Driving home, radio loud, muffler scraping the pavement, Katie tried to shake it off, but there was no shaking it off. Everything had been so exaggerated, stretched like in a carnival mirror—that jagged mouth, those slit eyes, the heave of those swimmer’s shoulders smeared against the smoked glass, Hailey’s muscled arms jerking, head knocking back as she tried to pull the door.
It reminded Katie, fleetingly, of the time her stepdad raged on the front lawn after her mother locked him out. Howling and shouting for hours, chucking pebbles and gravel at all their windows, snagging the screens. Running around looking for something—anything—larger to throw.
And there was something else she’d never seen on Hailey’s face before.
A kind of intensity that reminded her, in some small way, of Devon.
“But Dad,” Devon was saying, her voice high, “look at it.”
Katie found them in the garage. Eric was standing outside his car, apparently back from the shop, leaning over Devon as she sat in the front seat, legs shaking.
“You picked her up from practice?” Katie said to Eric. “I told you she was getting a ride with the Hargrove girls.”
They both turned and faced her in the same moment, their matching gray eyes.
“It’s my hand again, Mom,” Devon said, rising, holding her wrist. “That same spot.”
“Okay,” Katie said, head aching from garage smells—solvent, or aerosol, the epoxy they used on the floors. The musky shrimp smell from Drew’s science project. “Let’s go inside.”
Under the harsh glare of the kitchen light, the wrist looked pink and puffy, a doll’s.
“Can you feel that?” Katie rested her fingers gently on Devon’s skin, hot to the touch.
“It’s not broken,” Devon said. “I know the difference.”
“Did you have your Tiger Paws on?”
“I told you they make my wrists weaker.”
“But for the vault—”
“Mom, no,” she said, pulling her wrist away, holding it against her flat, hard chest. Looking at it made Katie feel extravagantly bosomy, fleshful. Obscene. “I just need to ice it.”
“Dad thinks you’ve been overdoing it too,” Katie said, in case that might matter more. “We both agreed.”
“What kind of box did they put him in?” Drew asked. “Ryan.”
“A nice one,” Katie said, taking a breath. “Help me set the table.”
Drew was the only one who’d asked about the funeral, wanting to know how deep they had to dig. And if it would be quiet down there, and if Ryan would like it, even though he was dead.
“He likes it, sweetie. I’m sure of it.”
She grabbed the forks, pricking the heel of her hand. She was still wearing her black dress. It felt wet inside.
“Like how beetles are,” Drew decided. “They make a hole in the wood and stay there.”
From upstairs, she could hear Eric moving. From the basement, Devon.
“Sometimes it’s for years. All by themselves,” Drew said. “Do you think they get lonely?”
Katie looked at him, half hidden behind the stack of dinner plates he carried.
A rush of heat pushed under her eyes.
The thing you try never to think about when you go to a funeral is the thing that’s really happening. The body in the box going into the ground.
But now, with Drew there, his chin resting on the plates, looking at her gravely, talking more about beetles, all she could think of was Ryan Beck, in a box in the ground, all alone.
Everyone picked at the defrosted ziti except Devon, who held her wrist and sipped a green smoothie through a straw. Practice had been confused and unproductive again, she said. Everyone kept wondering about the funeral, talking about the mug shot of Ryan on the news.
“And saying things about Hailey. All kinds of things.”
“What things?” Katie asked. “What about her? Was it about the police?”
“The police?” Eric asked. “What did you hear?”
Devon shrugged. “I tried not to listen.”
“You shouldn’t listen,” Eric said, leaning back. “Those girls, they can’t help it, but they’ll also distract you if they can.”
“The flexion, I could feel it,” Devon said, staring at her wrist. “There’s no time to rest it before qualifiers.”
“I like Hailey,” Drew said. “I feel bad for her.”
“We all do,” Katie said, rubbing his hand. But all she could think about was Hailey’s face behind the glass, Ryan’s body in that box. Her head ached.
“I wonder when it’ll get back to normal,” Devon said, chin resting on the rim of the glass.
“Soon,” Eric said. “Try to put it all out of your head.”
“It’s only been four days,” Katie said, looking at Eric. “The Belfours are in mourning.”
But they were talking over her, talking about Devon’s heel drive and the new vaulting table. It all seemed impossible, the way they were just charging forward.
“The vault’s pitched too low,” Eric said. “I saw it right when I walked in. I’ll talk to Bobby.”
“No, it was my fault,” Devon said. “There was just so much noise in the gym. Everyone talking, no one working. Dad, I can’t get that double twist back on my Yurchenko.”
Eric nodded, a stitch of worry over his brow. “Slow and low, I know.”
“The funeral was just today,” Katie tried again, louder.