I duly put her words in the notebook.

Beside the ashtray was a cup of marbles. April picked out two large ones, ruby and amber, and began grinding them together in her palm. The dog watched the marbles, ears pert.

“So what did Eva do to get into a magazine?” she said.

“I’m writing about her work in medical science.”

Her mother made a small knowing sound—“Ah”—but I didn’t think she understood what I meant.

“I’m not sure how much she’s told you,” I added.

“Oh, well.” April kept rolling the marbles, as if embarrassed that she couldn’t give an answer. “It’s been a little while since Eva visited, and she doesn’t get a chance to call very often.”

“I understand.”

A brief, anticipatory silence fell between us, and I realized it wasn’t April who had something to add. She wanted me to give her news of her daughter. I considered how to break it to her. But I was already thinking about the integrity of the story I’d compose, and it occurred to me that this interview was more valuable if April remained ignorant. I’d keep the widow in a kind of quarantine, so the innocence of her words could rub against the story’s darker truths and set them off. We were only along for the ride. It wouldn’t matter to readers that our interview took place after everything I’d witnessed. They wouldn’t be able to discern the order of events unless I told them. I could act, here in Everett, as if I were crafting the profile I was originally going to write. This wasn’t the creep, but simply the art of the magazine feature—to experience the present refracted through a future piece of writing.

And so I gave April a kind of truth. I told her about the solution, I told her about the trial, I told her about the purple trucks of Common Dreams. I painted a picture of Zeke walking off in the Florida sun, his new blood coursing freely, and amazed her with an image of the jets that bent toward Wigwam Deck. “I owe the trial my life,” I said, quoting Pavel Firea.

All the while, April passed the marbles between her fingers.

“I want to stress how much you mean to her,” I finished. “In particular, Eva has always identified her love for her father as essential to her work.”

I knew I was venturing into a sensitive area, but I had to go there.

April said, “I wish Amos could hear you say that.”

I wrote the name in my notes.

“If you don’t mind,” I said, “when did he begin getting sick?”

“Eva told you about that?”

“Yes.”

April plunked the ruby marble back in the cup and chose a green like pond scum, which she clicked against the amber in her palm.