The Scattering. Kimberly McCreight

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      BY THE TIME my dad finally leaves—after much hemming and hawing and him saying that he’s worried about me, and me saying he doesn’t need to be, and lots and lots of details about where he’ll leave his itinerary—it is almost 9:40 a.m. I try Jasper again, but once again the call rings and rings before finally heading to voice mail.

      My stomach has officially started to churn.

      I move fast through the rest of what’s in the box, turning to the evidence bags. Luckily, there isn’t much that survived the fire, which is why we never received anything in the way of personal effects. Nothing my dad had wanted, anyway. The things in the evidence bags must have been thrown from the car when it hit the guardrail. A set of headphones I imagine tangled in a nearby tree. There’s one of my mom’s blue clogs, too. I always hated those shoes. I’d been trying to convince her to throw them out instead of getting them fixed again. The force it must have taken to rip the shoe off her foot and hurl it away from the car. What was she doing wearing clogs in the middle of winter anyway? I lift the shoe, only a tiny bit. But as soon as my hands are on it, I know it’s a mistake. Don’t touch the shoe. It will make you cry. When I drop it, there is an odd, hollow thump.

      I move the plastic bags around until my hand lands on what’s under the shoe. Smooth and hard and kind of flat inside its bag. When I pull it from the very bottom of the box, it’s a bottle. An empty vodka bottle. A small one, the kind you’d hide in your purse, or even in a big-pocketed jacket.

      “Your dad says that it would have been out of character for her to have been drinking in the car,” Detective Oshiro says from the doorway.

      My cheeks burn. “How about fucking impossible?”

      I look down. I shouldn’t be swearing at a police officer, not like that. But Detective Oshiro is unfazed.

      “It’s possible that it was on the road where she had the accident and got mixed with—well, the scene was chaotic. There were no fingerprints on it.”

      But I can tell he is only saying that to make me feel better. Or not to make me feel worse. I squeeze the cool glass tighter as I peer at the label. Vodka? There is no way. My mom only drank wine and only occasionally. Cassie’s dad, Vince, and vodka? Definitely. Even Karen, Cassie’s mom, liked her martinis. My mom? Never.

      “It wasn’t hers,” I say, but it only makes me feel worse.

      “Yes, that’s possible,” Detective Oshiro says.

      I turn and look straight at him. The wave of sympathy that greets me when our eyes meet unleashes tears. I blink and look down before they can make their way out. Was my mother somebody entirely different from who I believed her to be? Maybe she was lying to me about much more than me being an Outlier.

      “It’s not hers,” I say again.

      This time when I look up, the tears are streaming down my cheeks. But I no longer care. And Detective Oshiro looks right at me and lies, just the way I need him to.

      “I’m sure you’re right, Wylie. I’m sure you’re right.”