“Something’s obviously wrong,” she went on. “You came all the way here, so what’s up? You said it’s your mom?”

Max nodded.

How should he put it? It felt like a betrayal even saying it.

He took a deep breath and collected his thoughts.

“The past couple weeks, she hasn’t been herself. It started small. She forgot to pick up Chloe from school—that’s my sister.” He looked at Vera, and she nodded like she already knew, which of course she did. Chloe’s birth had been a bright spot after the explosion. She was headline news. “Then she started showing up to work late, then forgetting to place orders with our vendors, then she stopped coming in at all. I’ve taken over her job completely. At first, I thought she was sick. She’s been sleeping a lot—”

“During the day?” Vera interjected.

“All day.” He watched Vera check off a mental note. “But now her behavior is…bizarre.” He didn’t know how to put it. “It’s gotten to the point where I’m afraid to leave Chloe alone with her. Then yesterday…”

He steadied himself and described the incident with his sister at the stove.

“Her voice was different?” Vera asked.

Max nodded.

“And she was laughing?”

“At the end, yeah.” Max confirmed. “But it wasn’t a happy laugh. It didn’t sound like her at all. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Vera’s cheeks twitched like she was considering something, or maybe remembering something.

“And you’re sure there was no alcohol? Pills?”

Max clenched his jaw. “She’s been sober for four years….” She has, right? Max knew the signs. “There was no alcohol on her breath, no slurring, no puking. And the stuff she was saying, it wasn’t like she was drunk…. It was like it wasn’t her.”

“When was the last time she saw a doctor?” Vera tried to sound official.

“She had her annual checkup on her birthday last month, blood work and stuff. Everything was fine.”

“A psychiatrist?”

His gaze narrowed. What was this? Just because she was wearing scrubs (in black, no less, which was a little odd) didn’t make her Vera the Teenage Doctor. Besides, he’d Googled every medical possibility, and nothing fit. That was why he came to Vera.

“She’s seen a therapist, on and off, since…the explosion.” He hated talking about his dad. Just brushing up against the memories of that day caused his body to tense.

“Depression can manifest in many ways, and it can be compounded with other illnesses. After everything your family’s been through…”

“This is not about my dad!” Max slammed the wooden bench, regretting it the moment Vera flinched.

He hung his head, panting. He hadn’t slept well in so long, and he was perpetually tired of the world pinning everything wrong in his life back on that one day. It had been seven years! It wasn’t always about that.

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

Or maybe it was, at least in this town.

Half the residents had been flooded after the hurricane, and the basketball game was intended to raise funds for recovery efforts. Max’s dad was captain of one of the teams. He and his mom were on their way to cheer him on, driving back from a “stress test” at the obstetrician’s office. Mom was in her third trimester carrying Chloe.