She shook her head, then glanced at her watch again. “You’re a good mother. You’d trade yourself for your child, just like I would. You walked up those stairs already. But now you’re out of time. You should call Mr. Cabbat anyway, though. Just so you know the truth. It would be good for you, moving forward, to know. I want you to see him cowering in the car. Or maybe he’ll try. He might even get partway up the steps, dragging his feet. Before this is over, you should know for sure what you married. So you can choose better next time. You have your girls to think about.”

She’d said a lot of things, but only one phrase truly landed for me. “What do you mean I’m out of time?”

She ignored the question, barely pausing to let me finish it. “Or go ahead on down to your husband now. Take him home, if you find you still want him.” She tilted her head to gaze at me with a horrifying pity. As if Robert were already gone. “If you don’t mind a little advice, from one mother to another? Get your girls away from him. My letter will come. You’ll see then. When you do, I hope you’ll get them away.”

I took a step back, toward the stairs. “I’ll call him up. He’ll come. You’ll see. He’ll trade himself. You don’t know him.”

“It’s too late,” she said. “The time has passed. And I have no desire to look into his face. I’ll see him in hell eventually. I’ll go on ahead and start my wait for him there. I want you to know—” Her voice hitched. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

“How can time—”

And then my voice cut out, because she lifted the closer cup to her lips and drank it off in four long swallows. She set the cup down, flinching and shaking her head at the taste.

“So bitter.” Her eyes were dark pits.

“My God, what did you do?” I asked. How long had it taken before Spencer was sick and convulsing and dead? Fifteen or twenty minutes? But his dose had been in capsules. This was pure liquid.

Coral cleared her throat. Her cheeks had already pinked. She smiled a soft, sad smile.

“What did you do?” I asked again.

That was when the explosion came, a huge reverberating boom, as if God were answering my question. Orange light flashed around the edges of the carousel. The frame shook and rattled. I felt as if a giant hand had reached into my body and grabbed my spine to shake me, too.