When we return to the kitchen, George is saying to Mom, “I like this cereal called Gorilla Munch on top of my ice cream. It’s not really made of gorillas.”

“Oh. Well. Good.”

“It’s really just peanut butter and healthy stuff.” George searches around in the box, tipping it, then heaps cereal into his bowl. “But if you buy boxes of cereal, you can save gorillas. And that’s really good, ’cause otherwise they can get instinct.”

My mother looks at me for translation. Or maybe salvation.

“Extinct,” I supply.

“That’s what I meant.” George pours milk on top of his cereal and ice cream, then stirs it vigorously. “That means they don’t mate enough and then they are dead forever.”

Silence falls again. Heavy silence. Dead forever. That phrase seems to reverberate in the air, at least for me. Mr. Garrett lying facedown in the rain, that image Jase added to the echo of that sickening thud. Does Mom see it too? She puts down her slice of pizza, her fingers tight on a paper towel as she dabs at her lips. Jase is staring at the floor.

My mother stands up so abruptly that her chair almost overturns. “Samantha, will you come outside with me for a moment?”

Dread snags at me. She’s not going to march me home to face Clay’s arm-twisting again. Please no. I glance at Jase.

Mom bends over the table so she’s eye to eye with George. “I’m sorry about your father,” she tells him. “I hope he feels better soon.” Then she rushes out the door, sure I’ll trail after her, even after everything.

Go, Jase mouths at me, lifting his chin toward the door. A look at those eyes and it’s clear; he has to know everything.

I hurry after my mom as her sandals click down the driveway. She stills, then turns slowly. It’s almost fully dark now, the streetlamp casting a shallow puddle of light on the driveway.

“Mom?” I search her face.

“Those children.”

“What about them?”

“I couldn’t stay any longer.” The words drag slowly out; then, in a rush. “Do you know Mr. Garrett’s room number? He’s at Maplewood Memorial, yes?”

Melodramatic scenarios crowd my mind. Clay will go there and put a pillow over Mr. Garrett’s face, an air bubble in his IV. Mom will…I no longer have any grasp of what she’ll do. Could she really come over and eat pizza and then do something terrible?

But she already has done something terrible, and then showed up with figurative lasagna. Here I am, your good neighbor. “Why?” I ask.

“I need to tell him what happened. What I did.” She compresses her lips, her gaze drawn back to the Garretts’ house, the light a perfect square in the screen door.

Oh thank God.

“Right now? You’re going to tell the truth?”

“Everything,” she replies in a small, soft voice. She reaches into her purse, taking out a pen and her tiny “flag this” notebook. “What’s his room number?”

“He’s in the ICU, Mom.” My voice is sharp—how can she not remember? “You can’t talk to him. They won’t let you in. You’re not family.”

She looks at me, blinks. “I’m your mother.”

I stare at her, completely confused, but then I realize. She thinks I meant she wasn’t my family. In the moment, it feels true. And I suddenly know I’m standing somewhere very far away from her. All my strength, all my will, is diverted into defending this family. My mom…What she’s done…I can’t defend her.

“They won’t let you into the room,” is all I say. “Only his immediate relatives.”

Her face twists and, with a jerk of my stomach, I interpret her expression. Some shame. Mainly relief. She won’t have to face him.

My eyes fall on the van, the driver’s-side door. I know who deserves the truth just as badly as Mr. Garrett, though.

Mom’s hand moves convulsively to smooth the skirt of her dress.

“You need to talk to Mrs. Garrett,” I say. “Tell her. She’s home. You can do it now.”

Again that snap of a gaze at the door, then a sharp turn of her head, as though the whole house is the scene of the accident. “I can’t go in there again.” Mom’s hand is rigid in mine as I pull at her, trying to urge her back up the driveway. Her palm is damp. “Not with all those children.”

“You have to.”

“I can’t.”

My eyes draw back to the door too, as though I’ll find the solution waiting there.

And I do. Jase, with Mrs. Garrett standing next to him. His shoulders are set, his arm tight around her.

The screen door opens and they come out.

“Senator Reed, I told my mom you had something to say.”

Mom nods, her throat working. Mrs. Garrett is barefoot, her hair sleep-rumpled, her face tired but composed. Jase can’t have told her.

“Yes, I—I need to speak with you,” Mom says. “In private. Would you—care to come have some lemonade at my house?” She dabs at her upper lip with one knuckle, adding, “It’s very humid tonight.”

“You can talk here.” Jase obviously doesn’t want his mother within range of Clay’s hypnotism. She raises her eyebrows at his tone.

“You’re more than welcome to come inside, Senator,” Mrs. Garrett’s own voice is soothing and polite.

“It will be just the two of us,” Mom assures Jase. “I’m sure my other company has left.”

“Right here will be fine,” he repeats. “Sam and I will keep the kids occupied inside.”

“Jase—” Mrs. Garrett begins, her cheeks flushing at her unaccountably rude child.

“That’s fine.” Mom takes a deep breath.

Jase opens the screen door, motioning me back in. I stand for a moment, looking from my mom to Mrs. Garrett and back again. Everything about the two women profiled in the driveway is poles apart. Mom’s sunny yellow sheath, her pedicured feet, Mrs. Garrett’s rumpled sundress and unpolished toenails. Mom’s taller, Mrs. Garrett younger. But the pucker between each of their brows is nearly identical. The apprehension washing over their faces, equal.

Chapter Fifty-one

I don’t know how my mother said it, if the truth gushed or seeped from her lips. Neither Jase nor I could hear above the clatter of the kitchen, only see their silhouettes in the deepening darkness when we had a moment to steal a look as we cleaned up pizza boxes, shooed the kids into bath or bed or toward the hypnotic mumble of the television. What I know is that after about twenty minutes, Mrs. Garrett opened the screen door of the kitchen, her face giving nothing away. She told Alice and Joel she was headed to the hospital and needed them to come with her, then turned to Jase. “You’ll come too?”

When they’ve gone, and Andy, obviously still suffering from the aftereffects of her Jake Gyllenhaal marathon, falls asleep on the couch, I hear a voice call from the back porch.

“Kid?”

I peer out the screen at the ember glow from Tim’s cigarette.

“Come on out. I don’t want to smoke indoors in case George wakes up, but I’m chaining, I can’t stop.”

I step out, surprised by how fresh the air smells, the leaves of the trees shifting against the darkened sky. I feel as though I’ve been locked in stale rooms, unable to breathe, for hours, days, eons. Even at McGuire Park, I couldn’t take a deep breath, not with knowing what I had to say to Jase.

“Want one?” Tim asks. “You look like you’re gonna puke.” He offers me the crumpled pack of Marlboros.

I have to laugh. “I definitely would if I did. Too late for you to corrupt me, Tim.”

“Corrupt” comes back to slap me—the Garretts know now. Have they called the police? The press? Where’s Mom?

“So.” Tim flicks the lighter open, crushing the previous butt under his flip-flops. “The truth is out there, huh?”

“I thought you’d gone home.”

“I booked it outside when you and Grace left. Thought Jase was going to spill it all, and it was a family time and all that shit.”

Yes, a nice little family gathering.

“But I didn’t want to go home in case, you know, somebody needed me for something. A ride, a punching bag, sexual favors.” I must make a face, because he bursts out laughing. “Alice, not you. Babysitting, whatever. Any of my many talents.”