“We didn’t see it,” Mark said. They frequently spoke for each other.
“Maybe you need glasses,” Del said. He considered the two backpacks dropped near the front door beside their discarded tennis shoes and jackets. “Doesn’t look like you can see your backpack or clothes either.”
They didn’t respond, which, for nine-year-old boys, was always an admission of guilt. They could ordinarily think up excuses on the fly. Del flipped through the mail and saw the name Allie Marcello in one of the windows. It looked like a check, likely Allie’s final payment from her job at the coffee shop. He didn’t need to see that at the moment, nor did his sister.
Feeling tears, he said, “Okay. Come on into the kitchen. I got burritos.”
The boys scrambled off the couch, following him like two dogs about to be fed. Del turned on the kitchen light. Pots, plates, and glasses filled with utensils littered the counter and the sink. Cabinet doors had been left open. A dish towel lay on the floor. He set the mail on the stack he’d placed on the tile counter the prior day, still unopened. His list of groceries had also not been touched.
“Get out some clean plates, Stevie.”
Del opened the refrigerator and found the shelves bare but for a few condiments and leftovers from the spaghetti he’d made two nights earlier. He’d need to go shopping again if he couldn’t get his sister out of her room.
“We don’t have any,” Stevie said, looking at the empty cabinet.
Del opened the dishwasher. “Didn’t I ask you to put the dishes away last night?”
“We forgot,” Mark said.
“Probably all that homework you were doing has taxed your brain.”
“They can tax your brain?” Mark said, wide-eyed.
“They tax everything else,” Del said. He pulled clean plates from the dishwasher and handed them to the boys. “You need utensils?”
“For what?” Stevie asked.
“Never mind.”
The boys carried the plates to the kitchen table. The legs of their chairs shuddered as they slid them across the linoleum. Mark started to twist the top off a half-empty bottle of Diet Coke.
“Not for dinner,” Del said.
Mark looked and sounded like he’d been deprived of a constitutional right. “What are we supposed to drink?”
“Milk,” Del said.
“We’re out.”
Del set the bag on the counter and pulled out a carton of milk. He should have purchased two, maybe a whole cow, given how quickly the boys went through a carton.
“My man!” Stevie lifted his hand in the air. “Don’t leave me hanging, Uncle Del.”
Del gave him a high-five. Not to be outdone, Mark held out his fist for a bump. “Bring it home, Uncle D.”
Del returned the fist bump and filled the two glasses. The boys nearly drained them. Mark burped and Stevie tried to best him.
“How about an ‘excuse me’?” Del said.
“Why? Did you fart?” Mark said. That set them both off laughing.
“You guys are a couple comedians.” Del handed them chicken burritos. They peeled off the tinfoil and went at them like they hadn’t eaten all day. “Did you use the money I gave you to buy lunch today?”
“Yeah,” Stevie said, through a mouth full of rice and beans.
“What did they have?”
“Pizza.”
“When’s the last time either of you ate a vegetable?”
“I don’t know,” Mark said.
“I had an apple slice at school,” Stevie said.
“Close enough. After you eat, I want to see your day planners. I want to see what you have for homework.”
“We don’t have any,” Stevie said.
“Thought you said you were taking a break?” Del arched his eyebrows.
Stevie looked over the top of his burrito at Mark, whose eyes widened in the universal sign for Shut up, you idiot!
“Never lie to a detective,” Del said. He rubbed the tops of their heads and departed the kitchen, turning on the hall light. He passed the door to Allie’s room, still closed, and knocked twice on the door at the end of the hall. Colored light from the television flickered out the gap between the door and the hardwood. Del pushed the door open.
Maggie sat on top of the bedcovers in pajama bottoms and a bathrobe. The lights were off. The blue-gray of the television flickered about the room. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She tucked her bare feet beneath her and tried in vain to straighten her hair. She looked like someone who’d had the flu for a week and hadn’t showered.
“Have you gotten out of bed today, Maggie?”
“Yeah,” she said, a little too quickly. “I was . . . I was out. I just climbed in an hour ago.”
“Where’d you go?”
“I ran some errands.”
“Did you go grocery shopping like I asked you?”
“Yeah, I got a few things.”
Del walked to the window and cracked it open. The room smelled stale, like an old person’s closet. He turned on a wall lamp on the other side of the bed.
“The grocery list is still on the counter.”
“I forgot to bring it.”
“Your car is parked in the exact same spot as yesterday.”
“I parked it there when I got back. The space was still open.”
Del had chalked her front tire the previous night. She hadn’t moved the car. Never lie to a detective.
“Did you call the name of that therapist I left for you?” He pointed to the scrap of paper on her cluttered nightstand.
She turned as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh, uh, no. I got busy and forgot.”
“If you don’t call tomorrow, I’m going to make an appointment for you.”
“I don’t need you to make an appointment for me.”
“Tomorrow. Or I call.”
Maggie sighed and looked away.
He picked up clothes from the floor and tossed them on a chair in the corner. “You still got two boys out there who need their mother, Maggie. There’s no food in the house. They’re wearing the same clothes they had on yesterday, and they’re not doing their homework.”
She wiped tears with the bedsheet, then clutched it tightly to her chest. “It just hurts so bad, Del. It hurts all the time.”
He bit back tears. “I know,” he said. “But the boys need their mother, Maggie, more now than ever.”
“So did Allie, Del. And I wasn’t here for her.” Her crying intensified.
“You did everything you could for Allie. You’re not responsible.”
“I was her mother,” she whispered, the tears now racking her body, coming in great sobs of pain.
Del moved to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Heroin killed Allie—heroin and the people who supplied it. Not you.” He sat on the edge of her bed, silent for a long minute. Feeling himself getting angry, he stood. “I bought you a burrito. Come out and eat with the boys.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“This morning. I had coffee.”
“Coffee isn’t food. You need to eat.”
“I can’t. I feel nauseous when I eat.”
“Then just come and sit with them.”
“I will. Tomorrow I will.”
Del didn’t push it. “What about work?”
“I’m on bereavement leave. I have another two weeks.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Then I go back to work.”
“You think you can, like this?”