"Is she sorry for hitting you too?"
Molly touched the bruise on her face. "Of course she is, dear. Your aunt and I love each other very much. But sometimes even people who care about each other have quarrels. Your aunt is not a bad person. She's trying very hard to make this work for all of us."
A sudden tidal wave of tears soaked Joey's face. "What's wrong with me?" he asked. "Why won't anyone stay with me? First Mommy and now Samantha."
"Oh, no, dear, don't cry. You're a wonderful little boy. The sweetest young man I've ever known. What happened with your mother and Samantha had nothing to do with you."
"But why did they leave?"
"I don't know, dear. I don't know." She rocked him back and forth in her lap until he stopped crying. As she considered whether it was safe to take him back inside, she heard something crashing through the underbrush nearby.
Veronica emerged from the bushes, her face white as a corpse. Sweat covered her body and her eyes shone as though with fever. Before Molly could say anything, Veronica snatched Joey away from her, lifting him into the air. "Tell me how to get rid of it!" she said.
"Get rid of what?" he asked.
"The algae. You know how. I know you do. You're the fucking Einstein of the family," she said.
"What's algae?" he said.
She threw him to the ground, bashing his head against the log. "Veronica, what's going on? Where's David? Did you find the children?"
"David is dead!" Veronica said. She reached up to snap off a tree limb. She wielded it in her hand like a club, waving it under Joey's nose. "Maybe this will jog your memory."
"Dead? How? Veronica, please, what's going on?"
"That fucking algae killed him. I don't know how. It leapt right out of the fountain and burned him up. He's nothing but ashes now."
"Oh my God. That's terrible. And the children?"
"I don't know." She poked Joey's cheek with the stick. He sniffled, but didn't move. "This little shit is going to tell me how to get rid of it even if I have to break open his fucking head and scoop the answer out."
As she raised her arm to strike, Molly grabbed her wrist. "Veronica, please, calm down. Joey doesn't know. He's just a little boy. He doesn't know anything."
Veronica shook Molly's hand away, pointing the stick at her. "He knows. It's in that little head of his somewhere. I'm going to beat it out of him."
"No!" Molly grabbed Veronica's wrist again. "There has to be another way. Let me work with him. I'll get him to remember." As Molly spoke, Joey pressed himself against her although she wasn't any taller than him.