It sounded strained this time.
“You’re preserving evidence now?”
“Yes,” Lauren said.
“For what? The Thanksgiving police?”
Lauren took out her phone.
“For Poison Control first.
Then, depending on what they say, the actual police.”
The smugness disappeared from Megan’s face.
“You can’t be serious.”
Lauren was already dialing.
Megan stepped toward her, but I moved between them.
“Don’t touch her phone.”
“I wasn’t going to touch anything.”
“You’ve said that before.”
Chris looked at his wife.
“What does that mean?”
I pointed toward the sink.
A teaspoon rested beneath the faucet.
Beside it lay the folded napkin Tyler had described.
Pale dust remained pressed into the paper fibers.
Chris walked closer but stopped before touching it.
“Megan,” he said quietly, “what did you crush?”
“Garlic.”
“There’s chopped garlic on the cutting board.”
“So?”
“So why would you wrap garlic in a napkin and crush it with Mom’s teaspoon?”
Megan opened her mouth, then closed it.
Lauren’s call connected.
She explained that a prescription tablet might have been crushed into a child’s food, that neither child appeared to have swallowed the meat, and that the medication bottle was empty.
She read the information from the label without saying the drug’s name aloud.
The person on the phone instructed us not to let anyone eat or discard anything and advised that both boys should be medically evaluated because Tyler’s fork had touched the steak and no one could confirm whether residue had reached his mouth.
Lauren repeated the instructions so everyone could hear.
My mother sat down heavily.
“We need to call an ambulance?”
“We need to make sure the boys are safe,” Lauren said.
Megan shook her head.
“This is exactly what I mean.
Everything becomes a crisis with her.”
Chris turned toward her so quickly that she stepped backward.
“Our son almost ate that steak.”
“He didn’t eat it.”
“Because Lauren stopped him.”
Megan’s eyes flicked toward Ethan.
“He was never supposed to give it away.”
The room went silent again.
Chris stared at her.
“What did you just say?”
Megan’s lips parted.
She knew she had made a mistake.
“I said he was never going to eat it anyway.
Ethan refuses half the food put in front of him.”
“That isn’t what you said,” I replied.
Tyler stood near the table, gripping the back of his chair.
“Mom,” he whispered, “did you put Grandma’s pill on Ethan’s food?”
Megan looked at him with irritation instead of concern.
“Stay out of this.”
