We were staying in San Francisco, in a boutique hotel across from the Ferry Building. There had been a terrible storm. It was the type of rainstorm that didn’t happen in Sausalito too often and it had forced us to evacuate our home, our floating home, due to flooding risks. It forced us to take refuge on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge—the hotel filled up with other floating home expats. Though apparently Owen wasn’t finding much refuge at all.

He shrugged. “Thought I’d come downstairs to have a drink,” he said. “Do some work…”

“On what?” I said.

I looked around. He didn’t have his laptop with him. No papers lying around. There was nothing on the bar at all, except his bourbon. And one other thing.

“Wanna have a seat?” he said.

I sat down on the barstool next to him, wrapping my arms more tightly around myself. I was chilly in the middle-of-the-night coolness. My tank top and sweatpants weren’t much of a match.

“You’re freezing,” he said.

“I’m okay.”

He pulled off his hoodie, putting it over my head. “You will be,” he said.

I looked at him. And waited. I waited for him to tell me what he was really doing down here, what was worrying him enough that he left our room. That he left me in the bed, his daughter on the pullout couch.

“Work is just a little stressful. That’s all. But nothing’s wrong. Nothing I can’t handle.”

He nodded, like he meant it. But he seemed stressed. He seemed more stressed than I’d seen him before. When we were packing our bags to come here, I found him in Bailey’s room, packing up Bailey’s childhood piggy bank, putting it in his duffel bag. He’d looked embarrassed when I saw him and explained that it was one of the first presents he’d gotten her. He didn’t want to risk anything happening to it. That wasn’t the weird part—Owen was packing up all sorts of sentimental things (Bailey’s first hairbrush, family photo albums) and dropping them in his overnight bag. The weird part was that the other thing on the bar, besides his drink, was Bailey’s piggy bank.

“So, if you’ve got it handled, why are you sitting here by yourself, in the middle of the night, staring at your daughter’s piggy bank?”

“Thinking of breaking it open,” he said. “In case we need the money.”

“What’s going on, Owen?” I said.

“Do you know what Bailey said to me tonight? When I told her we had to evacuate? She said she wanted to go with Bobby’s family instead. That they’re staying at the Ritz and she wanted to be with him. It turned into a whole, big thing.”

“Where was I?”

“Locking down your workshop.”