“Drew, I’m sorry. I had to see Teddy. A lot is happening now. Things I need to take care of.”
“Why do you always leave me by myself?” He said it louder, with startling firmness.
“Honey, I don’t. And I’m sor—”
“I’m always by myself.”
She looked at him, those coffee-bean eyes, and put her hand to his forehead.
“Did you get spooked, honey?”
“I thought maybe I’d get in trouble. For leaving. But I had to. Because Dad was so weird.”
“No,” she said. “You’re not in trouble. And I’m so sorry.”
He nodded, vaguely. That was when she noticed it, perched on the utility shelf: the two-liter bottle studded with rock salt, clouded pink. The remnants of Drew’s science project, abandoned due to illness. The second failed attempt.
“Drew,” she said. “The brine shrimp in the oil. What happened the first time?”
He paused, throat clicking.
“Remember? I had to throw them away.”
“Why?”
“You know. They spilled. That’s why I put them up higher this time. But then I got sick.”
“How did they spill?” She only remembered Drew telling her. The night after they found out about Ryan. The night after Ryan died.
Drew looked at her, and Katie was alarmed to see his chin shaking.
“Maybe she didn’t want me to win the science fair.”
“What?”
“Maybe that’s why she did it. She never won a science fair.”
“Who?”
“Devon. You told me to put the container in the garage while they hatched. And she knocked it over with Dad’s car. So they all died.”
“What?” she said again, kept saying. Something throbbing in her head. “Devon doesn’t drive by herself. She doesn’t even have her license.”
“I kept telling you she was. You said I was dreaming. I’d hear her in the garage at night. I told Dad.”
Katie looked up at the garage ceiling, Drew’s room right above it.
“I told him a long time ago. Like when it was Easter. I said Devon sometimes took his car after we all went to sleep. Or early, before the newspaper came.”
“Drew.”
Sneaking in the garage, sneaking the car out. The constant rumble and traffic of their home. The garage door open most of the time. Was it possible?
“I guess Dad finally caught her. I heard them in here. I went to check on the shrimp and I saw them through the door crack. She was crying. She was crying and he couldn’t get her to come out of the car. And she kept holding the wheel except the car wasn’t on anymore. She was holding it tight like you are now.”
Katie looked down at her hands, shaking.
“He kept telling her she needed to be quiet,” Drew said. “That Mom would hear.”
Katie nodded.
“She was crying and she wouldn’t stop. She sounded funny. I never saw her cry. And then Dad stopped yelling. He told her he would fix things.”
“Drew,” she said, looking down at him, “this was a week ago Saturday, wasn’t it? The night Ryan died.”
He didn’t say anything, breathing softly.
“Drew.”
He nodded.
As if in some silent agreement, they both opened their car doors, stepped out.
When she tried to reach for him, he moved away, pointing down at the floor. Not looking at her.
“I went in after,” he said. “The plastic bottle was stuck under the tire. I couldn’t pull it loose. She knocked all the water out and all the eggs too. They died before they were real.”
“They weren’t real yet, Drew. I promise.”
“But they were going to die anyway,” he said, shrugging. “Once I put the oil in.” He paused. “Maybe Devon didn’t want me to win.”
“Drew.” Taking a breath, Katie reached for his arm. “You know this is about more than your experiment, don’t you?”
He paused and in that pause Katie saw his little face age ten years.
Then he nodded.
“Oh, Drew,” she said, her hand on his arm tighter now, “why didn’t you tell me?”
He didn’t say anything, plucking at the peeling skin on his temple.
“You know what you’re telling me, right? About your sister?”
He nodded.
“You’ve known all along.”
He looked at her, eyes glassy and bottomless, and said, “Yeah, Mom.”
Rummaging through the recycling, she couldn’t find an empty two-liter. Three doors down, she lifted the lid on the biggest bin on the block and took two.
She had decided it was to be their lost hour.
An amnesia. An hour free from everything else that had happened, was happening.
Maybe it was a kind of madness, but it was the least she owed him.
Drew rinsed the bottles, then she took the bread knife and sliced off the tops. Together, they filled them with water and salt. They marked the waterline with a Sharpie to monitor evaporation, and then Drew sprinkled the eggs inside.
Katie cleared everything from the highest shelf in the TV room. All of Devon’s trophies, three BelStars albums. She dumped them on the sofa, dust gusting.
“It’ll be safe here,” she said, setting the two-liters down on the swollen wood.
“Yeah.” Drew nodded.