Chapter 1

The night the hurricane made landfall, the emergency alert had barely stopped sounding when my sister-in-law, Brielle Rourke, called again.

I listened to her helpless sobbing, then calmly handed the phone to my husband, Caleb Rourke, who was busy boarding up the balcony doors.

Whatever she said, he kept agreeing to it. He pulled on a rain jacket and gave me that practiced, guilty look.

"Her window's broken, Lena. She's all alone over there. I'll patch it up and I'll be back before the worst of it hits, I promise."

Once again, it wasn't a discussion. It was an announcement.

Five years of marriage, and every storm had gone exactly the same way.

The moment the thunder started, her call came right on schedule.

I used to fight about it, but he always said, "My brother died young. Brielle's raising his son by herself. We help when we can."

"You're a grown woman, and a strong one. You can look after yourself and our son, right?"

The wind split the glass, and the shards opened my calf to the bone.

I reached for the baby sweater I'd never finished knitting.

Tonight, Caleb, I don't think your son or I need you anymore.

Chapter 1

A deafening crack tore through the apartment as the balcony door, already spiderwebbed with cracks, blew apart completely.

Hurricane wind and rain came pouring into the living room in a single surge.

In the space of a blink, everything in the room was swept off its surfaces and scattered across the floor.

In the crib, my son, not yet two months old, jolted awake and started screaming.

Still weak from childbirth, I picked my way through the dark and the broken glass, threw myself against the crib, and put my body between Owen and the wind.

"It's okay, baby. Mommy's here. Mommy's right here."

I held him tight. My voice was shaking, but I couldn't let myself fall apart.

Ten minutes. That was all it had been.

Ten minutes ago my husband, Caleb Rourke, had pulled on a rain jacket and walked straight out into a hurricane the county had already issued warnings for, because Brielle told him her window was broken and she was scared by herself.

Before he left, I caught the hem of his jacket and pointed at the trees bending sideways outside. I was close to begging. "Caleb, the balcony glass is already cracked. The wind's too strong. Stay. Please."

He brushed my hand off, impatient, his eyebrows pulling together.

"Lena, Brielle's window is already gone. She's a woman alone with a kid. Do you have any idea how helpless that feels?

"You've always been the strong one. I know you can hold things together here until I get back.

"My brother died young, and I promised him I'd take care of her. Don't pick tonight to be difficult."

The strong one. I looked down at the blood still running from my calf and the whole thing struck me as absurd.

I'd married a man I thought would stand between me and the weather. He'd married someone he thought was built out of iron and didn't feel weather at all.

Once Owen had quieted down, I limped to the bathroom for the first-aid kit.

By the light of the lightning flashing outside the window, I poured iodine straight into the torn-open wound.

I wrapped it as best I could and sank down beside the sofa. The matching sweater I'd been knitting for the three of us was soaked through with muddy water, so filthy you couldn't tell what color it had been. It looked about like my five-year marriage.

Two years of dating. Five years of marriage.

Caleb had treated his brother's dying words—take care of your sister-in-law—as scripture he wasn't allowed to question.

A burned-out bulb, a clogged toilet, a parent-teacher conference for Evan. One call from Brielle was all it took. It didn't matter if we were at a movie, at a prenatal appointment, or in the middle of our anniversary dinner. Caleb got up and went.

I used to make scenes. I used to let him see how much it hurt.

Now, watching Owen sleep in my arms, I couldn't find even the last thread of expectation.

No point posting about it online. No point calling Caleb to have it out. None of it was worth anything anymore.

Calmly, I texted Dana Kessler, a friend from law school who practices family law.

"Dana, I need you to draw up a divorce settlement for me. Property split follows the apartment I bought before the marriage. Custody of my son is non-negotiable."

After I hit send, I made myself a quiet promise.

Caleb, for our son's sake, I'll give you three more chances.

After the third one, we're done. For good.

It was two in the morning before my screen finally lit up.

A text from Caleb.

"Babe, Brielle's window is in really bad shape and she's a wreck. Wind's too strong for me to get back tonight, so I'm going to crash on her couch. Lock up and get some sleep."

I read the brush-off, didn't answer, and turned the screen face down.

I held my son and listened to the storm, and I was still awake when the sun came up.

Chapter 2

The morning after the hurricane passed, the whole complex was without water and without power.

The rain that had flooded in overnight stood in a layer across the living room. Worse, after the fright and the cold of the night before, Owen's little face had gone red and his breathing had turned fast and shallow.

I put my hand on his forehead. He was frighteningly hot.

The ear thermometer read 100.8.

A fever in a newborn is not something you wait out. I went straight to panic.

Dragging my swollen, inflamed leg through the standing water, sweating, I tore through every drawer and cabinet looking for the cooling patches.

