“Mom,” she said, pressing her face against Katie’s shoulder, “I’m really glad we talked.”
It was a full embrace like Devon hadn’t offered in years, not since four-year-old Drew had poured milk in her fish tank and killed all her angelfish, not since she’d left her first gym for BelStars.
“But Mom,” she whispered, her head ducked down toward Katie’s chest. “Don’t tell Dad.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because it’s private,” she said, voice soft, plaintive. “It’s girl stuff. Stuff you share with your mom.”
“Devon, I—”
“And because,” Devon added, breathing in long and hard, “he’d get so mad. Sometimes, he gets so mad.”
“He just wants to protect you,” Katie said, feeling something churning inside.
“Yeah,” Devon said, eyes black, chewing on that nail again. “I know.”
In bed later, everything batting around in her brain, she decided she wouldn’t tell Eric. Not yet, at least. Besides, it was something Devon had shared with her. Mothers and daughters shared things.
III
There is something bad here, growing. Day and night I watch it. Growing.
—Sophocles, Electra
Chapter Twelve
“Oh my God, baby.”
Marbled red, Drew’s skin felt like sandpaper under her hands.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he said. “But it feels weird.”
Pulling off his pajama top, she found dark red lines on his underarms, his elbows, any crease in his soft little body.
Behind her, Eric was already on the phone with Dr. Kemper, his voice shaking and sleep-thick.
“He’s just…it’s like someone took a paintbrush to him. What the hell did you dose him with?”
“I’ll take him,” she said, Drew’s skin bright white under the pressure of her fingertips. “You stay with Devon.”
For twenty minutes she sat with Drew in the car, the parking lot nearly empty, slicked clean from all the rain the night before.
“The Knox I barely see.” Dr. Kemper winked at Drew as he unlocked the front door. “You finally figured out how to get my attention.”
One look at Drew’s face under the exam room’s fluorescent lights was all he needed.
“Don’t worry,” he warned Katie, “it sounds much worse than it is.”
The only person she’d ever heard of getting it was Beth March in Little Women.
As they hurried through the waiting room, Eric called.
“Honey,” she whispered into the phone. “Um.”
A bleary, streaky-nosed kid and his wan parents were staring at dappled Drew, his face like raw bacon.
“It’s scarlet fever,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand. “It’s fine, but Drew has scarlet fever.”
Both parents looked up, alarmed, the mother clutching her son closer to her chest.
“Christ,” Eric said. “Isn’t that from the Civil War?”
“It can come with strep. The strep releases a toxin—”
“How could he get it when he’s already on antibiotics? I always knew that guy was a quack. Teddy’s doctor. All he knows are cortisone shots and horse pills.”
“Who else do you know who sees patients on Sundays?” Katie said, voice low as she could make it. “He says it does happen. He increased the dosage and he says in twenty-four hours, the fever will go away and the rash will just—”
“Let me talk to him.” That sharp rap again.
“He’s with another patient. And Eric, you need to—”
“I mean Drew,” he said, more softly now. “Can I talk to my son?”
Katie said nothing, handing the phone to Drew.
“Dad,” he chirped, “it’s like in The Velveteen Rabbit. Remember how they had to burn all the toys?”
Katie rested her hand on the top of his head, trying to breathe.
Devon was standing on the front lawn, gym bag in hand, when Katie pulled up the drive.
“I’m going to the Y,” she said. “I’ll work the weights.”
“You will not,” Katie said, jumping out of the car. “You’re not going anywhere after what happened yesterday.”
“Dad said he’d take me,” she said, backing away from Drew, even from Katie. “Mom, I need to.”
She wouldn’t even step into the garage, or look at her brother.
“We’ll just do a few hours’ practice,” Eric said, pulling the covers over Drew, who slumped into face-squashing sleep in seconds. “I’ll be with her the whole time.”
“Go, just go,” Katie said. “Both of you. Go.”
“After, I’ll take her to lunch. I’ll explain.”
Katie was listening, but she wasn’t.
Drew’s eyes fluttered like when he was a baby.
The rest of the morning, taking care of Drew, scrubbing everything with bleach until her hands cracked, she had the feeling things were happening, but no one was calling her back, no one seemed to be anywhere they should be.