Chapter 1
Redondo Beach, California
I’D USED 547 WORDS in the past week—19 more than the week before and 47 more than the previous week—but I could have gotten by with only four: I love you, too. Those are feel-good words. It’s what I’d say when Mom and Dad tucked me in and told me they loved me. Other words were a waste of time—for the most part, anyway. What’s the sense in having a conversation with someone when their words are intended to hide the truth? You’re better off watching.
Sensing.
Mom was behind the wheel. The smell of the ocean slipped through the slit at the top of her window. Houses and palm trees blew past as we made our way through the neighborhoods of South Redondo Beach. One more turn and we’d be on our street in the Avenues, just two blocks from the sand. She was worried about something. It was a big worry, bigger than anything I’d sensed from her in a long time.
“Mom, is everything okay?”
She glanced my way, the smile coming a bit too late to be convincing. “Of course, honey. I was just going over a list of things I need to pick up at the store.”
Yeah, right. Sometimes I swear she forgot I was her son, that I shared her empathetic gift…and then some. I guess the fact I was only seven made it hard for her to remember. Especially when I had a thirteen-year-old adopted sister who happened to be a musical savant, and an eighteen-year-old adopted brother with a brain implant that sometimes made him talk too much.
Earlier at the VA hospital, it had been the same between Mom and Dad—and even Uncle Doc. He wasn’t really my uncle but we called him that anyway. Dad said anyone who saves your life should be treated like family. Anyway, there had been a whole lot going on beneath the surface of their words this morning, and they weren’t just trying to hide something from me, even though that’s what they tried to make one another think with their fake nods and expressions. They were hiding stuff from each other.
A person’s eyes hold more truth than a thousand words.
At least that’s the way I see it.
Of course there was also Mississippi Mike. Now that had been a conversation. When I took his hands, I felt his pain. It wasn’t physical. It was a sense of hopelessness that seemed to crowd out everything else in his consciousness.
Mike was more interested in dying than living.
I’d felt his surprise when I connected with his thoughts. His eyes had bugged out and his grip had tightened to the point it had begun to hurt. But he’d realized it right away because of our bond so he’d eased off. From there it had been easy to change his focus to what he could do rather than what he couldn’t. When he’d stood up and taken his first step, I knew he’d be okay. I can’t explain how I did it. My dad called it letting my brain go on autopilot, same as what he did. Beyond that, all I’d done was imagine myself inside Mike’s brain and body, connecting his desire to walk with the electrodes that linked spare nerves in his chest to his new robotic legs. He’d done the rest.
Mom kept the motor running after she pulled the Fiat into the driveway. “I’m going to run to the store,” she said. “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. Tell Sara and Ahmed to stick around. I want to speak to all three of you when I return.”
I didn’t ask what it was about. Why bother? I grabbed my backpack, jumped out of the car, and walked up the steps to the porch. The front door swung open before I could grab the handle, and Ahmed stepped out and nearly speared me with the end of his short board.
“Whoa!” he said, twisting to one side. “Sorry about that. Hey, I’m headed to the beach. Would you like to go?”
“Mom says we have to stay here.”
“Huh?” Ahmed leaped down the steps as the Fiat backed down the drive. “Mom, wait!”
It was no use. She waved a finger to indicate she was in a hurry and then drove away. Ahmed’s mouth stayed open longer than necessary, the palm of his free hand jutted into the air as if to ask what had just happened.
Beyond him, a car with blacked-out windows pulled away from the curb and followed Mom around the corner.