Jimmy remained weak and shuffling right up until they got to the parking lot. It was only then that he thought to ask an obvious question.

"Mom?" he said quietly.

"Yes, dear?"

"What happened after I left?"

His mother's lips tightened together, and Jimmy could see tendons in her neck pushing up against the skin. "I'll tell you later, honey," she said, after much hesitation. "Just get in the car for now. We have to get you away from here. You're in a lot of trouble."

Jimmy looked up at her, and she looked back. "Am I in trouble with you?"

She shook her head, and smiled at him. "No, honey. Not with me." She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. "You're far from being in trouble with me. You're my little hero today."

Jimmy could only look at her, puzzled but pleased, smiling cautiously. "Good." He paused, and sighed, looking down again. "Good."

Alice unlocked the doors, opened one, and stood astride it like a chauffeur. "Enter, good sir," she said in a faux formal tone. Then she giggled, and grinned. "Get in the car, kiddo. We've gotta get you outta here."

Jimmy laughed, and got in the car, an uncommon happiness bubbling inside him like a jubilant creek. Alice got in on the other side, started the car, and pulled out of the parking lot.

Once the school was out of sight, it left the mind as well, and Jimmy's whole demeanor brightened. He looked over at his radiant mother, grinning his first true grin in years. "You're different, mom."

"Oh?" she said, not taking her eyes off the road but returning his grin nonetheless. "You think so?"

"Definitely," Jimmy answered, still grinning. "You're like a whole new person."

"Wow," Alice said, her eyes twinkling. "That's interesting." She turned a corner. "You know what's strange?"

"What?"

"I feel like one, too."

---

"You hungry?"

An excellent question--especially since Jimmy's stomach had been turning and snarling for a mile or two now. He grinned sheepishly at Alice. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I am."

Alice turned off the road--and towards a Burger King. Jimmy's eyes widened. "Mom?"

"You're hungry, right?"

"Yeah, but..." He stared at the restaurant. "I don't think we've ever eaten at one of these." He paused. "Have we?"

"Nope." She slid into the drive-thru, idling next to the big glowing menus.

Jimmy's eyes slid greedily across the pictures of the glorious foodstuffs. "…you know…"

"Hm?" His mother turned to look at him.

He looked back at her, smiling--a big ol' kiddie smile, without a drop of bitter poison behind it. "I've always wanted to eat at one of these places," he said, looking back at the menu. "But..."

"Your father never let us," Alice finished, eyes gazing thoughtfully at her son. Then she gave him another dazzling smile. "Pick something to eat--maybe a couple things, if you want." She waved a plastic rectangle in the air. "Sky's the limit for Hero Boy."

"Mom," Jimmy said, rolling his eyes halfheartedly; his attention was on the food again. The ominous quaking in his stomach was growing louder and louder and his mouth seemed flooded with saliva. "Can we get..." He pointed at a picture of a long chicken sandwich. "That." And then to a double-pattie cheeseburger. "And that." And then, after a moment's pause, he pointed at a chicken nugget meal. "That, too."
"Done, good knight." Alice eyed the menu herself. "What do you think your sister would like?"

Jimmy blinked at that. What would Ami like? Passive and uncaring Ami? He looked blankly at his mom, then something clicked. "She likes fried chicken, doesn't she?"

Alice nodded. "Indeed, she does..." After a couple seconds of searching, she pointed at another chicken sandwich--one that was clearly fried. "How about a couple of those?"

"Yeah," Jimmy said, nodding. "And some fries?"

"And onion rings?"

"And those!"
"And some shakes?"

"Pies?"

"Yes!" Jimmy grinned at her, beaming like the baby Jesus. "All of it! Lots of it!" And he threw back his head and laughed. "All of it!"

"Alright, then!" Alice crowed, laughing herself. "All of it! Lots of it! A feast!"

"A fast-food feast!"

"A fast-food feast! Right!" Alice drove up a little, to the tiny speakerbox, and leaned out a little.

"How may I help you?" the box squeaked.

Alice grinned at Jimmy, then at the box.

"I'd like four number sevens and six apple pies and ten large fries and…"

---

They ended up with six bags and four cupholders--all of which were full. The smell of cheap, greasy food filled the car as they drove through town. Jimmy kept drawing big breaths through his nostrils, savoring that unfamiliar scent--and then he'd take big sips of his chocolate shake (one of three) and grin out the window. Memories of Gothel and the school and of his atrociously disastrous birthday party seemed far, far away. The present, the now, was full of the smell of grease and the taste of soft serve ice cream, and with them came a radical feeling of freedom. Jimmy and Alice (and Ami) were free. No more tyrannical Tom to ruin it all; he was gone, back at home, far, far away, in a land where there was no grease and no soft serve and no blessed freedom.

