44 Charles Street

“I’m happy to see you, Ian,” Francesca said softly, and ran a gentle hand across his hair. He looked up at her with sad eyes, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and when he looked at her it nearly broke her heart.

“My mom got sick last night,” he said quietly. “She fell asleep and wouldn’t wake up. I tried to wake her but I couldn’t. There was a lot of blood. I thought she was dead. I called nine-one-one.” Francesca tried not to look as shocked as she was as she listened and nodded.

“That must have been so scary for you.” He nodded, and Francesca didn’t want to ask if his mother was still alive or had died the night before. It would have explained the expression of shock and sorrow on his face. He looked like an orphan sitting there, and she wanted to put her arms around him, but he seemed so fragile she didn’t dare.

“She’s in the hospital now, but she’s very sick. I’m going to stay here with Dad.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said softly.

“So am I,” Marya added. “You can help me bake lots of cookies. You can take some with you to school.” He nodded again, as his father came into the room, and Chris looked as traumatized as his son. There were dark circles under his eyes from the night before.

Chris took a seat at the table and smiled at Ian, as though they had come through the wars together. Francesca suspected they had, given what she had just heard.

“How are you doing, Champ?”

“Okay,” Ian said quietly. He had eaten very little of the soup.

“I think we both need to go to bed early and get some sleep. How does that sound to you?” Chris looked utterly worn out.

“Okay,” Ian said again. He wasn’t the bouncy, happy child he normally was on weekends, but if he had watched his mother nearly die in a pool of blood, it was easy to understand why he was so subdued.

Marya touched his arm sympathetically, as Chris picked the boy up and carried him upstairs. He looked gratefully at Marya, who had been wonderful to Ian all that afternoon. Francesca stayed and talked to Marya for a while. Neither of them knew exactly what had happened, but it sounded bad, and the horror of it was written all over the child’s face.

Francesca was watching TV in her room when Chris came upstairs to see her after Ian fell asleep.

“Sorry for all the drama,” he said, looking acutely unhappy, as she motioned him to a chair in her bedroom and he sat down. She was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, and so was he. “This isn’t new for us, but it’s always shocking anyway. Ian’s mother is a heroin addict. She OD’d last night. She told me she was clean, but she never is. I don’t know what happened, I think she’s been involved with some bad guy recently. She shot up, slashed her wrists, and proceeded to nearly bleed to death in front of Ian. He saved her life and called nine-one-one. He was keeping pressure on her arteries with his fingers when they showed up. He was covered with blood, and so was she, but he saved her. She’s going to rehab again after she gets out of the hospital. I’m sorry to tell you all this, Francesca. It’s pretty nasty stuff, and it’s really tough on him. I got out, but she’s his mother and we have joint custody.

“As long as she stays clean, we share him, and as soon as she gets better after this, he’ll probably go back to her. I hate it, but that’s the way it is. She’s very convincing whenever she cleans up. And judges don’t like taking kids away from their mothers, so they always give her another chance, at least so far. She gets drug-tested weekly, so they give us shared custody until she blows it, like now. And Ian’s very loyal to her. She’s his mother, and he loves her. Every time something like this happens, it tears him apart, and me for his having to go through it. I used to want to kill her for this. Now I just want to get him through it without having it destroy his life. She did a pretty good job on me. I’d love to get sole custody, but she talks a good game and sounds like Mother Teresa in court when she’s clean. The judges fall for it every time.” Francesca could see how ravaged he was by what was happening to his son, and she could only imagine what their married life together must have been like. He was the last person she would have suspected of being involved with a drug addict. He was so square and sensible. But clearly, she wasn’t. It struck Francesca that you never knew what people’s private lives were like. His had obviously been a nightmare, and now Ian was living it. Chris looked near tears as he talked to her about it.