ICKY GOLDENSTONE took a seat on my therapy couch at 8 a.m., and settled his right ankle over his left knee. He was lean and black with a smile that could light up the universe and a glare that could stop your heart. I suspected both were employed with some regularity on the fifth-graders he taught at Plainview in Tujunga.

"Hey Doc, how goes the rat race?" he asked, and watched me as he settled back against the cushion. He"d been a client for just under a year, but we"d covered some pretty rocky ground in that time.

"Pretty well," I said.

"Yeah?" His teeth were aligned like little white soldiers. "You winning, then?"

I crossed one leg over the other and smiled. I liked Micky, had since the moment I met him. "Pretty even odds, actually," I said.

He shook his head a little. "Then you"re ahead of the game."

"Trouble at work?" I asked.

"No." The answer was straightforward, solid. Our gazes struck and locked. I braced myself. I have clients who come in to chat about their acne or their hangnails or their difficulty paying the mortgage on their million-dollar homes. Micky Goldenstone wasn"t one of them. "I found her old man."

I drew a careful breath through my nose and pushed my own suddenly minified troubles behind me. Yes, Rivera had acted like an a.s.s, I had had to force the senator out of my house, and I was still peeing at the office, but I didn"t have burn scars from my father. I didn"t wake up screaming in the middle of the night, and I didn"t have guilt so deep it ate my soul like battery acid.

"The man Kaneasha was living with," I said.

He didn"t bother to nod. He was already immersed in the past. Immersed and sinking deeper. I could tell by his expression, his darkening dialect.

"Cig," he said, and sat in silence for a moment, eyes narrowed.

"Did you speak to him?"

He remained silent, looking at nothing.

"Micky," I said.

He drew back almost seamlessly. "Yeah. Yeah. I talked to "im."

"And that"s how you learned-"

"He"s a-" He stopped himself, gritted his teeth, making a muscle bunch in his jaw. "They ain"t together no more." He nodded. "She left more"n a year ago. Maybe "cuz he beat the c.r.a.p out of her." He shrugged. "Maybe not."

I had a thousand questions, but so did he. I let him run.

"He admitted it. I didn"t ask. h.e.l.l! I didn"t wanna know. But he was proud. f.u.c.kin" crackhead can-" He burst to his feet and twisted away raw energy tightly bound. "Can-"

"Micky" I said, soothing.

"Can beat the s.h.i.t out of woman half his-"

"Micky," I said, raising my voice.

"What!" He turned toward me, hands fisted, eyes burning.

"Sit down please."

He did so, but his eyes were still burning, his hands still fisted.

I watched him, letting him calm. Hoping he"d calm. "Her abuse at the hands of her boyfriend is not your fault. It was-"

"That"s bulls.h.i.t!" He watched me, then inhaled deeply, making his nostrils flare. "I was the one that raped her."

I kept myself from wincing. "Yes."

"She was just a-" He jerked to his feet again. I let him go. "All elbows and knees and-" He stopped, turned abruptly toward the window. "Eyes." He said the word so softly I could barely hear him.

"From what you"ve told me, her family life was not particularly stable. Her mother was a cocaine addict, isn"t that correct?"

He didn"t respond.

"And her brother-"

"Gone. Just f.u.c.kin" gone. Shi"s dead. Terrence"s in the pen. In prison." He said it almost wistfully. I pulled the conversation back, making a mental note to consider his tone later.

"Her father abandoned her. She had no grandparents and-"

"Yeah." He turned on me with a snarl. "She had a s.h.i.tty life. Did that give me the right to f.u.c.k her like she was some-"

"Sit down," I said.

"Don"t tell me-" he began, but if I had learned anything as a scantily clad c.o.c.ktail waitress, it was when to ask and when to demand.

"Sit your a.s.s down!" I ordered.

He did so.

"You raped a girl," I said, leaning in.

He stared at me, face blank.

"A thirteen-year-old child."

His cheek twitched, but nothing else showed in his expression.

"It was a heinous crime. Cruel. Unspeakable. She trusted you and you hurt her."

He swallowed, but I didn"t stop.

"Who"s to blame for that, Micky?"

"G.o.d!" He squeezed his eyes closed, pressed his nails into his palms. "They should have f.u.c.kin" killed me."

"Who"s to blame?" I repeated.

He opened his eyes, pursed his lips. "I am."

"Yes." I waited an instant. "Did you make her use drugs?"

He didn"t answer.

"Did you?"

"No."

"Did you make her live with an abusive man?"

"I think the rape was enough." He smiled a little, but the expression was gritty.

"Did you?" I demanded.

"No."

"Then why do you want to accept blame for more?"

He waited half a lifetime before he spoke. "Because she"s got a kid."

I felt my stomach drop toward the floor, but I"d learned to play poker with three brothers who cheated like Irishmen. Nothing showed. "Is it yours?"

He waited again, as did I.

"I don"t know," he said finally.

I exhaled carefully. "How old is the child?"

He shrugged. The movement was stiff.

"The boyfriend didn"t know?"

"Said the kid didn"t live with them. Only saw him once or twice."

I nodded.

"Once or twice," he repeated. "In two years."

I kept my expression as impa.s.sive as his. "What are you going to do now?"

He stared out the window. "Put a gun in my mouth?"

I kept my hands relaxed in my lap. "That"ll never work."

He glanced at me, brows dropping.

"You"re never going to suffer enough if you"re dead."

He snorted and sat up straight. "You wasn"t raised by your grandma, was you?"

I stared.

"Grams was a big believer in h.e.l.l."

From what I had heard, his grandmother had also saved his life. "Are you going to h.e.l.l, Micky?"

"I think I might be there already."

"Then you might just as well continue to live."

He pushed himself backward in his chair and stared at me. The tiniest smile tickled his lips. "Jesus, woman, does the board of shrinks know you dish out this c.r.a.p?"

"You can always kill yourself, Micky," I said. "You might as well wait."

"Not if I"m a chicken s.h.i.t."

I shook my head. "You"re not."

Our gazes clashed. "Why would I wait?"

"That"s what Esse would have wanted."

He stared at me. "She tied me to the radiator once. Did I tell you that?"

I shook my head.

"I says I was goin" out with my dogs. She says I wasn"t. I says no one owned me and she could go ..." He paused, almost smiled. "Next thing I know I was flat on my face with my hands cranked up behind my back and her sitting on top of me. All ninety-two pounds of her. Spent the night listening to her read Scripture. The whole f.u.c.kin" night." I could hear him inhale, feel him think. "What if the kid"s mine?"

I had no idea, but I kind of loved Esse Goldenstone. "Then you"ll have to make some decisions."

"Can I off myself then?" Maybe it was a serious question, but there was a light in his eye again.

I tented my fingers and leaned back in my chair. "It"d look bad on my shrink record," I said.

"Jesus." He brushed one palm across his close-cut scalp. "More f.u.c.kin" guilt," he said.

And I laughed for the first time all day.

5.

If it looks like a cat, walks like a cat, and has whiskers like a cat, it"s probably a d.a.m.n cat. But if it eats your groceries, messes up your kitchen, and makes you want to rip out your hair by the roots, you either married it or gave birth to it.

-Shirley Templeton,