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fierce.
    Until she wasn’t.
    Adam picked his way up the stairs. Without even seeing them, he shoved some puzzle boxes closer to the wall. The chaos ended abruptly at his room. Adam’s room looked like it was occupied by a prissy monk with a soft spot for Warhammer miniatures and angelfish. He walked over to his perfect thirty-five-gallon tank. All three of his angels, Burt, Peter and Steven, immediately swam up to welcome him.
    “Hi, guys!” He reached for the fish food and crumbled a teeny amount over the water as a treat for the boys. Well, maybe not all boys—Steven had given birth to babies last spring, but Burt and Peter ate them. Adam was going to wait to see if it happened again before doing anything as drastic as changing anybody’s name.
    The aquarium often calmed him, what with the fishzipping around and the bubbles and the soothing whirr of the water filter. Not today, though. Adam’s heart was still prickly. “Love hurts, man,” he whispered to Steven, who had returned to him after nibbling some fish flakes. Steven nodded.
    Adam had finished his homework at school, as he did on most Mondays or Group days, and he wasn’t on dinner duty tonight, so he had loads of free time looming in front of him. He was considering cleaning out his clean fish tank when he heard his mom come home.
    “Adam? Hi, honey! Are you up there?”
    “Hey, Mom!” Adam waved to the boys and raced down the ever-narrowing stairway.
    Mrs. Ross kissed the top of his head, then stepped back and looked at him. “You growing?” Before he could answer, she proudly pointed to a brown shopping bag.
    “Look, I braved the elements—this beautiful autumn day, in other words—and went clear across the city to bring us this!”
    Adam recognized the bag. “You went to the Hungarian restaurant!”
    Mrs. Ross reached into the bag and retrieved a large aluminum take-out container. “Ta-da! Mrs. Novak’s world-famous Hungarian goulash and buttered egg noodles. Nothing’s too good for my favorite son!” she said, as she always said.
    “Hey, lady, I’m your
only
son!” he said, as he always said.
    Mother and son went to the kitchen, which was still
almost
normal. They whipped out the necessary plates andcups and cutlery, and tucked into their feast. He poured her a glass of red wine, and she poured him a glass of Tropicana orange juice, pulp-free. She talked about work; he talked about school. Carmella mentioned that she might be up for a promotion by the end of the year, and Adam said that Group, in the end, might work out after all. And during that whole time, they told each other everything except for the parts that they didn’t. Mother and son were as honest as two people lying to each other could be.
    And then the phone rang.

CHAPTER 7
    “Yes, hello, Brenda.” His mom sighed and leaned against the wall. “I’m sorry to hear that.
    “Yes, he is, but I just got in and we haven’t even …
    “Yes, yes, I appreciate that—more than most, as you well realize—but today was his Group day and …” Mrs. Ross turned to Adam while nodding into the phone.
    I already did my homework
, he mouthed.
    His mom’s shoulders slumped. The fight was lost. “Brenda, you know I love Sweetie …
    “Okay, I can’t stand the thought of him suffering like that. If Adam agrees, let us finish dinner and then you can come and pick him up. Hang on.” She put her hand over the receiver. “You okay with that?”
    Adam nodded.
    “Do you have anything you’ve got to be in early for tomorrow?”
    He thought for a moment. He and Eric Yashinsky, an almost-friend, were due in the physics lab at 7:45 a.m., sharp. Both boys had been offered a special opportunity to take Advanced Placement Physics in grade 10, but because of scheduling difficulties it had to be at that unholy hour twice a week, and the days were never fixed.
    “Physics,” he said.
    His mom smiled and years fell away. “Lucky you, Brenda—it’s a physics day. You’ll have to drive