She knew then that this airplane was the reason Eph was bringing Zack back home. All she wanted now was to get Zack back under her roof. Kelly was one of the great worriers, and home meant safety. It was the one place in this world that she could control.

Kelly rose and went to the window over her kitchen sink, dimming the light, looking out at the sky beyond the roof of their backyard neighbor. She saw airplane lights circling LaGuardia, swirling like bits of glittering debris pulled into a storm funnel. She had never been out in the middle part of the country, where you can see tornadoes coming at you from miles away. But this felt like that. Like there was something coming her way that she could do nothing about.

Eph pulled up his CDC-issued Ford Explorer at the curb. Kelly owned a small house on a tidy square of land surrounded by neat, low hedges in a sloping block of two-story houses. She met him outside on the concrete walk, as though wary of admitting him into her domicile, generally treating him like a decade-long flu she had finally fought off.

Blonder and slender and still very pretty, though she was a different person to him now. So much had changed. Somewhere, in a dusty shoe box probably, buried in the back of a closet, there were wedding photos of an untroubled young woman with her veil thrown back, smiling winningly at her tuxedoed groom, two young people very happily in love.

“I had the entire weekend cleared,” he said, exiting the car ahead of Zack, pushing through the low iron gate in order to get in the first word. “It’s an emergency.”

Matt Sayles stepped out through the lighted doorway behind her, stopping on the front stoop. His napkin was tucked into his shirt, obscuring the Sears logo over the pocket from the store he managed at the mall in Rego Park.

Eph didn’t acknowledge his presence, keeping his focus on Kelly and Zack as the boy entered the yard. Kelly had a smile for him, and Eph couldn’t help but wonder if she preferred this—Eph striking out with Zack—to a weekend alone with Matt. Kelly took him protectively under her arm. “You okay, Z?”

Zack nodded.

“Disappointed, I bet.”

He nodded again.

She saw the box and wires in his hand. “What is this?”

Eph said, “Zack’s new game system. He’s borrowing it for the weekend.” Eph looked at Zack, the boy’s head against his mother’s chest, staring into the middle distance. “Bud, if there’s any way I can get free, maybe tomorrow—hopefully tomorrow…but if there’s any way at all, I’ll be back for you, and we’ll salvage what we can out of this weekend. Okay? I’ll make it up to you, you know that, right?”

Zack nodded, his eyes still distant.

Matt called down from the top step. “Come on in, Zack. Let’s see if we can get that thing hooked up.”