The Secrets We Keep

The Forty-Fifth Chapter

Hayden

"Mom!" I yell, holding my head in my hands as her phone rings for the umpteenth time. "Can you please answer your damn phone?"

We're sharing the dining room table. Half of it is covered in all the papers she's marking and the other half is covered in all the notes I've made over the past few months. I'm reading through them as my first part of studying. 

But it's hard to concentrate on anything when her phone keeps ringing while she makes herself a snack in the kitchen. 

"It's probably just a cold canvas call," she says, taking a bite of the sandwich she's made. "Let it ring off." I wait but it starts not a moment later. "God," she groans, dusting off her hands as I hold up her phone to her, more than a little annoyed after reading the same sentence about fifty times. "Hello. This is Helen Andrews speaking, how may I help you?"

With her ringtone finally off, I put my head down to reread my physics notes again. I'm finally getting somewhere when her voice becomes unsure. 

"Yes, he's my son." My head whips up and my mother's face has gone deathly pale. I watch her raise a shaking hand to push back her hair as she starts nodding to whatever's being said on the other line. She hangs up without a word more and reaches for the center of the table to grab her car keys out of the bowl. 

"Mom? What's going on?" I ask, grabbing hold of her hand before she can pull away. 

"It's your brother," she says numbly. "He's in the hospital."

-

I'm the one who drives over to the public hospital. I think my mom's in shock. By the time we walk through to the reception desk, I'm having to hold her arm tightly. 

"Hello," I say to one of the receptionists or nurses behind the desk. I focus my attention on the plum color of her scrubs as I ask my shaky question. "We were told my brother was admitted here. His name is Damien. They said he was in a fire." 

The woman's eyes go wide and she stands up from her chair to come and talk to us. 

"He's in surgery at the moment," she says, lifting up the plank that separates her from us. Gently she puts a hand on my mother's shoulder. "But there are some detectives here. It's just standard procedure but they would like to talk to you while you wait if that's ok?"

I nod because my mom can't. The nurse shows us to the chairs in the waiting room where two plain-clothes detectives are. They're not any I recognise and I become increasingly nervous as one flashes us his badge while the other pulls out a notebook. 

"This is the family of one of the boys taken from the fire," the woman says, keeping her voice gentle as she helps my wide-eyed mother take a seat. "You can relax, ma'am, I'm sure he'll be right as rain."

I stay standing as the woman walks back to the front desk. I make eye contact with the taller of the detectives, an older man with a thinning hairline. 

"I just don't understand how all of this happened," my mother says and all eyes go to her. "He was just staying at the library to study. Was the fire at the school?"

"Yes, ma'am," the younger of the two says and takes the seat next to her. "Do you mind telling us about your son? You said he was there to study?" 

"Yes. What more could you want to know?" Her voice comes out a little angry and I press my hand between her shoulder blades. 

"It's just procedure, Mom," I remind, making circles with my palm on her shirt. "They're just making sure the fire was an accident."

"Your father's at the scene as we speak," the older one says, looking at me. I guess that means he recognizes me but I can't for the life of me put a name to his face. "He wanted to be here but he's still talking to the fire department."