The Perfect Son Read Online Free Page B

crying.
    And where were you, Dad? Always wherever I wasn’t.
    Harry’s head jolted sideways and his jaw made a cracking sound, like a bone breaking. Ow. Then he clucked. Twice. Always in pairs, had to be pairs. Relief—warm, comforting relief. He grabbed his jaw. Yup, still in one piece.
    “I’ve got this,” Harry said. “Go, help Mom.”
    The pressure regrouped, turned around for a second swing. But it was okay, okay because Dad was heading for the Air Florida desk. Finally, he was going to help Mom.
    Harry’s jaw popped in and out, popped in and out with sharp, jarring movements. Shockwaves of pain raced up through his face. A clusterfuck of motor tics, a regular clusterfuck.
    He shoved his fist in his mouth and bit down. Blinding pain—Harry rocked back and forth—he would focus on the blinding pain. A woman grabbed her little boy’s hand and yanked him away. The kid continued to watch over his shoulder, mesmerized. Two girls in skinny jeans giggled. Did they think he cared? He had no inhibitions—how could he? But they were cute girls, popular girls. And their stares hurt worse than the tics.
    If Max were here, he would walk toward them, jab his finger, and say in the loudest voice possible, “ Eeew. What’s wrong with you, you fucking weirdos?” Then he would look around to make sure he’d drawn the fire from Harry.
    Without Mom or Max as buffers, Harry was trapped in his own worst nightmare: just him and Dad against the world. He concentrated on walking, not hopping, twirling, or kicking. Most of the time, he didn’t know when he was ticcing. But the complex tics that manifested as demonic possession? Those built up inside like tremors warning of a volcanic explosion.
    Good, that’s good, Harry. Focus on science. Focus on anything other than Mom.
    Dad had reached the desk. He was talking to some airline lady with carrot-colored lipstick. Now they would get answers. Women responded to Dad—to that arrogance everyone mistook for aristocratic Brit, to those razor-blue eyes that could gut you.
    Lipstick Woman watched Harry walk toward them, her eyes huge and white.
    “Sclera!” Harry shouted. “Sclera!” Sclera—the white of the eye. A word he’d learned in biology; a word he’d never used until now. His jaw popped again. Pain ricocheted up into his eyeballs. He clamped both hands over his mouth and tried to hold his jaw still.
    Her jaw, Lipstick Woman’s jaw, kept moving as if she were some actress in a silent movie. For real? Lipstick that color and she thought he was the freak show?
    Tell us about Mom.
    Dad balled up his fists but didn’t turn round.
    “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, sir—” Lipstick Woman leaned over her desk, eyes flicking toward Harry. Her right hand hovered as if waiting to pound on some imaginary panic button. “But your wife collapsed on the flight from Fort Lauderdale.” The woman lowered her voice. “I’ve been told she’s on her way to Raleigh Regional.”
    Collapsed? Raleigh Regional? The pressure built again—hot, bubbling lava.
    “Can you be more specific?” Dad used his monotone voice, the one that gave nothing away.
    “The crew thinks”—more eye flicking in Harry’s direction. What is her problem? —“it may have been a heart attack, sir. Obviously we don’t know for sure.”
    Heart attack? How was that possible? But his grandmother had died of a heart attack at forty-seven. Mom had just turned forty-seven. But Mom couldn’t have a heart attack. Mom couldn’t die.
    The volcano erupted and Harry started spinning.
    “Sir, I realize this is a difficult time for you, but I need you to control your son.”
    “Control my son?” Dad’s voice was jagged ice. “And how do you propose I control a young man with Tourette’s after you just informed him that his mother may have had a heart attack?”
    Did Dad have to repeat the words heart attack ?
    “There’s no need to take that tone.” The woman picked at her tightly fastened top button.