"The second week you were at work." She swiped down. The screen stuttered, and the green stripes flickered, and the list came up: the alerts. A column of them, each with a little red or yellow triangle next to it, and a time, and a number. Urgent Low, 52, 3:12 AM. Low, 66, 1:47 AM. Low, 63, 2:58 AM. Urgent Low Soon. Low, 69. Low, 61. She kept scrolling and they kept coming. Yesterday. The night before. Thursday at a quarter to three, sixty-four, the one I'd seen on my own phone that afternoon and been proud of her for. The week before that. The week before that. The cracked screen made them look like they were coming up out of ice.
"These are all the ones from nights," Juni said. "When you're at work. It goes back to when he got it. You can see the ones from summer if you go down really far, but it gets slow. Sometimes it freezes."
"Juni." My mouth was dry. "You told me you were catching these."
"I know."
"You told me you were waking up. Every time I asked you. You said, I handled it, Mom. You said it a hundred times."
"I know," she said. And then, very quietly, looking at the phone and not at me: "I don't wake up, Mom. I never wake up. I've never heard one. Not one. Not the phone and not the receiver and not anything. Abeyta said some kids don't. I asked her once when you were in the bathroom. She said it's because when you go low your brain gets sleepy and it's harder to wake up, and some people just sleep through. I'm one of the people."
I put my hand on the counter. It was cold, the counter. I remember that.
"Then who," I said. And I knew. Of course I knew. I knew before I said it, but I said it anyway, because I needed to hear it said out loud in my kitchen. "Then who's been —"
"Kel," she said.
I turned around. My son was standing by his chair with his hands at his sides, and his wet hair was drying in spikes, and he wasn't looking at either of us. He was looking at the floor between his feet like there was something written on it.
"He hears it through the wall," Juni said. "The first time was in April. The first week. My phone was going off and going off and I didn't hear it and he came in and I was like, all sweaty, and he couldn't wake me up good. He got me a juice and held it for me. And then he sat on the floor till I was okay. And in the morning I put the app on his phone so it would go off for him too, because his phone is louder than the wall. And I made him promise not to tell. I made him pinky-swear." She looked at her brother. "Sorry, Kel."
He didn't say anything. He shrugged one shoulder.