“Bullies don’t need a reason. I was probably a little turd, though.” He glanced sideways in time to see AJ’s mouth soften, on the verge of smiling.

“What did you do about it?” he asked.

“Ran like a scalded dog. They still caught me, though. I was a puny little thing.”

“You?”

“Yep. Just a tadpole, until my growth spurt started. Right around the time I turned fourteen, I started waking up at night hollering from the pain in my legs. ‘Them’s growing pains,’ my big brother, Stoney, used to tell me. Turns out they were, and by the next year, I was more than six feet tall, and people stopped messing with me. They tended to back off, thinking they couldn’t take me. Which was a lucky thing, because to this day, I don’t know the first thing about fighting.”

AJ fell silent, the fragile thread of connection broken. Bo hoped he’d speak up again, explain himself without prompting. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen. After a while, Bo said, “So why’d you do it, AJ? Why’d you take off like that?”

Silence.

“I can’t hear you.” Bo tried to keep the annoyance from his voice. “Talk to me. I’m trying to understand.”

“I wanted to find some place where they could help me get back with my mom,” said AJ.

“I want that, too, AJ, but skipping school and jumping on a train is no way to handle it. Jesus, why would you take off like that?”

“Because nothing’s happening.” His voice was low and unsteady.

Bo pulled into a loading zone and turned to him. “Listen, there are people who would like nothing better than to send your mom south of the border and out of the U.S. forever. They’ll use any excuse to justify it. If you become a runaway, they’ll claim you’re a baby outlaw and they’ll say, ‘Why should we grant residency to a woman who is raising a delinquent?’”

“So every time a kid does something bad, they have the right to deport the mother?”

“Nope, if the mom’s a U.S. citizen, we get to keep her. I didn’t create this system but you need to abide by it.”

“The system’s not working. My mom didn’t do anything wrong. She did her job, every day. She works harder than anybody I know. She paid her taxes, I know she did because she showed me one time.”

“She’s a good person,” Bo said. “We know that. She doesn’t deserve what happened to her, and that’s why we’re going to work so hard to help her. Just because you’re not seeing any progress doesn’t mean nothing’s happening. Running away from me is probably the worst thing you can do.”

The kid showed iron control over his emotions. He narrowed his eyes and turned to Bo. “I can think of worse.”

Bo took a deep breath. Flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “I know you’re bummed about your mom. But what are you going to do? You can do crazy stuff, like skip school and take the train to the city, which accomplishes nothing except maybe to prove to authorities that you’re trouble. Or you can try to make the best of a bad situation.”

“Easy for you to say.”

The terror that had gripped Bo earlier was turning to ice crystals. “You think? Well, you’re wrong. And if you think anything about this situation is easy for me, yeah, go ahead and tell yourself that. Just remember, I’m the last person you should be running away from. I’m the only one working on getting your mom back. Nobody’s more committed to that than I am.”

“Sure, so you can take off, too. That’s all you care about.”

“It’s business,” he explained. “It’s my job, and I have to do it. And going to school is your job.”

More silence. It was nearly dark now. In the falling light, Bo caught the gleam of a tear in AJ’s eyes. It cut him like a knife, seeing the boy in pain like that. AJ had lost his mother. Now Bo was planning to leave him.

Or not.

He put the car in gear and pulled out into the stream of traffic. “Listen, maybe I was wrong, AJ. You gotta remember, I’m new to this…to being responsible for somebody.