But no, Katie couldn’t remember it.
Still, she brushed her hand through Devon’s hair and Devon let out the smallest sigh, like an aah after seeing things had turned out okay after all.
“Mom,” she said dreamily. “Don’t be mad at Dad. I think he’s sad.”
“What?” Katie said.
“We’re all sad,” Devon said. “Aren’t we?”
Her hand pressed on Eric’s back, she tried to settle herself. He’d never woken up, and the only sound now was his breathing, hoarse and ragged. For a second she thought she saw his lashes lift, the white of one eye looking at her, but she was wrong.
Chapter Eight
“Mrs. Knox, it’s Nurse Patty.”
“Who?”
“Nurse Patty. From Carver Elementary.”
“What?”
Everything was moving slowly in her head, a night of bad dreams, of beetles boring through smoked glass, of swimming pools coated with beetle shells.
Devon, that nightmare. The way she was standing in the middle of her room, seeing ghosts.
Then the day had hurdled past. Eric had gone to work before dawn, leaving Katie with the school drop-off, a conference call with the printer, a design deadline at noon, four parents trying to reach Eric. Then, just before two o’clock, came the call from Nurse Patty saying Drew had a sore throat and needed to be picked up immediately.
Looking at him now in the rearview mirror, his lips waxy and head lolling, Katie decided to drive straight to Dr. Kemper, who jabbed a swab down there and confirmed what she already knew: strep.
“Mom,” Drew said in the car after, “I think Devon made me sick. I dreamed she put rocks in my mouth.”
The line at the pharmacy was long, a shouting man with a fistful of prescription bottles at the front and behind him a woman scrambling on the floor to recover her phone’s battery cover.
A jumble of feet, a woolly roll of dust floating from under a towering vitamin display, the woman dropped to her hands and knees as the cover spun away. Finally, she collapsed in cross-legged defeat on the floor.
That was when Katie noticed the gentle tilt of her jaw, the sleepy eyes, just like her son’s.
“Mrs. Beck—Helen,” Katie said, “are you okay?”
She looked up at Katie, nodded.
Katie helped her to her feet.
“Thank you,” she said, crinkling her prescription bag between nervous fingers. “I’m having a bad day.”
“Here,” Drew said, stepping forward, her sooty battery cover in his infected hands.
“Thank you, honey.” She smiled, her eyes filling. “A little gent.”
First, Helen couldn’t find her rental car, then she wasn’t sure which way her hotel was.
“I thought you were staying with the Belfours.”
“I’m at the Days Inn now. I needed to get out of that house. It felt bad. All these whispered conversations. The police calling all the time.”
“The police?”
“And I haven’t been sleeping,” Helen said, shaking her head. “I came to pick up my meds before I head over to the station again. Your daughter’s Debbie, right?”
“Devon,” Katie said, looking toward the car, Drew now belted into the backseat, his face chalk white. She was eager to get him home, but Helen hooked her hand around Katie’s wrist. “The police station?”
“Yeah. You know, things finally seemed to be coming up roses for him,” she said, her face crumpling slightly in a way that made Katie ache. “Well, carnations at least.”
“I’m so sorry, Helen. I guess I already said that.”
“He would always find the lonely person in every room and go talk to them. Make them feel special.” She looked at Katie, smiling faintly. “I’m sure he did that for you.”
“Everybody liked Ryan,” Katie said.
Finally, Helen found her car but not her keys, so Katie offered to drive her to the police station a few blocks away.
As Drew waited in the car, Katie walked Helen to the entrance, the precinct building so old that green-tinted lanterns still stood sentinel on either side.
For a second, Helen just stood at the door. Then she took a deep breath.
“Thank you again, Katie.” Waving her phone, she added, “And thank your sweet boy for me.”
Behind her, a whey-faced man nearly stumbled to hold the door open for Helen.
“Ma’am,” he said, tipping his baseball cap as she walked past him. “At your service.”
“Did you see his hat?” Drew asked squeakily when she returned to the car.
He was watching the man stroll across the lot.
“No,” Katie said, taking a breath and then turning the ignition. “Don’t hurt your throat.”
“The orange cap he was wearing. It had two eyes on it. And one was droopy. It made his face look droopy.”
“That’s not very nice,” Katie said.