Keep Her Safe(3)

“I’m fine . . .” she mumbles, her brow pinched with irritation as she fumbles with her pack of cigarettes.

I wish I could be angry with her. Instead, I’m sad and frustrated. I’m pretty sure I need help, but I have no idea who to turn to. I was eleven the last time she hit the bottle like this. She and Dad were still married, so he dealt with it. But Dad has wiped his hands of her. He’s got a new wife and family and a meat-and-potatoes life in Seattle. He was never meant to be the husband of a cop, and especially not one as ambitious as my mother.

She’d skin me alive if I went to any of the guys I know from the APD about her drinking. There are too many people looking for a reason to get rid of a female chief. This would be a good reason.

I could go to Uncle Silas. He’s the district attorney; he wouldn’t want voters finding out that his sister the chief of police is a drunk. I should have gone to him already, but I hoped it was a phase, something she’d work out on her own.

Maybe with a little push from us, Mom can get sober again. She did it once before, years ago. Quit cold turkey. She’s tough like that. She can beat this again.

If she wants to.

I turn down the volume on the police scanner. “Mom?”

Her eyes snap open. It takes her a moment to focus on me, but she finally does. “How was basketball?”

“They beat our asses.”

“Who were you playing with?”

“Jenson, Craig. The usual crew.”

“Jenson and Craig . . .” she mutters, her gaze trailing over my arms, long and cut from hours of lifting weights and swimming laps. And she smiles. It’s sloppy, but I see the wistfulness behind the boozy mask. “You’ve become so strong and independent, Noah. And smart. So smart. You know I love you to bits, right?”

I nudge the glass of water forward. “Take a sip, Mom. Please.”

She humors me by downing half the glass, only to then reach for her glass of whiskey and knock back the shot.

“What time do you have to be in to work tomorrow?” If I can catch her over her morning coffee, when she’s sober and still feeling the pain of tonight, maybe I can start a serious conversation.

Maybe I can get through to her.

“You’ve grown into a good, honest man,” she mutters, not answering me. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Here. Let me get you another glass of water.” I fill up three more, lining them on the table in front of her. “Drink. Please.”

With reluctance, she reaches for the first.

“I’m gonna grab a shower.” Without the promise of more booze, she’ll stagger upstairs and be passed out facedown in her uniform by the time I’m out, I’m betting. I dip down to grab the bottle from beneath the chair.

“He was a good, honest man, too,” she mutters.

“You’ll find someone else. You’re still young.” She does this when she’s drunk, too—talks about Dad, about how it’s her fault they divorced. Right after this, she’s going to say that she’s a terrible mother, because she abandoned me, let him take me to Seattle all those years ago. A boy needs his father, she believed.

“No, not your dad . . . Abe.”

I freeze.

I haven’t heard her say that name in years.

I ask cautiously, “Abraham, Abe?”

“Hmmm.” She nods. Again, that wistful smile touches her lips. “You remember him, don’t you?”

“Of course.” He was the tall man with ebony skin and a wide smile who taught me how to dribble a ball. He was my mother’s police partner for years, and one of her best friends for even longer.

Until he was killed by a cocaine dealer, only to be labeled a corrupt cop after his death. I was eleven when he died. I didn’t understand what that meant, only that whatever Abraham Wilkes did was bad. It made statewide news and broadened an already perceptible racial divide within the community. It made Mom start drinking, and I’m pretty sure it broke apart our family.

“He was a good man.” Her voice drifts off with her gaze, as her eyes begin to water. “He was a good, honest man.”

I wander back toward the table. “I thought he was stealing and dealing drugs.”

She chuckles as she takes another drag of her cigarette. It’s a sad, empty sound. “That’s what everyone thinks, because that’s what they made them think. But you . . .” She pokes the air with her finger, her normally neat and trim fingernails chewed to the quick. “You need to know the truth. I need you to know that he was a good man and we are bad, bad people.”

“Who’s bad?” I’m desperate to pull the chair out and sit down across from her again, to listen to whatever it is she’s trying to tell me. But I also don’t think she realizes what she’s divulging. And I don’t want to give her pause to clue in and clam up.

She dumps her cigarette pack out on the table, scattering a half dozen cigarettes before finding one to light. “You know he broke Dina. Ran her and that beautiful little girl out of town. She was so young when Abe died. Gracie. He always smiled when he said her name.” Mom smiles now too, reminiscing. “She has her mama’s green eyes and Abraham’s full lips and kinky curls. And her skin, it’s this gorgeous color, like caramel, and—”

“Mom!” I snap, hoping to get her focus back. I vaguely remember Abe’s kid—a cute girl with big eyes and wild hair—but I don’t want to hear about her right now. “What are you talking about? Who did what?”