“I think we should all take a few minutes,” Carter said. “We can talk again after supper.”

He guided Patricia out of the room by one elbow. She looked back at Blue, hunched over his desk, shoulders shaking, and she wanted to go to him so badly she felt it in her blood, but Carter steered her into the hall and closed the door behind them.

“He’s never—” Carter began.

“Why’s he screaming?” Korey asked, practically leaping out at them from her bedroom door. “What’d he do?”

“This has nothing to do with you,” Carter said.

“I just thought you’d want the opinion of someone who actually sees him sometimes,” Korey said.

“When we want your opinion we’ll ask for it,” Carter said.

“Fine!” Korey snapped, slamming her bedroom door. It smacked sharply into its frame. From behind it came a muffled, “Whatever.”

Korey had been so easy for so many years, going to step aerobics after school, staying out on Wednesday nights to watch Beverly Hills, 90210 with the same group of girls from her soccer team, going to Princeton soccer camp in the summer. But this fall she’d started spending more and more time in her room with the door closed. She’d stopped going out and seeing her friends. Her moods ranged from virtually comatose to explosive rage, and Patricia didn’t know what set her off.

Carter told her he saw it all the time in his practice: it was her junior year, the SATs were coming, she had to apply for colleges, Patricia shouldn’t worry, Patricia didn’t understand, Patricia should read some articles about college stress he’d give her if she felt concerned.

Behind Korey’s door, the music got louder.

“I need to finish cleaning the kitchen,” Patricia said.

“I’m not going to take the blame for the way he’s acting,” Carter said, following Patricia down the stairs. “He has zero self-control. You’re supposed to be teaching him how to handle his emotions.”

He followed Patricia into the den. Her hands ached to hold a vacuum cleaner, to have its roar blot out everyone’s voices, to make it all go away. She didn’t want to think about Blue acting out because she knew it was her fault. His behavior had changed from the minute he found her on the kitchen floor. Carter followed her into the kitchen. She could hear Korey’s music coming through the ceiling, all muffled harmonicas and guitars.

“He’s never acted like this before,” Carter said.

“Maybe you’re just not around him enough,” Patricia said.

“If you knew things were this bad, why didn’t you say something before?” he asked.

Patricia didn’t have an answer. She stood in the middle of the kitchen and looked around. She’d been measuring it for the remodel when school called for her to come see Major about Blue and Tiger spray-painting that dog, and there was so much in the cabinets they needed to throw out: the row of cookbooks she never used, the ice cream maker still in its box. The air popper they couldn’t find the plug for. She undid the rubber bands on the dog food cabinet handles and looked inside. There was a shoebox of gas station road maps in one corner. Did they really need all these?

“You can’t go around with your head in the sand, Patty,” Carter said.

She’d have to go through the junk drawer. She pulled it open. What were all these bits and pieces for? She wanted to dump them all in the trash, but what if one of them was an important part of something expensive?

“Are you even listening to me?” Carter asked. “What are you doing?”

“I’m cleaning out the kitchen cabinets,” Patricia said.

“This is not the time,” Carter said. “We need to figure out what’s going on with our son.”

“I’m leaving,” Blue said.

They turned. Blue stood in the doorway to the den with his backpack on. It wasn’t his school backpack but the other one with the broken strap that he kept in his closet.

“It’s after dark,” Carter said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“How’re you going to stop me?” Blue asked.

“We’re having supper in an hour,” Patricia said.

“I can handle this, Patty,” Carter said. “Blue, go upstairs until your mother calls you for supper.”

“Are you going to padlock my bedroom door?” Blue asked. “Because if not, I’m leaving. I don’t want to be in this house anymore. You just want to give me a bunch of pills and make me a zombie.”

Carter sighed and stepped forward to better explain things. “No one’s making you a zombie,” he said. “We’re—”

“You can’t stop me from doing anything,” Blue snarled.

