apple slices and saved the last two cheese squares for morning.

She drank from the faucet only after filling every container she could find.

At bedtime, Theo’s skin felt too warm.

Mara noticed it first when he curled against her on the sofa instead of demanding his dinosaur blanket upstairs.

His forehead pressed into her neck like a small stove.

She carried him to the bathroom and ran a damp cloth under cool water.

He complained softly, then went limp with sleep.

She held the cloth to his forehead and watched the shutters turn the moonlight into gray bars on the wall.

That was when the house phone rang.

The sound tore through the silence so sharply that Mara nearly dropped the cloth.

She did not know the landline still worked.

Daniel had wanted it kept for security, then used it so rarely she had forgotten its number.

She ran to the kitchen and lifted the receiver.

“Hello? Hello?”

For three seconds, there was only static.

Then Daniel’s voice filled the line.

“How’s our little retreat?”

Mara gripped the receiver until her knuckles hurt.

“Open the doors.

Theo has a fever.”

“He had a fever last month.

You handled it.”

“Daniel, listen to me.

Whatever this is, whatever you think you’re doing, he needs medicine.

He needs fluids.”

A pause.

She could hear traffic behind him and the faint chime of an elevator.

“Then you should start making better decisions.”

Her throat tightened.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to calm down.

I want you to think about the damage your behavior has caused.

And tomorrow, when someone asks you questions, I want you to remember that I tried to solve this privately.”

“Who is going to ask me questions?”

The line clicked dead.

Mara stood with the receiver against her ear long after the dial tone began.

Someone.

Tomorrow.

She returned to Theo and found him awake, eyes glassy.

“Daddy?” he whispered.

Mara sat beside him and pulled him gently into her lap.

“No, baby.

Just a wrong number.”

He accepted that too.

The second day began with the sound of pipes coughing.

Mara was in the kitchen pouring a few inches of water from the soup pot into Theo’s cup when the faucet sputtered.

She turned it on full.

Brown air spat out, followed by a thin thread of water, then nothing.

She tried the bathroom sink.

Nothing.

The tub.

Nothing.

The laundry room.

Nothing.

Fear moved through her body and became rage.

Not loud rage.

Not the dramatic kind.

Something colder and more useful.

She laid Theo on the sofa with a damp towel from the last bowl of water.

Then she went to Daniel’s study.

For years, she had avoided that room unless invited.

Daniel called it his workspace.

He did not like papers moved.

He did not like drawers opened.

He had once gone silent for two days because she borrowed a pen from his desk and left it uncapped.

Now she kicked the door open so hard it bounced off the wall.

The study smelled of leather and cedar polish.

Awards lined the shelves.

Framed photographs showed Daniel shaking hands with men in suits, Daniel at charity dinners, Daniel holding Theo at a company picnic while Mara stood slightly out of focus at