While I searched, I used what was left of my phone battery to call Caleb.

"The number you have dialed is not available."

The recorded voice bounced around the empty apartment. I wouldn't accept it. I called again. And again.

All morning. Twenty calls. Every one of them dead air.

Outside there were downed trees everywhere and floodwater up past my chest. No car, and a leg I couldn't stand on. There was no way to carry a feverish baby to the hospital by myself.

All I had was half a bottle of drinking water. I wet a washcloth with it and wiped his forehead, his underarms, his palms, over and over.

Sweat soaked through my nightshirt. The movement split the wound in my calf open again and it started to bleed.

I counted the minutes one at a time while the despair spread through me a little further.

It was almost noon when the front door finally opened and Caleb walked in, soaked to the skin and worn out.

"This weather is going to kill somebody. There's water over every road out there."

He complained while he changed his shoes. He hadn't brought a single thing—no water, no batteries, no food, no supplies.

But he was carefully cradling an expensive insulated food carrier against his chest.

Then he saw the wreckage of the living room, and the blood soaking through the gauze on my leg, and he stopped dead.

He crossed the room fast, and something like alarm finally reached his eyes. "Lena, what happened to your leg? How did the place end up like this?"

I stayed on the edge of the bed without looking at him and kept wiping Owen's face.

"Last night you said the wind was too strong to come home. So where were you all morning? Why was your phone off?"

Caleb's eyes slid away. He shifted the carrier behind his back without thinking, and his voice came out guilty and coaxing.

"The wind died down a little this morning, and Brielle said she'd been too scared to eat all night. She's out there alone with a kid, and I felt bad, so I went across town to that place she loves and got her a bowl of their seafood chowder.

"That side of town still had power, and the line was out the door. My phone was already low and it shut itself off. Lena, I swear I didn't do it on purpose."

I stopped wiping. I looked at the carrier. And then I laughed.

A hurricane. The entire city shut down. Water up to your waist on the main roads.

And my husband had crossed half of Rivermarch and stood in line for his brother's widow's bowl of chowder, and hadn't cared enough to notice his phone was dead.

Meanwhile his wife, eight weeks out from delivering his child, sat in a dark apartment with no running water and a bleeding leg, watching over his feverish son and making twenty calls that went nowhere.

"Babe, don't be like that. I'm here now, aren't I?" Caleb reached to put his arms around me.

I turned away from him and pointed calmly at the door.

"The chowder's getting cold. Go deliver it."

Caleb went rigid. Finally he got out, "Do you have to be so damn petty about this? She's my brother's widow."

I didn't bother answering. I turned back and took Owen's temperature again.

Somewhere inside me, I drew a line through the first chance.

Chapter 3

The power came back to the building at two that afternoon.

The air conditioning kicked on, Owen's temperature came down to 99.5, and he finally dropped into a heavy sleep.

Caleb seemed to realize he'd gone too far that morning, and he threw himself into making up for it.

He mopped the standing water, swept up the broken glass, and taped cardboard over the hole in the balcony door—a patch job, but it held.

He even went to the kitchen and made oatmeal, brought it out to me, then knelt down and carefully peeled the blood-soaked gauze off my calf so he could put fresh antiseptic on it.

"Does that hurt?" His eyes were red when he looked up at me, full of tenderness and guilt.

"I'm sorry. I honestly didn't know the glass had blown out, and I had no idea Owen had a fever. If I'd known, I never would've gone.

"I swear to you, from now on you and my son come first. I'll start putting distance between me and Brielle. Just forgive me this once. Please."

Maybe the guilt was real. So was the stupidity—the total inability to tell what mattered more, the complete absence of a line he wouldn't cross.

I was about to answer when the phone on the coffee table rang again.

Brielle's name on the screen.

Caleb's hand jerked to a stop, the cotton swab still between his fingers.

He looked at me. He looked at the phone. Two seconds of hesitation, and then he answered it right in front of me, and put it on speaker to show me he had nothing to hide.

"Cale! Cale, help me!"

Brielle's sobbing came screaming out of the phone, and behind it a little boy wailing.

"Brielle, what happened? Slow down." Caleb's voice went tight instantly.

"The water got in and the floor's so slick—Evan just went down and split his head open, there's blood everywhere! I can't carry him down the stairs by myself and I can't get a ride out here. Cale, what am I supposed to do?

"If your brother were still here, his son and I wouldn't be going through this."

Caleb shot to his feet. His face drained white and the swab dropped to the floor.

He looked at Owen in the crib, still running a low fever. Then he looked at me. Whatever guilt had been in his eyes was gone, replaced by urgency and the duty he'd assigned himself.

"Lena..." He forced it out. "Owen's fever is down, but Evan's bleeding. He's the only thing my brother left in this world. I can't just ignore that.

