The Giveaway by Tod Goldberg

both.”
    “Got it,” Sam said.
    The back door opened then and Bruce’s mother, Zadie, stepped out before I could continue with the plan. She hadn’t said much since I’d picked her up a few hours ago, but then she didn’t look like she had the energy to do much complaining about anything. She was completely bald and kept her head covered with a turban. Her skin had a translucent quality to it.
    “How are we doing, Zadie?” I said.
    “I’m not deaf,” she said.
    “Of course you aren’t,” I said.
    “Then why are you shouting at me?”
    “Am I shouting?” I turned to Sam and then back to her. Both were just staring at me. Apparently I was being loud. “Sorry,” I said. “Habit. Tough to get through to my mother, you see.”
    “Your mother is trying to kill me,” she said.
    “The smoke?” I said.
    “The dinner.”
    “Just take a jog,” Sam said. “Work all those complex fats right out of you.”
    Zadie was wearing a sweat suit, but didn’t look much like the jogging type.
    “I came out here to ask you a question,” she said to me.
    “Ask away.”
    “Did Bruce do something stupid again?”
    “No,” I said.
    “You know I’m eighty- eight,” she said. “I can handle the truth.”
    I looked at Sam, but he was attempting to appear transfixed by a leaf. “It’s a complex issue,” I said. “He had good intentions.”
    “My son, always with the good intentions.” She shook her head a few times. “His father, my husband, may he rest in peace, was the same way.”
    “Your husband robbed banks, too?” I asked. When you’re dealing with someone who has been alive for eighty-eight years, it’s wise to just come clean. Skirting around the corners of things is for the young and the restless.
    “Buses,” she said.
    “Buses?” Sam said. Now he was engaged.
    “Buses?” I said.
    “Those muni buses, back before everyone had a pass, carried a lot of cash on them.”
    “A lot of coins,” Sam said.
    “Coins are money, too.”
    “What about you, Zadie?” I said. “Ever turn over a liquor store?”
    “My husband and my son,” she said, a derisive tone rising in her voice. “No sense between them. Me, I understood a hard day’s work.” She explained that after her husband died in 1965 from a heart attack, she worked first as a teller at a bank, moved all the way up to assistant manager, but had to quit when her son was accused of walking out with some property.
    “Property?” I said. “So that would be money?”
    “Someone said he took a roll of quarters,” she said.
    “Never proved. Who’s to say he didn’t have ten dollars in quarters in his pocket to start with?”
    “Who is to say?” Sam agreed. “She’s got a point there, Mikey.”
    Mothers want to think the best of their sons. This isn’t spycraft. It’s just common sense. No one who’s had another human living inside of them for nine months hopes to believe that human is a detestable waste of carbon.
    Not Zadie.
    Not my mother.
    Not Fiona’s or Sam’s or anyone’s.
    “Your son did what any good child would do, Mrs. Grossman,” I said. “He just tried to take care of his mother. He ran into a little problem in the process of it all, but it’s going to work out. In the meantime, you’ll stay here for a few days, my mother will order takeout, we’ll drive you to your doctor’s appointments and everyone will sleep easier when it’s over.”
    “And that’s why you’re running razor wire around this house?” she said.
    “Yes,” I said.
    She reached up and squeezed my cheek. “You’re a smart boychik,” she said. And then she squeezed a little harder. “Don’t get me killed. I’m already dying, okay?”
    “Okay,” I said.
    She released me, patted me once on the chest, took a deep breath of the evening air and then smiled. “I do love Miami,” she said. “I’ll always appreciate Brucey bringing me here to retire.” She patted me again. “You be good to your mother when she retires,” she