In the back of his mind, Jimmy knew that he couldn't go back to that house, to that land--he was banished. His mother and his sister and himself had been outcast from their own home.

But, Jimmy knew, none of them minded all that much. What was the Land of Tom compared to the Land of Freedom and Burger King? Why, it was the Mordor to Jimmy's Gondor, the hell to his heaven. Tom was Sauron, Tom was Satan. Mom was mom; and nothing gets between a mother and a child without being torn up and knocked aside on its ass.

And that, Jimmy thought, sipping the shake and smiling serenely, is just what happened to that asshole.

And I couldn't be happier about it.

---

"Where are we going, mom?" Jimmy looked at Alice worriedly. "We're not..." He licked his lips, took a sip of his shake, then licked his lips again--anything to keep from having to finish his sentence.
"We're not...?" Alice said, glancing questioningly at her son. "We're not what?"

"Not…you know…"

"Going back home?"

Jimmy nodded, biting his lip. "Yeah."

"No, we're not going back home."

Jimmy sighed, relieved.

Alice smiled down at him. "We're never going back there, little man. Never again." She parked the car, put on the parking brake, and shut it off. "We'll be staying here for now."

"Here?" Jimmy stuck his head out the window, and looked up--and up, and up, and up. "A hotel?" It was nice, for a hotel--at least, Jimmy thought so. He wasn't sure; this was actually the first time he'd ever been this close to a hotel before.

"Yup. We've got a pretty nice room. Three beds, a good view, top floor. There's even a deck and a little fridge." She smiled at him. "C'mon, kiddo, let's go. We've kept your sister waiting long enough."

"You left her here?" Jimmy looked at his mother with wide eyes. "Alone?"

Alice looked grim. "I had to, Jimmy. I didn't want to take her out with me. I thought your father might..." She shook her head. "I just couldn't do it. I felt she was safer locked in a room thirty-six floors up in a hotel your father knows nothing about, instead of in my car, with me. I didn't want to put her in that danger." She looked at him hopefully. "Do you understand, Jimmy?"

"Of course," Jimmy said instantly. Then he smiled. "You did the right thing, mom."

Alice smiled back at him. "Yes. For once, I think I did." She looked down at the food. "We'd better get this up there before it gets cold. And Ami was dreadfully hungry when I left. Never heard the girl whine so much." She winked at Jimmy. "C'mon, Hero Boy, let's get this up to her before she withers away."

"Yes, ma'am!"

---

They took as much as they could on this first trip up the building--Jimmy carried two bags, his mom carried four. They stood in the elevator, their cargo filling it with the scent of cheap, greasy American food (fattening, unhealthy, and patriotic). Both mother and son were eyeing their bags with positively voracious hunger; never had they been so hungry, so ready to sit down and devour, to eat and enjoy, as never before.

As they rose higher and higher, up into the sky, Jimmy thought back on his past meals with a hazy detachedness. He recalled sitting plank-straight in a too-fine chair at a too-fine table, eating food that looked nasty and tasted nastier. His father called it "gourmet;" Jimmy called it "garbage." It was all a mish-mash of contradictory flavors: the sweet and the sour, clashing like colliding semis; the hot and the cold, mingling as effectively as the aching poor and the snobbish rich. It was horrible, horrible food--and the dining was, in itself, horrible. Tom demanded a vile, stiff formality during mealtime: sit up straight, no elbows on the table, napkin on your lap, all your forks and spoons in order, all perfectly aligned; no talking, no playing around; only silence, dead, thick silence, filled with the sounds of quiet, cramped eating. It was so darkly oppressive that Jimmy found himself dreading eating at home, and sometimes he'd fake ill so he wouldn't have to sit at that table and feel like every move he made could bring down disaster.

The elevator rose and rose, and as it did, Jimmy felt the reality of these dark memories fade, overpowered by the sensational smell of Burger King cuisine. His fingers flexed against the brown paper bags; they itched and twitched as his stomach tossed and turned in his torso. He found himself staring raptly at the line of numbers above the elevator doors, watching them light up with every passing floor. Twenty-nine…thirty…thirty-one…thirty-two…thirty-three…thirty-four…thirty-five…

Thirty-six.

DING!

"Our floor, sonny-boy." Alice grinned as they stepped out onto the carpet. "It's room 310, just 'round the corner." She lead the way, her black high-heels clicking against the occasional tile. "Follow me, kiddo." She looked back at him, and smiled her sunshine smile. "And I'll take ya places."