"I promise, I'll get them to the hospital, get him stitched up, and come straight back to you."

I watched him hurry off for his car keys, and my voice went flat.

"Caleb, it's still pouring out there and the roads are underwater. My leg is cut open. Owen's fever could spike again any minute. Are you really doing this again? Right now?"

Caleb stopped. He turned around with his brow knotted, and his voice picked up an edge of panic and irritation.

"Lena, can you not figure out what's urgent here? Can you please not do this right now? There's blood."

"Fine." I nodded and pointed at the door. "Then if you walk out that door today, don't come back."

Caleb ground his teeth, and something angry flickered across his face. "I know you're unhappy. We'll deal with us when I get back. But I owe my brother this."

Then he grabbed the keys and went out the door without looking back.

I closed my eyes, pulled in a long breath, and reached over to touch Owen's forehead. It was heating up again.

Of course. Of course you did.

Chapter 4

The tail of the hurricane was still over Rivermarch, and the rain kept coming down outside the window.

Owen's fever climbed and broke and climbed again, and at two in the morning it turned into a febrile seizure.

His whole body was convulsing, his face went blue-gray, his eyes rolled back, and he couldn't even cry.

"Baby! Baby, don't do this to Mommy!"

I lost it completely. My hands went cold. I called 911 like a crazy person and was told that every ambulance in the area was out on hurricane calls and the soonest they could get a unit to me was forty minutes.

For a newborn seizing with a high fever, forty minutes could be the whole story.

Hands shaking, I called Caleb.

This time he picked up.

When he heard what was happening, he was clearly terrified too, and his voice shook. "Lena, don't panic! I'm getting in the car right now. Wrap him in a blanket and meet me on the ground floor!"

Ten minutes later I had my convulsing son bundled tight inside my raincoat and I hauled my ruined leg down the stairs, half falling the whole way.

Caleb's car was already running. I got the passenger door open, and before I could even sit down, the phone on his dash lit up.

Brielle. Again.

Caleb picked it up on the car's Bluetooth without thinking.

"Cale! Help! The ceiling's leaking right into the wiring!"

She was shrieking. "I went to put a bucket under it and I slipped, and I think my leg's broken, I can't move at all! The water's almost to the outlets and they're throwing sparks! I'm going to be electrocuted, please!"

The tendons stood out on the backs of Caleb's hands, and he slammed on the brake.

I stared at him. I grabbed his arm, and the tears finally broke loose, and I begged him like I had nothing left.

"Caleb! They said a seizure can damage his brain, it can kill him! I'm begging you, take our son to the hospital first! Rivermarch Children's is ten minutes from here!"

Brielle's crying got louder and more pitiful through the speakers. "Cale, it's spreading, I'm so scared..."

Caleb looked at the ash-gray, jerking baby in my arms. Then he looked at the phone.

He shut his eyes in pain and fought with himself for a full two seconds.

Then he cut the wheel hard away from the hospital.

"I'm sorry, Lena." He wouldn't look at me. "She could be electrocuted over there! A seizure might pass on its own. Call 911 again, or flag somebody down on the road. I have to go get her."

And then, over the sound of me screaming, he shoved the door open and put me out of the car.

I knelt on the cold concrete and watched him disappear, and my tears dried up on the spot.

I didn't call after him. I used the last strength in my body to carry Owen out to the street, where I went down on my knees in the muddy water and waved at every car that passed.

Across the city, Caleb couldn't get the image out of his head—his brother's widow dead on a wet floor.

He blew through two red lights and drove like the car was going to leave the ground, all the way to Brielle's complex.

The elevators were dead. He climbed eleven flights without stopping, chest heaving, terrified that one more second would mean finding her half gone.

"Brielle! Brielle, I'm here!"

He hit the door gasping and set his shoulder to it, and only then realized it wasn't locked. It was standing ajar.

He shoved it open, and what drifted out through the gap wasn't burning insulation. It was hot oil and garlic.

Caleb froze in the doorway. Through the gap past the entryway he saw something that turned his blood to ice—every light in the place on, not a drop of water on the ceiling, not a spark anywhere.

And Brielle, who thirty minutes ago had a broken leg and seconds to live, was sitting there in a sheet mask with a glass of red wine in her hand, laughing over a bubbling fondue pot with her best friend.

"Oh, relax and eat. See? All I have to do is make something up and bring up dead Aaron and that deathbed line of his, and that idiot pulls his keys out and comes running—doesn't even care that his own kid's headed for the ICU.

"Men are pathetic. The more you tell one of them how loyal and noble he is, the higher he'll put you on a pedestal.

"Caleb's going to be my free handyman and my personal ATM for the rest of his life."