The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(20)

“Is he looking to get hit?” Gregory asked.

As if taking the hint, Alex turned toward a clearing between houses, where a set of communal steps led to the bottom of the hill.

Hazel rolled down her window. “Shouldn’t we stop?”

Gregory hit the brakes just as Alex’s head was about to vanish below the staircase. Hazel called out to him, her voice tremulous and strange in her own ears.

He spun around, and when he saw her, he smiled. “Hello, Hazel.” But as he approached the car and saw who was driving, his smile retreated. “Oh, hey, Greg . . . ory.”

“We thought you’d left,” Gregory said. “Where is it you live again? France?”

Alex didn’t answer but said, “Did you hear what happened? Drew became very sick this afternoon.”

Gregory pulled the parking brake. “Is she all right?”

“Yes, but Sybil was in hysterics. I don’t know the details, actually. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it.”

“So you’re leaving?” Hazel asked.

Alex shifted his weight. “About that. I’d prefer you didn’t mention that you saw me on the road. I sort of slipped away after my mother arrived. Kind of horrible, I know, but we’re not exactly close. It looks a bit weird, you understand, my abandoning the family in a time of crisis and all that. Anyway, I’d appreciate it.”

“We didn’t see you,” Hazel agreed.

Alex looked at her for a steady moment, and she looked back. She had never liked beards on men, but Alex’s didn’t bother her. Maybe it was because he wasn’t trying to make a statement but looked as if he genuinely couldn’t be bothered to shave. Gregory put the car into gear, signaling an end to the conversation, and before she had a chance to say good-bye, they were pulling away. Alex looked after them for a few seconds before spinning around and resuming his descent. As she watched him disappear in the side-view mirror, she had the feeling that if she were to see him again, it would be from this same angle, as if he were never in the process of arriving but always heading off to somewhere far more important.

“Doesn’t he have a job?” asked Gregory.

“He’s a photographer, remember?”

“That’s not a job. Maybe it used to be back when it was a real skill.”

Her brother’s sulkiness had clearly curdled into a bad mood. She wondered what he would make of Bennet’s latest photo installation.

“What’s he doing at the house, anyway?” Gregory added.

A squad car passed them on its way down the hill, and as they pulled up to the house, they found an ambulance in the drive.

“Jesus,” he said. “Paramedics?”

Words came back to Hazel from the letter: Three will die. I am the first. She felt shaky as she stepped from the car.

In cool defiance of the crisis, the Severy twins stood on the grass with their racquets, attacking a fusillade of balls erupting from a mechanical nozzle. The machine had been a present from Isaac. “If you want to win at any one thing,” Hazel remembered him saying, “you must do that thing more times than anyone else. Winning is aggregation.” Had she also heard him say “Death comes in threes”? Or was she making that up? She and her brother stepped over the grass, ducking to avoid a stray ball. Their uncle was on the porch, leaning against a column and smoking a cigarette.

“I didn’t know Philip smoked,” Hazel whispered.

Philip frowned deeply, regarding them with only a flicker of interest. It was a look Hazel had seen directed at her many times, as if his mind were in a place she couldn’t possibly grasp. Still, she couldn’t help being fond of him, even if it was in a distant, admiring sort of way.

Ignoring their cousin’s request, Gregory announced immediately, “We saw Alex on the road. He says Drew’s sick?”

Philip crushed out his cigarette on the railing and lit another. “She ate a poisonous seed, but not nearly enough of it. She threw it up and seems to be fine now. We’re not thrilled the paramedics called the police. It only upset Sybil.”

“Procedure, I’m afraid, to protect the child,” Gregory said.

“I’m sure, but when they realized that a curious kid had merely taken plant identification a little too far, they left.”

Hazel cast a glance at a nearby bush. “It wasn’t the castor bean, was it? Lily warned us about those.”

“No, thank God.” Philip’s eyes widened for a second. “It was the Mirabilis californica, also known as the four o’clock plant. Which, it seems”—he looked at his watch—“is the time now.”

They followed their uncle to the living room, where Drew, looking flushed as if with fever, sat at a window seat bundled in blankets. A stuffed toy unicorn, its fur still factory white, was propped on the sill. Sybil, Jack, and Jane sat around her, while two paramedics conferred nearby. Though Alex had mentioned his mother was here, Hazel was still surprised to see Paige—who rarely made family appearances unless forced—on an ottoman in the corner, looking like she might bolt at any moment.

“It was a speck, Gramma,” Drew was saying. “A speck of a speck of a speck—”

“I know,” interrupted Jane, “but a speck of a speck of poison is still poison, and you can’t do that ever again.”