“She’s indisposed,” Myron said.
Dr. Botnick frowned. “Like in the bathroom?”
“No.”
“Kitty Hammer Bolitar is listed as the wife and thus the next of kin,” Dr. Botnick continued. “Where is she? She should be part of this.”
I finally said, “She’s in a drug rehabilitation center in New Jersey.”
Again she met my eye. I saw kindness there and maybe a little bit of pity. “There was a famous tennis player named Kitty Hammer. I saw her in the US Open when she was only fifteen years old.”
A rock formed in my chest.
“That’s not relevant,” Myron snapped.
Yes, that was my mother. At one point Kitty Hammer Bolitar had a chance of being one of the greatest female tennis players of all time, up there with Billie Jean King and the Williams sisters. Then something happened that eventually ended her career: She got pregnant.
With me.
“You’re right,” Dr. Botnick said. “My apologies.”
“Look,” Uncle Myron said, “is his body in there or not?”
I watched her face for some kind of sign, but there was nothing. Dr. Botnick would have made a great poker player. She turned her attention to me. “Is that why you’re here?”
“Yes,” I said.
“To find out if your father is in the right casket?”
I said yes again.
“Why do you think your father wouldn’t be in there?”
How could I possibly explain it?
Dr. Botnick looked at me as though she really wanted to help. But even in my own head it sounded insane. I couldn’t tell her about the Bat Lady, who may be Lizzy Sobek, the Holocaust hero everyone thought had died in World War II. I couldn’t tell her about the Abeona Shelter, the secret society that rescued children, and how Ema, Spoon, Rachel, and I had risked our lives in its service. I couldn’t tell her about that creepy paramedic with the sandy hair and green eyes, the one who took my father away and then, eight months later, tried to kill me.
Who would believe such crazy talk?
Uncle Myron saw me squirm in my seat. “The reasons are confidential,” he said, trying to come to my rescue. “Would you please just tell us what you found in the casket?”
Dr. Botnick started chewing on the end of her pen. We waited.
Finally, Myron tried again: “Is my brother in the casket, yes or no?”
She put the pen down on her desk and stood.
“Why don’t you come with me and see for yourself?”
CHAPTER 4
We headed down the long corridor.
Dr. Botnick led the way. The corridor seemed to narrow as we walked, as though the tiled walls were closing in on us. I was about to move behind Myron, walking single file, when she stopped in front of a window.
“Wait here, please.” Dr. Botnick poked her head in the door. “Ready?”
From inside, a voice said, “Give me two seconds.”
Dr. Botnick closed the door. The window was thick. Wires crisscrossed inside of it, forming diamonds. There was a shade blocking our view.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Botnick asked.
I was shaking. We were here. This was it. I nodded. Myron said yes.
The shade rose slowly, like a curtain at a show. When it was all the way up-when I could see clearly into the room-it felt as though seashells had been pressed against my ears. For a moment, no one moved. No one spoke. We just stood there.
“What the-?”
The voice belonged to Uncle Myron. There, in front of us, was a gurney. And resting on the gurney was a silver urn.
Dr. Botnick put a hand on my shoulder. “Your father was cremated. His ashes were put in that urn and buried. It isn’t customary, but it’s not all that unusual either.”
I shook my head.
Myron said, “Are you telling us that there were only ashes in that casket?”
“Yes.”
“DNA,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“Can you run a DNA test on the ashes?”
“I don’t understand. Why would I do that?”
“To confirm that they belong to my father.”
“To confirm…?” Dr. Botnick shook her head. “That technology doesn’t exist, I’m sorry.”
I looked at Myron. There were tears in my eyes. “Don’t you see?” I said.
“See what?”
“He’s alive.”
Myron’s face turned white. In the corner of my eye I could see Bow Tie heading down the corridor toward us.
“Mickey…,” Myron began.
“Someone is covering their tracks,” I insisted. “We wouldn’t cremate him.”
“I’m afraid that’s not true.”
It was Bow Tie. He held up a sheet of paper.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“This is an authorization to have the body of Brad Bolitar cremated per the legal requirements for the State of California. It is all on the up-and-up, including the notarized signature of the next of kin.”
Uncle Myron reached out for the sheet, but I grabbed it first. I scanned to the bottom of the page.
It had been signed by my mother.
I could feel Myron reading over my shoulder.
Kitty Hammer Bolitar had signed a lot of autographs during her tennis days. Her signature was fairly unique with the giant K and the curl on the right side of the H. This signature had both.
“It’s a forgery!” I shouted, though it didn’t look like a forgery at all. “This has to be a fake.”
They all stared at me as though an arm had suddenly sprouted out of the middle of my forehead.
“It was notarized,” Bow Tie said. “That means an independent person witnessed and confirmed that your mother signed it.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand…”
Bow Tie took the sheet back from me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “There is nothing more we can do for you.”
CHAPTER 5
Dead end.
We sat in the airport and waited to board our flight home. Uncle Myron frowned at his smartphone, concentrating a little too hard on the screen. “Mickey?”
I looked at him.
“Don’t you think it’s time you told me what’s going on?”
It was. Uncle Myron deserved to know. He had called in favors and put himself on the line. He had, in a sense, earned my trust. But there were other things to consider. First of all, I had been warned more than once by those in Abeona Shelter not to tell Myron. I couldn’t just ignore that advice.
Second-and this was always front and center-I still blamed Myron for what happened to my parents. When my mother got pregnant with me, Uncle Myron reacted badly to the news. He didn’t trust my mother. He and my dad fought over it. My parents ended up running away overseas and then coming back years later and then… well, then it led to my dad being “maybe dead” and my mother being locked up in a drug rehabilitation center.
Uncle Myron waited for my answer. I was wondering how to tell him no when I remembered that I still needed to call Ema back. I held up the phone and said, “I have to take this,” even though the phone hadn’t rung.
I moved away from the gate and hit Ema on my speed dial. She answered immediately.
“So?” Ema said.
“So nothing.”
“Huh? I thought they were about to open the casket.”
“They were. I mean, they did.”
I explained about the cremation. She listened, as always, without interrupting. Ema was one of those people who listened with everything they had. She focused on your face. Her eyes didn’t dart to all corners. She didn’t nod at inappropriate times. Even now, even when she was just on the phone with me, I could feel that concentration.
“And you’re sure it’s her signature?”
“It certainly looks like it.”
“But it could be forged,” Ema said.
“Doubtful. I mean, there was a notary who witnessed it or something. But it could be…” My words trailed off.
“What?”
“After my father died, well, that was when she fell apart.”