The Best Thing for You by Annabel Lyon Page B

driveway.
    “He’s home,” I say. “Will you wait just a minute?”
    “We have a few more questions. We’re going to need him at the station.”
    Liam looks up when I come into his den. “I can’t stand this,” he says. “I’m unhappy. We need to talk.”
    I tell him police are here, and go upstairs for Ty. “Carl, I’m afraid something has come up and I’m going to have to ask you to leave now,” I say. “Ty, shoes.”
    “It was me smoking, not Ty,” Carl says.
    “Officer Stevens is here,” I tell Ty. “Carl,
now.
” I pause on the stairs, wondering if I have time to change out of the skull T-shirt.
    “What the fuck did you do, man?” I hear Carl ask Ty, laughing.
    Downstairs, the officers have stepped into the hall. They step aside to let Carl pass. “Hi,” he mumbles, leaving.
    “Hello there!” the male officer says.
    Liam hurries in, telling us the lawyer will meet us at the station.
    Outside, Brill is belly-up to the fence separating our properties. He’s seen the cruiser, the uniformed officers: he can look now, he can take his time. The male officer has his hand on Ty’s shoulder. None of us says anything.
    The deal is, I ride in the back seat with Ty, and Liam will follow in the Jetta.

    “It’s a mistake,” I tell Joe Leith. “Will you please look at him? He’s a child. It’s a dirty mistake.”
    It’s after; we’re in the car. They’ve charged him. They’ve
charged
him.
    “Like I told you,” Joe Leith says. He’s an outline to me – a voice and some thick lines. He’s got no face. “They’re trying to flush out the undergrowth. It’s what they do.”
    He says he can make the charge go away. He says, give him a couple of days. “They’ve got no substance,” he keeps saying, waving his white hands. “It’s all very thin.”
    “They can’t raise him, can they?” Liam asks.
    I look at him, can’t look at him.
    “Not at all,” the lawyer says soothingly.
    Liam has the papers. When you get charged, there are papers. I say, “Raise him?”
    “To adult court.”
    Joe Leith is centring the knot of his tie with three fingers and a thumb, firming it up.
    “Raise him?” I repeat. “You’ve already got the fucking jargon?”
    “Isobel brought it up. I’m just telling you what Isobel said.”
    “Isobel,” I say.
    “How is dear Isobel?” Joe Leith says.
    When we get home we have a fight with yelling. After a while Ty goes to his room. Liam and I end up in our bedroom with his laptop, trying to figure out if this web site our son claims to have been cruising that night is real.
    “Slow,” Liam says impatiently as we wait to get on-line. It’s after-dinner homework time, high-use time. The connection fails and fails again. There’s spit on the windows, the first of the fall rains. We hear the modem crush. “Read me that site.”
    “I don’t have it.”
    “In the Information,” he says. “The sheets, the sheets.” I hand him the papers from the police. He turns the pages back gingerly, my husband, afraid to make a crease at the staple.
    “That witness only saw Jason up close,” I remind him, but in my speaking voice this time. “It’s Jason’s word against Ty’s. I know who I believe.” I read off the name of the site, something that sounds innocuous enough. He types it with all his fingers, like a pro. “Got it?”
    “Got it.” Liam hunches, then leans back. “Christ, this is going to take forever.”
    I look over his shoulder. So far the site is scaffolding, a lot of empty boxes with ripped corners and tricolour balls. The computer grinds, working on it.
    “Graphics,” Liam says.
    “I can’t.” I look away.
    I can hear him breathing while he waits. I lie down on the bed.
    “You fucker.” Liam hits a key. “Lost the connection.”
    “It exists. How much more do you need?”
    He fires up the modem again. I leaf through the papers. “How are you doing?” he says grudgingly. It’s the first time he’s asked, the first kind word of