Chương 3
Laura could hear only pieces.
“She was joking…”
“No, it wasn’t funny…”
“Laura didn’t…”
“I don’t know exactly where her hand…”
Matt returned from moving his car.
“You should probably take Noah home.”
Laura looked at him.
“Am I allowed to leave?”
Officer Ruiz, overhearing, nodded. “I have your information. We’ll contact you if we need anything else.”
Matt rubbed his forehead.
“I’ll text you from the hospital.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe don’t call Mom tonight.”
Laura nearly asked whether he was serious.
Then she saw his face.
He was not protecting Evelyn.
Not exactly.
He was trying to prevent the next thing.
Matt had built his entire adult personality around preventing the next thing.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Right.”
He glanced at Noah.
“Hey, buddy.”
Noah hid behind Laura’s arm.
Matt’s mouth tightened.
“I’ll let you know.”
Laura took Noah through the house rather than past the blood on the patio.
The kitchen looked absurdly normal.
A bowl of watermelon sat beside the sink. Someone had left a bottle of mustard open. Birthday cards were propped along the counter, including the one Evelyn had given Noah that morning with twenty dollars tucked inside.
Laura stopped.
Noah bumped gently into her back.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She picked up the card.
She almost left it.
Instead she put it in her purse because she did not know what else to do.
In the car, Noah sat without speaking.
Laura started the engine and turned off the radio before it could begin.
The drive from Evelyn’s neighborhood to their apartment took twenty-two minutes on a normal Sunday.
That afternoon it took thirty-one because of road construction near Route 17.
Laura noticed every red light.
At the third one, Noah said, “Grandma did it before.”
Laura looked in the rearview mirror.
“What?”
He was staring out the side window.
“The cake thing?”
“No.”
The light changed.
Someone behind Laura tapped their horn.
She drove.
“What did she do before?”
Noah shrugged.
“Stuff.”
Laura gripped the wheel.
“What stuff?”
“I don’t wanna say.”
“All right.”
“She said not to.”
Laura nearly missed the turn.
“Grandma told you not to tell me something?”
Noah pressed his lips together.
Laura pulled into the parking lot of a pharmacy, stopped in a space beside a cart return, and put the car in park.
She turned around.
Noah’s eyes widened.
“You’re not in trouble.”
“I know.”
“Whatever Grandma told you, you are not in trouble for telling me.”
He looked down at his sneakers.
“Can we go home?”
Laura wanted answers.
She wanted them instantly, all of them, clean and chronological.
Instead she saw the pulse beating in the small hollow of his throat.
“Yes.”
She turned back around.
“We can go home.”
Their apartment smelled faintly of the cinnamon candle Laura had blown out before leaving that morning.
Noah kicked off his white sneakers without untying them.
Normally she would have told him not to do that.
She did not.
He went to the living room and curled into the far corner of the couch.
Laura brought him water.
He did not drink it.
“Do you want me to put on something?”
He shrugged.
“Cartoons?”
Another shrug.
“Can I sit here?”
Noah looked at her as if it were a strange question.
“You live here.”
A laugh escaped Laura before she could stop it.
Tiny.
Broken.
Noah stared at her.
Then he laughed too.
For perhaps five seconds they both made the kind of quiet, inappropriate laughter that sometimes comes after something frightening, when the body does not know what else to do.
Then Noah started crying.
Laura moved beside him.
He climbed into her lap in a way he had not done for almost a year.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For Grandma falling.”
Laura held the back of his head.
“You did not make Grandma fall.”
“If I ate the cake, she wouldn’t have.”
Laura closed her eyes.
There it was.
The child’s perfect terrible logic.
Everything in the world happened because he had failed to behave correctly.
“Noah.”
He was shaking.
“If I just did what she said—”
“No.”
“But—”
“No.”
Laura pulled back enough to see him.
“You listen to me. Grandma chose to put your cake on the ground. I chose to take you away. Grandma chose to follow us. I chose to move that plate. Grandma slipped. You did not cause any of those choices.”
“But it was my cake.”
“It could have been a lamp, a sandwich, a shoe, anything. You are not responsible for grown-ups making bad choices around you.”
Noah sniffed.
“She said I make you tired.”
Laura felt something tighten under her ribs.
“When?”
He immediately looked away.
“When did she say that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Today?”
“No.”
“At her house?”
Silence.
Laura’s phone began ringing on the kitchen counter.
She ignored it.
“Was I there?”
“No.”
“Was she babysitting you?”
Noah nodded.
The phone stopped.
Then started again.
Laura could see Matt’s name on the screen from the couch.
She let it ring.
“What else did she say?”
Noah wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Laura almost corrected him out of habit.
“She said you used to have a better life.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“What exactly did she say?”
He frowned, working at the memory.
“That before me you could go places.”
Laura said nothing.
“And buy stuff.”
He pulled at a loose thread on his shorts.
“And sleep.”
The last word nearly undid her.
Evelyn had said versions of those things to Laura.
You look exhausted.
You never go anywhere anymore.
You used to take care of yourself.
All comments that could pass for concern if examined alone.
Noah had been hearing the other side of them.
“Did she say you were the reason?”
He nodded.
Laura’s phone stopped ringing.
A text appeared.
MATT: Mom has a concussion. They’re doing CT. Stitches probably. She keeps asking what police said.
Laura stared at it.
May you like
Another message came.
MATT: She says you shoved her.
