Page 37 of Whatever Will Be

Mara nods.

“And then she threw up on the table,” Caitlin announces.

My uneasiness skyrockets.

I peer directly into Mara’s eyes, which seem a little glassy. She gazes tearfully back at me.

“You’re not in trouble,” I assure her. “But I need to know what you drank, sweetheart.”

“Uncle Danny’s tea,” she whispers. “It was on the table.”

I flash back to the day of the funeral. “To Jules!”

In an instant I understand what must have happened.

“Did you find the tea in the carriage house?” I ask the twins.

They nod.

“Was the tea a brown color and in a bottle?”

They nod again.

Fucking hell, Danny.

He not only left them alone but he left a bottle of whiskey out for them to find.

Mara and Caitlin watch me with identical worry. I don’t want them to know that I feel like throttling their uncle right now.

This isn’t good.

This is the kind of thing that gets reported to the authorities and summons child protective services.

“I need you to think,” I tell Mara as gently as possible. “You have to tell me much tea you drank.”

She screws up her little face as she concentrates and for a second she bears an astonishing likeness to her mother. “I had one drink and then another.”

“You mean you drank one cup and then had a second cup?”

She shakes her head.

“You had one sip and then a second sip?”

She nods.

“And then she threw up,” Caitlin reminds me. “I didn’t have any sips. I tasted it and it was yucky so I didn’t want it.”

I feel like I’ve been holding my breath and now I can exhale. It sounds as if Caitlin didn’t ingest any whiskey while Mara didn’t drink much and threw up the portion she did drink. To make sure, I ask Mara to walk toward me in a straight line, which she thinks is funny. I ask her to touch her nose, which she thinks is even funnier.

Caitlin is inspecting my house. “You don’t have any furniture!”

“I have some,” I argue.

“You should get more.”

“I will.”

I lift one twin in each arm and announce we’re walking back to their house. We can be there in just a minute, before Danny returns and freaks out when he can’t find them.

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