“There’s a point if there are marshmallows,” George insists.

“Boob?” Patsy calls mournfully from the circle of Andy’s arms. “Where boob?”

“What if Daddy’s dead and they aren’t telling us?” interjects Andy. George begins to cry. When I pick him up, he snuggles his head against my shoulder, warm tears slipping on my bare skin. I’m reminded for a second of Nan crying in my arms, all defenses down. And how she’s raised her shields so completely now. What could have happened to fit, strong Mr. Garrett: a heart attack, a stroke, a brain aneurysm—

“He’s not dead,” Duff says stoutly. “When you’re dead, policemen come to your door. I’ve seen it on TV.”

Harry runs over to whip open the porch door. “No policemen,” he calls back. “But, uh…Hi Tim.”

“Hi kiddo.” Tim shoulders his way into the room, hair soggy, wetness shining on his Windbreaker. “Jase called me, Samantha. You go to the hospital. I’ll hang here.” He flips me the keys to the Jetta. “Go,” he repeats.

“I can’t drive.”

“Oh for f**k’s sake. Okay.” He turns to Andy. “I’ll take her to the hospital and then be back to help you…uh, do whatever…except change diapers.” He jabs his index finger at Patsy. “Don’t you dare poop.”

“Pooooooop,” Patsy says, in a small, subdued voice.

Before we get to the ER, Tim insists on skidding to a halt at a Gas-and-Go to buy cigarettes, scrabbling in his pockets for cash.

“We don’t have time for this,” I hiss. “Plus, it’s bad for your lungs.”

“Got ten bucks?” he rejoins. “My lungs are the least of our problems at the moment.”

I shove a handful of bills at him. Once he’s gotten his fix, we head off again toward the hospital.

There’s no sign of Mrs. Garrett. Or Alice. But Jase is sitting in one of the ugly orange plastic bucket seats in the waiting room, hunched over, heels of his hands against his forehead. Tim gives me an unnecessarily hard shove and takes off.

I slip into the seat next to Jase. He doesn’t move, either not noticing or not caring that there’s someone next to him.

I put my hand on his back.

His arms drop and he turns to look at me. His eyes are full of tears.

Then he wraps himself tight around me and I wrap around him. There we are for a long time, not saying a word.

After a while, Jase stands up, goes over to the water fountain, splashes water on his face, comes back over, and puts his cold, wet hands on my cheeks. We still haven’t said anything.

A door bangs. Alice.

“Head injury,” she tells Jase grimly. “He’s still unconscious. Maybe a subdural hematoma. They really can’t tell how serious right now, just containing. There’s a lot of swelling. Definitely a pelvic fracture—bad break. Some ribs…that’s not a big deal. It’s the brain stuff we won’t know about for a while.”

“Hell. Hell,” Jase says. “Alice.…”

“I know,” she says. “I don’t get it. Why was he walking on Shore Road so late? There aren’t any meetings out there. Not usually.”

Shore Road.

Shore Road.

It’s like some awful fog clears and I can see Mom driving home from Westfield, taking the uncrowded route along the river. McGuire Park. By the river. Shore Road.

“I’ve got to get back in there,” Alice tells us. “I’ll be out when I know more.”

I’ve never spent any time in hospitals. The waiting room fills up with people who appear desperately sick, and people who seem to be as calm as though they are waiting at a bus stop to travel on to a destination they don’t really care about. The small hand of the clock moves from two to three to four. Some of the bus stop people get called in before the people who look as though their time on earth is measured in milliseconds. Jase and I sit there as the monitors murmur. Doctor Rodriques. Paging Dr. Rodriques. Dr. Wilcox. Code blue. Dr. Wilcox.

At first I lean on Jase’s shoulder, then he bows his head and it dips lower and lower. By the time Alice returns, his head is in my lap and I’m nodding over his curls.

She shakes me forcefully, startling me back from some confused dream about Shore Road to this room with fluorescent lights and the weight of Jase in my lap and the catastrophe of everything.

“Mom says you two should go on home.” Alice pauses to swig from the bottle of Coke in her hand, then holds it against her temple. “He’s got to open the store. We can’t stay shut for a day. So he needs a few hours sleep.”

“What?” Jase jolts awake. “Huh?” He usually seems older than me, but now, his hair a mess and his drowsy green eyes hazy, he looks so young. Alice’s eyes meet mine, hers imperative, saying take care of him without uttering a word.

“Go home. We don’t know anything yet.” Alice polishes off her Coke in a few long swallows, and arcs it into the blue plastic recycling bin, a perfect basket.

The light rain is still falling when Jase and I go out to the van, droplets of soft mist. Jase tips his head to the sky, which is clouded over, impossible to see the stars.

We don’t say anything on the drive home, but he reaches out one hand from the steering wheel, tangling it with mine, holding on so tightly, it almost hurts.

The Garretts’ house is still lit like a birthday cake when we pull into the driveway.

“They can’t all be awake, still,” Jase mutters.

“They were pretty scared,” I say, wondering how much chaos there’ll be when we get in. Leaving Tim in charge? Perhaps not the best idea.

But the house is silent. The kitchen looks as though an invading army came hungry and left swiftly, cartons of ice cream, bags of chips and cereal boxes and bowls and plates stacked everywhere, but no one’s stirring.

“You could have mentioned that this kid never sleeps,” Tim calls from the living room. We go in to find him slumped in the easy chair next to the pulled-out sofa bed. Andy’s sprawled out on the bed, long tan legs in a V, George gathered in her arms. Duff, still in his clothes, lies across the bottom, Harry curled in a ball on the pillow under Andy’s outstretched leg. Safety, as much as could be found, must have lain in numbers.

Patsy’s fingering Tim’s nose and pulling on his bottom lip, her eyes wide-blue open.