“Okay.” They did this sometimes. She helped him role-play scenarios when she worried his Asperger’s was going to get in the way.
“So go on … Tell me what you remember.”
“You and Dad and Violet were fighting.”
She nodded. “That’s right. Only we were arguing, not fighting. ‘Fighting’ can sometimes mean hitting. And we weren’t hitting. We were just having an argument.”
“You were arguing,” Will corrected himself. “Because Violet had made a mess in the dishwasher.”
There was her approving nod again. She was proud that he’d remembered that detail.
“I’d made a special vegetarian dinner for her, hadn’t I?”
Will hesitated. “Yes.”
“And Violet wouldn’t eat it.”
“No.”
“So then what happened? What happened in the kitchen?”
“Violet started pointing the knife at you.”
“And what was that like?”
“Scary.”
“You were really frightened, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” Will had been frightened. The thought of someone, anyone, hurting his mother was more than he could bear.
“Remember to tell the woman that. That’s the kind of thing she’ll want to hear.”
“I was scared. I’ll tell her.”
“What happened next?”
Will stared into the skid marks his spoon made in the ice cream bowl. “Violet said she saw Rose in the foyer.”
When he looked up, a shadow had fallen across his mother’s cheek, and the whites showed in the bottom-most part of her eyes.
“No,” she said. “You’re confusing things. Do you have any idea what would happen if you said that to this Trina person?”
He knew. Of course, he knew. Will’s chin did a Jell-O-mold quiver.
“Stop it. Will you? You’re overreacting.”
Will wiped his teary face on his sleeve.
“Use a tissue!”
She asked him to start the story from the beginning.
“You and Dad and Violet were arguing in the kitchen. And I was really frightened.”
His mother nodded. “Yes, but probably not as frightened as you were when Violet turned the knife on you.”
“When she turned the knife on me …” Will’s voice went soft the way it always did when he was anxious. It was one of those Aspie language quirks that made him hate himself.
“You could have cowered when Violet came at you with that knife, but you didn’t, did you? You aimed your hand right for that blade and tried to snatch it away.”
Will paused and tried to absorb the heroism she was ascribing to him. Then he asked the only question that really mattered to him: “Were you proud of me?”
“Are you kidding? I was so proud of you. You saved me. You saved us all.”
Will touched the splint on his hand. He remembered the bloody dishrag that she’d wound around his hand before they drove to the hospital.
“How did it feel?” his mom asked now.
“When I took the knife away from Violet?”
She nodded.
He knew this was another detail she wanted him to tell Trina. But emotions were not his forte. He could only guess.
“I felt brave,” he said.
“Yes, it was a very heroic and brave thing to do. But you know, even heroes feel scared in the heat of the moment. Don’t you think you were a little bit frightened?”
“Yes,” Will said. “I was frightened.”
“And how did it feel when the knife pierced your skin?”
Will winced. When the knife pierced his skin. It was too horrible to remember. “It hurt,” he said.
She had a finger in her mouth. There was a dreamy, unfocused look in her eyes. “Yes,” she said, her cuticle in her teeth. “Your sister really hurt you.”
Even after his father came home from work, Will’s stomach remained knotted.
Douglas, for his part, went straight for the kitchen cupboard and removed what Will knew was his favorite cup. It was a cheap, blue plastic tumbler—tall and opaque, so a person could only guess what he was sipping.
On this particular night, Will watched his father fill it with hissing cherry-flavored seltzer. Douglas drank about a case of twelve liter-sized bottles of sparkling water per week. Lately, every time he opened one, it exploded as though someone had been shaking them.
After they’d rehearsed their version of events, Will’s mother had called Trina and arranged a meeting. Now, watching his father, Will couldn’t stop thinking about the reminder his mother had scrawled on the family calendar. Trina visit, 2 p.m., it read. Would his mother mention it over dinner? Would Douglas, in his postcoital daze, even pretend to care?
As they silently chewed their dinner, Will followed his father’s gaze to the roman numerals on the dining room clock. The little hand was on the VII. Another few minutes, and his father would vanish to his home office, sports highlights blaring behind the locked door.
Will remembered his father’s pocket call. You’re a remarkable woman. He remembered the daring he’d heard in Douglas’s voice; it was so unlike the feeble, measured tones his dad used at home.
“Does anyone mind if I excuse myself?” Douglas said, pushing back his chair right on cue.
Josephine looked at Will with a pinched mouth and hurt eyes.
“We don’t mind,” Will answered. “Where are you going?”
“Where?” Douglas echoed. In his hand, his plate of food was only half-finished.
Josephine raised her eyebrows.
“I’m just going down the hall, to answer some e-mails.” Before Douglas retreated to his office, he sponged down the granite countertops with aggressive, excessive force. He scrubbed the sauté pans with a martyred expression that rivaled Christ on the cross.
Will was serious about investigating his dad’s double life. His father couldn’t just betray his mother like that. He just couldn’t take Will and the rest of the Hursts for fools. Had Douglas really thought the rest of them wouldn’t notice the way the past few months had changed him, looks- and attitude-wise? Had he really thought no one would notice the twinkle in his eye? Or the way he had been hitting the gym like he was competing for gold in the next summer Olympics? Will was determined to get to the bottom of things. He felt certain he had most of the qualities that made for a good PI. No, he couldn’t drink straight scotch or fire a gun, but he was mature for his age and alert to details. He believed in the importance of law and order and protecting the innocent. It was just going to be a matter of opportunity. His challenge, as he saw it, was twofold: it was going to be hard enough to slip away from his eagle-eyed mother, but latching onto his antisocial father would require real skill.
Watching TV with Josephine later, Will sensed an opportunity. The show was a workplace comedy, and the episode revolved