Joyland

But he didn't tell her in your hearing, I thought. They'd never have a conversation like that in your hearing.

"I hung in, though." He said this with some pride. "My grandfather called my mom-I think it was the first time they'd talked in a long time. I don't know who told him what was going on, but he has people everywhere. It could have been any of them."

People everywhere sounded kind of paranoid, but I kept my mouth shut. Later I found out it wasn't paranoid at all.

Mike's grandfather did have them everywhere, and they all saluted Jesus, the flag, and the N RA, although possibly not in that order.

"Grampa said I got over the pneumonia because of God's will.

Mom said he was full of bullshit, just like when he said me having D MD in the first place was God's punishment. She said I was just one tough little sonofabitch, and God had nothing to do with it.

Then she hung up on him."

Mike might have heard her end of that conversation, but not Grampa's, and I doubted like hell if his mother had told him. I didn't think he was making it up, though. I found myself hoping Annie wouldn't hurry back. This wasn't like listening to Madame Fortuna. What she had, I believed (and still do, all these years later), was some small bit of authentic psychic ability amped up by a shrewd understanding of human nature and then packaged in glittering carny bullshit. Mike's thing was clearer. Simpler.

Purer. It wasn't like seeing the ghost of Linda Gray, but it was akin to that, okay? It was touching another world.

" Mom said she'd never come back here, but here we are.

Because I wanted to come to the beach and because I wanted to fly a kite and because I'm never going to make twelve, let alone my early twenties. It was the pneumonia, see? I get steroids, and they help, but the pneumonia combined with the Duchenne's MD fucked up my lungs and heart permanently."

He looked at me with a child's defiance, watching for how I'd react to what is now so coyly referred to as "the f-bomb."

I didn't react, of course. I was too busy processing the sense to worry about his choice of words.

"So," I said. "I guess what you're saying is an extra fruit smoothie won't help."

He threw back his head and laughed. The laughter turned into the worst coughing fit yet. Alarmed, I went to him and pounded his back… but gently. It felt as if there were nothing under there but chicken bones. Milo barked once and put his paws up on one of Mike's wasted legs.

There were two pitchers on the table, water in one and fresh-squeezed orange juice in the other. Mike pointed to the water and I poured him half a glass. When I tried to hold it for him, he gave me an impatient look-even with the coughing fit still wracking him-and took it himself. He spilled some on his shirt, but most of it went down his throat, and the coughing eased.

"That was a bad one," he said, patting his chest. "My heart's going like a bastard. Don't tell my mother."

"Jesus, kid! Like she doesn't know?"

"She knows too much, that's what I think," Mike said. "She knows I might have three more good months and then four or five really bad ones. Like, in bed all the time, not able to do anything but suck oxygen and watch MASH and Fat Albert.

The only question is whether or not she'll let Grammy and Grampa Ross come to the funeral." He'd coughed hard enough to make his eyes water, but I didn't mistake that for tears. He was bleak, but in control. Last evening, when the kite went up and he felt it tugging the twine, he had been younger than his age. Now I was watching him struggle to be a lot older. The scary thing was how well he was succeeding. His eyes met mine, dead-on. "She knows. She just doesn't know that I know."

The back door banged. We looked and saw Annie crossing the patio, heading for the boardwalk.

"Why would I need to know, Mike?"

He shook his head. "I don't have any idea. But you can't talk about it to Mom, okay? It just upsets her. I'm all she's got." He said this last not with pride but a kind of gloomy realism.

"All right."

"Oh, one other thing. I almost forgot." He shot a glance at her, saw she was only halfway down the boardwalk, and turned back to me. "It's not white."

"What's not white?"

Mike Ross looked mystified. "No idea. When I woke up this morning, I remembered you were coming for smoothies, and that came into my head. I thought you'd know."

Annie arrived. She had poured a mini-smoothie into a juice glass. On top was a single strawberry.

"Yum!" Mike said. "Thanks, Mom!"

"You're very welcome, hon."

She eyed his wet shirt but didn't mention it. When she asked me if I wanted some more juice, Mike winked at me. I said more juice would be great. While she poured, Mike fed Milo two heaping spoonfuls of his smoothie.

She turned back to him, and looked at the smoothie glass, now half empty. "Wow, you really were hungry."

"Told you."

'What were you and Mr. Jones-Devin-talking about?"

"Nothing much," Mike said. "He's been sad, but he's better now."