Chapter 15: Dead Engine

Saturday came, and Milo sat on the green rug with his coat still buttoned to the chin.

The social worker sat in her chair by the wall with a clipboard on her knee.

"Mom," Milo said, very low. "I have to tell you something fast."

"Go ahead."

"Cassidy's packing my suitcase. It's by the front door already. Dad says it's a surprise."

"I know about the school, baby."

His eyes went wide.

"You do?"

"She told me to my face on Monday. I'm going to stop it."

"You can't stop Dad."

"Watch me," I said, and he almost smiled, because it was what his father had said to me in the road.

The social worker coughed and tapped her watch.

Milo got up and hugged me around the neck, hard, with the clipboard watching.

"Friday," he whispered into my ear. "I'll be good till Friday."

"Be exactly yourself on Friday," I said. "That's all I need."

Outside, the sky had gone dark.

I walked to Roz's van in the Family Center lot with the first drops hitting my shoulders.

I had my license back for nine days, and the van was the only car I was allowed to borrow.

I made it ten miles down the county road before the engine coughed twice and quit.

The rain came down in sheets.

I sat there with the wipers dead and the hazard lights ticking, and I laughed because there was nothing else to do.

Headlights stopped behind me.

A man in a canvas jacket got out of a pickup truck and knocked on my window with his knuckle.

"Clyde?"

"Your alternator's been going for a month," he said, water running off his nose. "Roz knows. Get in my truck."

"You followed me."

"I stood in the Family Center lot for an hour. You didn't tell me where to stand, so I picked somewhere."

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