“Sorry, man,” Jase says. “She’s usually good to go at bedtime.”

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to this kid? That is one f**ked-up story. How is that a book for babies?”

Jase laughs. “I thought it was about babysitting.”

“Hell no, it’s addiction. That friggin’ mouse is never satisfied. You give him one thing, he wants something else, and then he asks for more and on and on and on. Fucked up. Patsy liked it, though. Fifty thousand times.” Tim yawns, and Patsy snuggles more comfortably onto his chest, grabbing a handful of shirt. “So what’s doin’?”

We tell him what we know—nothing—then put the baby in her crib. She glowers, angry and bewildered for a moment, then grabs her five pacifiers, closes her eyes with a look of fierce concentration, and falls very deeply asleep.

“See you at the store, dude. I’ll open up. ’Night Samantha.” Tim heads out into the dark.

Jase and I stand in the doorway for a few minutes, watching Tim’s headlights light up, the Jetta backing out of the driveway.

Then the silence gapes between us.

“What if Dad’s got brain damage, Sam? A head injury? What if he’s in a coma? What if he never wakes up?”

“We don’t know how serious it is yet,” I say. It can’t be bad. Please don’t let it be bad.

Jase bends over, pulling off a sock. “His head, Sam? No way that’s good. Mom and Dad don’t have health insurance for themselves. Just for us kids.”

I shut my eyes, rubbing my forehead as though that’ll erase those words.

“They dropped it last spring,” Jase tells me softly. “I heard them talking…they said only for a few months, they were both healthy, young enough, nothing pre-existing…it wasn’t a big deal.” He drops his second sneaker with a clunk, adding, under his breath, “It is now.”

I swallow, shaking my head, nothing to say for consolation, for anything, really.

Straightening, he reaches a hand for me, drawing me toward the stairs.

His room’s gently lit by the heat lamp in Voldemort’s cage, a faint red glow that barely illuminates the other cages and nests, redolent with the earthy plant smell and the tang of the clean sawdust in the animal cages, scored by the soft whirring noise of the hamster wheel.

He turns on his bedside light, takes his cell phone out of his back pocket, turns up the volume on the ringer, drops it on the bedside table. He moves Mazda the cat, who’s sprawled in the middle of the bed with her paws in the air, to the bottom. He goes over to his bureau, pulls out a white T-shirt and hands it to me.

“Sam,” he whispers, turning to me, a beautiful, bewildered boy.

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.