Prologue
BOYD MACCABEEwas eight years old. His doctor was halfway to an ADHD diagnosis for him, his parents were two-thirds of the way to divorce, and he had his tenth black eye. None of that was his fault, but no one but him seemed to believe that.
“That’s it,” his mom snapped as she dragged him out of the school by the arm. “No TV for you this weekend, no ice cream, no baseball with your father.”
“That’s not fair,” Boyd protested. “It wasn’t my fault.”
His mom stopped abruptly and looked at the sky. “For strength,” she’d always say when he asked, but he knew she didn’t believe in God. After a moment she let go of his hand and crouched down on the concrete, her navy-blue pencil skirt tight over her knees and her best heels creased across the toe.
“So whose fault was it?”
Robbie Fernfield, whose daddy was a lawyer and whose mommy always wore big movie-star sunglasses like they were in California, not West Virginia. He hadn’t hit Boyd, but it was still his fault. It was Robbie who pushed Sammy, Boyd’s best friend, and called him names. And it was when Boyd shoved Robbie that Sammy punched Boyd.
The connecting lines between Robbie’s taunts and Sammy’s anger weren’t really clear to Boyd. His name wasn’t short for “boyfriend,” and Sammy had stuck up for him enough times. He was still pretty sure it was Robbie’s fault.
But everyone else believed Robbie, and Robbie said it was Boyd’s.
“Talk to me, Boyd,” his mom said. “Since when do you start fights? Bully other kids?”
Jess Maccabee was twenty-six years old. She had half a law degree and a job as a paralegal where her butt got patted more than she liked, and her boss had started to look sour about all the time off she took because her son had gotten into trouble at school again. The pressure—from her family, from the school, from the people at church who glared when Boyd couldn’t sit still—was to just make Boyd behave, whatever it took.
She still wanted to understand.
But the one rule Boyd understood was that you didn’t tell tales, so he just shrugged and stared at his toes as he scuffed them over the chalk lines on the pavement.
His mom sighed in frustration. “Then I have to assume itisyour fault, don’t I?” she said as she stood up. “So you don’t get to go to your gran’s next week either.”
She dragged him out to the parking lot.
Sammy was already there, his backpack between his feet and an old iPhone in his hands as he texted someone. He had a split lip and blood on his T-shirt. Jess stopped in front of him and pushed the back of Boyd’s head.
“Do you want to apologize to Sammy?” she asked pointedly.
Most of the time Boyd felt so full of energy that his skin could split from him. Now it itched as he tried to reconcile the fact he hadn’t done anything wrong with how much he wanted Sammy to stop being mad at him.
“I…. Sorry,” he said at last, the need to make up triumphant over his aggrieved innocence. “If you wanna come over and play firefighters, you can wear Dad’s jacket this time?”
It was a big deal to offer that, but Sammy just shrugged with an angry jerk of his bony shoulders. “It’s a dumb game anyhow.”
Boyd was caught flat-footed again because obviously it wasn’t. They always played firefighters, and one day they’dbefirefighters for real. That was the plan.
“Just get in the car,” Jess told him when he spluttered. She added firmly, when he hesitated, “The car. Now.”
He slouched off and climbed into the back seat. It felt a lot bigger on his own. Boyd swung his feet and fidgeted while his mom talked to Sammy. In the end she left him there and stalked back over to the car.
“Sammy’s brother is going to come and get him,” she said as she started the engine. Her eyes flicked up to the mirror, and her expression softened. “He’ll have forgotten he’s even mad by tomorrow, Boyd. Friends like you two, they don’t come around very often.”
She pulled away from the curb and hit the horn as she drove past Sammy. Maybe he’d already thought better about calling the firefighter game stupid, because he raised his hand to wave goodbye.
This time Boyd was too angry to wave back. He just glared out the window as they left.
If he’d known he wouldn’t see Sammy again, maybe he’d have made a different choice.
Chapter One
IT’S ONCEa year.Boyd slouched in the front seat of his running pickup, hands dangled over the wheel, and stared at the run-down, nicotine-orange house at the end of the block. It was what his mom had told him as she straightened his collar and flattened down his cowlick with a spit-wet thumb. His ex had too as he turned his back and returned to work on his computer. They were both gone now—Florida and an Irishman, respectively—so he had to rhyme off the mantra to himself.For her it’s every day. So buck up and go in.
The problem was, of course, that it just didn’t have the same impact. Unlike his mom and his ex and half the town, Boyd didn’t have any illusions about himself. He wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out he was a coward too afraid to face one old woman.
