“Yes.”
She knew he was lying.
She did not push.
Another night, she made his favorite dinner.
He ate three bites.
Stopped.
“Wrong?”
“No.”
“What?”
He stared at the plate.
“In jail I kept thinking about this.”
His mother waited.
“I thought if I ever ate your food again I’d be happy.”
She sat beside him.
“And?”
“I don’t feel anything.”
She put one hand on his back.
“That’s okay.”
He looked angry.
“No, it isn’t.”
She did not argue.
Healing had no schedule.
People who had never lost eleven months loved telling him how quickly to be grateful.
He stopped listening.
His younger sister helped more than anyone.
Not by discussing the case.
By treating him like the annoying older brother he had been before it.
She barged into his room.
Stole his chargers.
Complained about music.
Made him drive her places once he was comfortable in cars again.
The first time they took a bus together, he almost turned around at the station entrance.
She noticed.
Said nothing.
Just kept walking beside him.
At the platform, the teen looked toward the security cameras.
Dozens.
His sister followed his gaze.
“Creepy.”
He laughed unexpectedly.
“What?”
“The cameras.”
She shrugged.
“Everywhere.”
The teen stared at one.
“That one almost saved my life.”
His sister corrected him.
“It did save your life.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“The one that mattered almost got deleted.”
She looked at him.
Then:
“You still got on the bus.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“That night.”
“You still got on.”
“That mattered too.”
He smiled.
His little sister had a way of finding the obvious thing everyone else missed.
The forensic specialist became part of the family’s life.
Not constantly.
Holiday card.
Occasional dinner.
Phone calls.
The teen asked him once:
“Why did you keep checking after you already found the clock was wrong?”
They sat inside a diner.
The specialist stirred coffee.
“Because I wanted to be wrong.”
The teen looked confused.
“You wanted the prosecution to be right?”
“I wanted my first exciting discovery to fail if it couldn’t survive testing.”
The teen stared.
“Why?”
“Because excitement is dangerous in forensic work.”
The specialist leaned forward.
“If I find something that changes an entire case, my brain immediately wants it to be important.”
“That is exactly when I need to become harder on myself.”
The teen thought about detectives.
Witnesses.
The trial.
“People didn’t do that with me.”
“No.”
“They got excited by the idea I matched.”
“Yes.”
The specialist nodded.
“Then evidence started serving the theory.”
The teen looked down.