“If you step out that door I’ll call the police and report you as a runaway,” Carter said. “They’ll bring you home in handcuffs and you’ll have a criminal record. Is that what you want?”

Blue glowered at them.

“You suck!” Blue screamed, and stormed out of the den.

They heard him run up the stairs and slam his bedroom door. Korey turned her music up louder.

“I did not realize things had gotten this bad,” Carter said. “I’m going to change my flight and come back a day early. Obviously, this has to be dealt with.”

He continued talking as Patricia began organizing the old cookbooks. He was explaining the Ritalin options to her—time release, dosages, coatings—when Blue came back into the den holding his hands behind his back.

“If I leave the house you’re calling the police?” he asked.

“I don’t want to do that, Blue,” Carter said. “But you’ll be leaving me with no choice.”

“Good luck calling the police without any phone cords,” Blue said.

He pulled his hands out and for a moment Patricia thought he held spaghetti noodles, and then she realized he was holding the cords to their telephones. Before the sight had fully registered, he ran out of the den and she and Carter trotted after him, getting to the front hall just as the door slammed. By the time they were on the porch, Blue had vanished into the twilight murk.

“I’ll get the flashlight,” Patricia said, turning to go back inside.

“No,” Carter said. “He’ll come home the minute he’s cold and hungry.”

“What if he gets to Coleman Boulevard and someone offers him a ride?” Patricia asked.

“Patty,” Carter said. “I admire your imagination, but that’s not going to happen. Blue is going to wander around the Old Village and sneak back home in an hour. He didn’t even take a jacket.”

“But—” she began.

“I do this for a living, remember?” he said. “I’m going to run to Kmart and pick up some new phone cords. He’ll be back before I am.”

* * *

—

He wasn’t. After supper, Patricia kept clearing out the kitchen cabinets, watching the numbers on the microwave clock crawl from 6:45, to 7:30, to a minute after eight.

“Carter,” she said. “I really think we need to do something.”

“Discipline takes discipline,” he said.

She pulled the garbage cans around to the front porch and dropped the air popper and the old ice cream maker into them, and unhooked everything from the saltwater fish tank and put it in the laundry room sink to dry. Finally, the microwave clock read 10:00.

I won’t say anything until 10:15, Patricia promised herself, stuffing old cookbooks into plastic Harris Teeter bags.

“Carter,” she said, at 10:11. “I’m going to get in the car and drive around.”

He sighed, and put down the paper.

“Patty—” he began, and the phone rang.

Carter got there before Patricia.

“Yes?” he said, and she saw his shoulders relax. “Thank God. Of course…uh-huh, uh-huh…if you don’t mind…of course…”

He showed no sign of hanging up, or even telling her what was happening, so Patricia ran to the living room and picked up the extension.

“Korey, get off the phone,” Carter said.

“It’s me,” Patricia said. “Hello?”

“Hello, Patricia,” a smooth, low voice said.

“James,” she said.

“I don’t want you to worry,” James Harris told them. “Blue’s with me. He came by a couple of hours ago and we’ve been talking. I told him he could chill here but he had to tell his mom and dad where he was. I know you guys must be tearing your hair out.”

“That’s…very kind of you,” Patricia said. “I’ll be right there.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” James Harris said. “I don’t want to meddle in your home life, but he’s asked to spend the night. I have a guest bedroom.”

James Harris and Carter had drinks at the back bar of the Yacht Club once a week. They went dove hunting with Horse. They’d taken Blue and Korey night shrimping at Seewee Farms. He’d even had supper with them five or six times when Carter was out of town, and every time she saw him, Patricia didn’t think about what she’d seen. She made herself remote, and cool, but pleasant. The children adored him, and he had given Blue a computer game called Command something for Christmas, and Carter talked to him about his career, and he had opinions about music that Korey actually tolerated, so Patricia tried. But she still didn’t want Blue in James Harris’s house alone overnight.

“We don’t want to impose,” Patricia said, her voice high and hard in her chest.