I sigh into his neck, dropping the shirt to the floor as Jase’s hands slip down the bend of my waist, pulling me close enough that his heartbeat sounds against mine.

What I’m imagining is true cannot possibly, cannot possibly, be the truth, so I hold on to Jase and try to pour all my love and any strength I have into him, through my lips and my arms and my body. I push away that whisper of “Shore Road” and Mom saying “Oh my God” and Clay’s steady voice and that awful thump. I fold them up, pack them away, wrap them in bubble wrap and duct tape.

We’ve been urgent together, in a hurry to feel all we can feel, but never like this, never so frantic. He’s pulling at my shirt and I’m gliding my palms up his smooth sides, feeling his muscles twitch with tension and response, his lips warm on my throat, my fingers in his hair, a little desperate and somehow a relief, some sense of the strength of life in this still night.

Afterward, Jase ducks his head, bending it heavily against my shoulder, breathing hard. We say nothing for a while.

Then, “Do I need to apologize?” he asks. “I don’t know what that…I don’t know why I…It helped, but…”

I slide my fingers slowly to his lips. “No, don’t. Don’t. It helped me too.”

We stay there for a long time, our heartbeats edging gradually back to normal, sweat drying on our skin, our breaths intermingling. Finally, without words, we climb into Jase’s bed. He urges my head to his chest gently, warm hand against my neck. In no time, his breathing evens out, but I lie awake, staring at the ceiling.

Mom. What did you do?

Chapter Forty

“Jase. Honey? Jase.” Mrs. Garrett’s voice is loud outside the hushed room. She rattles the doorknob slightly, but he’d locked it, so it doesn’t open. He springs up, at the door in a flash, his tall body silhouetted against the light, unlocking, but then opening it as little as possible.

“Is Dad…What’s happening?” His voice cracks.

“He’s stable. They did an emergency procedure—drilled something called a burr hole to relieve pressure in his skull. Alice says that’s standard. I just came home to change clothes and pump for Patsy. Joel’s there. We really can’t tell much until he wakes up.” Her voice is strong but full of tears. “Sure you can take care of the store today?”

“I’m on it, Mom.”

“Alice is going to stay with me, to interpret the medical-ese. Joel has to go to work, but he’ll be back tonight. Can you get Tim to help you out? I know it’s not his day, but—” Moving out into the hall, he bends to hug her. I always think of Mrs. Garrett as tall. With a shock, I realize she’s as small as me against her lanky son.

“It’ll be fine. We’ll work it out. Tim already said he’d open up. Tell Dad…tell Dad I love him. Bring something to read to him. The Perfect Storm book? He’s been wanting to read that one forever. It’s in his truck.”

“Samantha? Can you stay with the kids?” Mrs. Garrett calls.

Even in the dim light, I see him flush. “Sam was just…” He trails off. Poor Jase. What can he say? Dropping by? Helping me feed the animals?

“It’s okay,” she says quickly. “Can you stay, Sam?”

“I’ll be here,” I call.

The day passes in a blur. I do the things I do when babysitting for the Garretts, but they don’t work the way they’re supposed to. I’ve never had Patsy for more than a few hours, and it’s a toss-up which she hates more—the bottle or me. Mrs. Garrett calls in at ten, apologizing: She can’t come home to nurse her and there’s some breast milk in the freezer. Patsy won’t have any of that. She bats the bottle away, wailing. By two in the afternoon, she’s a red-faced, sobbing, sweaty mess. I know from the note of hysteria in her cry how tired she is, but she won’t nap. When I put her in the crib she throws all the stuffed animals out of it in a clear protest. George doesn’t leave my side. He recites facts to me in a hushed, tense tone, clutching my arm to make sure I pay attention, crying easily. Harry systematically works his way through the things he’s not supposed to do, hitting George and Duff, throwing an entire roll of toilet paper in the toilet “to see what happens,” taking a tube of cookie dough out of the refrigerator and starting to eat it with his fingers. By the time Jase comes in at five, I’m inches away from lying down on the rug next to Patsy and drumming my heels too. But I’m glad I’m busy because it almost…not quite, but almost…shuts down the line of thoughts that run through my mind like a news crawl at the bottom of a TV screen. This can’t have anything to do with Mom. It can’t. There’s no way.

Jase looks so drained, and I pull myself together, ask how sales went, if he’s heard more from the hospital.

“More nothing,” he says, unlacing one sneaker and tossing it into the mudroom. “He’s stable. There’s no change. I don’t even know what stable’s supposed to mean. He’s been hit by a car and had a hole drilled in his skull. ‘Stable’ is what you say when everything is the same. But nothing’s the same here.” He throws his second sneaker hard against the wall, leaving a black smudge. The noise startles Patsy in my arms and she starts wailing again.

Jase looks at her, then reaches out his arms, cuddles her in, his tan skin stark against her soft pale arms. “I’m guessing your day sucked too, Sam.”

“Not the same way.” Patsy grabs a fistful of his T-shirt and tries to put it in her mouth.

“Poor baby,” Jase says softly into Patsy’s neck.

Alice comes home soon after this, bringing pizza and more no news wrapped in medical jargon. “They had to do the burr hole to relieve intracranial pressure, Jase. Swelling of the brain is always a concern when there’s a head injury, and it seems as though he landed right on his head. But patients usually recover from that with no long-term sequelae—consequences—as long as there isn’t additional trauma we don’t know about yet.”

Jase shakes his head, biting his lip and turning away as the younger kids tumble into the kitchen, lured by the smell of pizza and the sound of older people who can make sense of everything.

“I biked out to Shore Road this afternoon,” Duff offers, “looking for clues. Nothin’.”

“This isn’t CSI, Duff.” Alice’s voice is sharper than the wheel she’s using to slice pizza.

“It’s a mystery, though. Someone hit Dad and just drove away. I thought maybe I’d see skid marks and we could ID the tires. Or broken bits of plastic from a headlight or something. Then maybe we could match it to a certain type of car and—”

“Get nowhere,” Alice says. “Whoever hit Dad is long gone.”

“Most hit-and-run drivers are never identified,” admits Duff. “I read that online too.”

I shut my eyes as a shameful wave of relief rolls through me.

Jase walks over to the screen door, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Jesus. How could someone do that? What kind of a person would? Hit someone—hit another human being with their car and just keep on going?”

I feel sick. “Maybe they didn’t know they’d hit someone?”

“Impossible.” His voice is harder, tougher than I’ve ever heard it. “When you’re driving, you know when you hit a rough patch of gravel, an old piece of tire, a fast-food container, a dead squirrel. No way could you hit a one-hundred-and-seventy-pound man and not notice.”

“Maybe the person who hit him was the person he was meeting up with,” Duff speculates “Maybe Dad is involved in some top secret business and—”

“Duff. This is not Spy Kids. This is real life. Our life.” Alice shoves a paper plate violently toward her younger brother.

Duff’s face flushes, tears flooding his eyes. He swallows, looking down at his slice. “I’m just trying to help.”

Jase moves behind him, squeezing his shoulder. “We know. Thanks, Duffy. We know.”

The little kids dig in, their appetites intact, despite everything.