Nurture/Destroy Episode 4 Flash serial contest

Episode 4

“You knew about your parents’ accident? At the time?” The beefier detective peered from under thick eyelids. Even Silent Sam appeared about to say something. Of course, he wasn’t competing now with his mother, Ada, Lois thought, then bit her lip to chide herself for meanness.
As they heard the knock, Lois knew it was her oldest brother and his wife – it served Lois right.
The detectives indicated Alf and Ada were to sit without speaking. He motioned for Lois to continue.
“Pa was driving Ma to take care of her sister Louise, sick with milk fever. Hit a buck. All three killed, though the buck staggered a hundred yards before he went down.”
“The buggy had no windshield,” Ada protested.
“Pa had a Chivvie,” Alf told the policemen. “Teaching me to drive. That made me maddest, that that Chivvie was gone.”
Only the detective’s glare shut Ada’s mouth, but even Lois was heartsick to hear such a confession from Alf. He’d shouldered a man’s workload before he needed to shave and still he condemned himself.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone, Lo?”
Tears sprang to Lois’s eyes. Indignation. Fear. The near panic she’d felt those decades before when Louise’s husband came to take little Quint while the search for Pa and Ma was going on.
“We’re a family!” she’d stated then. “Quint stays with us. Pa said.”
Then she’d had to substantiate the lie: Pa had telephoned; Pa would be home soon. Trouble with the Chevy but they’d be home soon.
“It was only way they’d let us stay together. By the time everybody knew they weren’t coming, they could see we were making it on our own. They let us stay together.”
They stared at her in silence.
“You were fifteen, Lo,” Silent Sam whispered. His father Alf had turned away, blowing his nose hard into his handkerchief.
The detectives rose. “We’ll check, best we can,” they told Ada. Nodding at the others, they closed the door to #231 behind them.
“All these years. Why didn’t you tell us?” Ada demanded.
“Hush, Mother!” Sam snapped. “Auntie Lo did what she had to. And so will I.” He unfolded his long frame from the sofa, nodded to his father, paused in front of his mother as though he would say something more, and then lumbered to the door.
“Sammy!” Ada wailed, but he left without turning.
They sat a moment listening to the Seth Thomas clock measuring unforgiving time.
Alf drew Ada out of her chair. “Lo,” he nodded, too overcome to say more.
“Wait ‘til it’s confirmed,” Lo instructed, “for their sake,” she added when Alf shook his head. “No doubts.”
He nodded again and herded his wife away.
Lois rocked, staring at the rag rug, remembering each tiny shirt or blouse she’d sewed or mended for her boys. Four brothers. Her boys because no one else could keep them together.
She was allowing a memory of Daniel creep in when she heard an anguished howl.
Ada!