The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [111]
Rita moved to Florida, real Florida as she thought of it, shortly after Larry turned out to be Larry. Unreliable, incapable of holding down a real job, no interest in being a father to his son. She had no one but herself to blame—and no interest in doing so. She tried to make a go of it with her kid’s real father, a man she loved. How can that be wrong? She relocated to Boca Raton with Joey and a guy who seemed steady. She was trying to be pragmatic again, but the guy didn’t last, as it turned out. Other men came and went in the little bungalow. One stayed five years, the rest were more short-term. Joey never minded, although he liked it better when it was just the two of them. No, Rick was the one who raised a fuss, back when she first left. He challenged her for custody, and she pulled out her ace in the hole, said he wasn’t Joey’s father anyway. A judge laid it out for Rick: He could act like Joey’s parent, keep paying support, have a relationship with him. Or he could walk away, scot free. Either way, he couldn’t have custody and he couldn’t force Rita to stay in Baltimore. So what did that sap do? He decided to keep paying, so she would at least send Joey up there for a couple of visits a year.
Maybe Rick deserves a little credit for how Joey turned out. Her son stayed in Florida, although he lives down in Fort Lauderdale, married a nice girl, who looks a little like Rita in her prime, has three kids. He visits every weekend, fights her battles for her—got her on SSI disability, arranged for cheaper drugs, found whatever agencies to assist her. Now here’s a kid who has every right to hate her, and he rocks steady. It’s Mickey who barely picks up a phone. What ails the girl? She doesn’t call her brother, either, and has never even seen her nieces and nephew, except in pictures. Joey shrugs it off. “We’re just not that close, Ma. I’m ten years younger, and we moved away when I was eight, leaving her in Baltimore.”
“So why did you give her the bed?” Man, that bugs her.
“I had to drive a rental truck up there anyway, to bring back stuff from Dad’s house. And we couldn’t give that thing away on Craigslist. Why not give it to Mickey? It was nice to see her, even if it was for Dad’s funeral.”
Rick died at the age of seventy last year. A stroke, out of nowhere, and no way to prepare for it. A weakness somewhere, maybe lurking there for years and then—kaboom. Dudley Do-Right to the end, he included Joey in his will, despite having two kids with the namby-pamby he married. Maybe it’s because they’re both girls and Rick was very specific about the things he wanted Joey to have—tools, a Jet Ski. He left him a little money, too. Rita’s emotions were all over the place when she heard about Rick’s death. Sad, mocking, resentful. Joey decided to drive a U-Haul up there and bring back the things his not-father had left him, despite having little use for them. He’s not particularly handy, can’t fix anything for shit. He is Larry’s son.
Rita’s sixty-three now, but crabbed and wrecked as her body is, she never doubts she’s going to live a long time, even with the smoking. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” her doctor always says. “I mean, other than the rheumatoid arthritis. Your cholesterol’s good, your blood pressure is good.” He says it grudgingly, as if Rita doesn’t deserve any good health. That’s the thing about doctors. They secretly want to call the shots, decide who gets the good