When she reached the classroom, she saw Tyler alone in one corner of the room, building a large tower of blocks. Two of the other three-year-olds were coloring with their teacher, and Ms. Evers, the director, was reading to four others. When Tyler's block tower crashed to the floor, she saw Ms. Evers flash a look of annoyance. “Tyler!” she said. “Be quiet!”

Tyler was looking at the pile of blocks that had fallen. He looked so heartbroken, and Leah had to fight the urge to run in and scoop him up right away.

“Tyler,” Ms. Evers said, sternly, “did you hear me?”

The other kids at her feet looked at Tyler as though he were a mosquito, something annoying they could swat away without thinking.

And then Leah could not stand it anymore, could not bear to see her boy so lonely, so isolated, to see the adults in charge of his care modeling such uncaring behavior. She did enter the room then, sat down next to her boy, her body between him and Ms. Evers's group.

“Can I help you fix your tower?” she asked.

Tyler crawled into her lap, wrapped his tiny boy fingers in her ponytail. “You wet, Mommy.”

“Mrs. Tinker,” Ms. Evers said.

“I came to take him home because of the flood,” Leah said, “but I'm unenrolling him, as of now.”

“According to the contract, in order to unenroll him—”

Leah cut her off. “I know. Ten thousand papers to sign and some number of days you're going to charge me for anyway. I'm not doing that today. I need to get my boy out of here.”

She lifted Tyler up. It was hard to walk away with dignity, soaking wet, carrying a three-year-old and a diaper bag, but Leah tried to at least keep her chin high, to meet Ms. Evers's eyes with defiance on the way out the door. “You're not very good at your job,” she said, “if you can only manage it when it's easy.”

Tyler, peaceful in his car seat, fell asleep on the way home. Leah marveled at the height and rush of the river. The swirl of the giant puddles outside overwhelmed storm drains, the water halfway up the tires of the truck. The two of them spent the day of the flood together, Tyler snuggled against Leah's side, sucking his thumb. They lit the gas fireplace in the apartment, ate warm soup, read books by candlelight when the electricity went out. They stayed up late listening to the emergency warnings on her battery-powered radio, to the winds that rattled the window glass against its cheap frames.