“Of course. Two weeks isn’t that long. Do you really think it’s necessary?”

“Absolutely. This thing is spreading like wildfire. I don’t even want to be this close to you without a mask.”

Cara looked at her daughter and felt her chest constrict. “Hope is compromised because of the measles.”

David’s gaze sparked with worry. “You should take her farther from me. I’m going into the bedroom now to shower off. And I’ll crash.” He wiped his face again, and Cara could see that the hours of stress had taken a toll. He looked haggard, and she felt a sudden shiver of fear that he had contracted the coronavirus.

“Off you go,” she said to David and, taking Hope’s hand, hurried her off into the bathroom in the other wing, where they both thoroughly washed their hands.

“Is Daddy sick?” Hope asked, her dark eyes round with worry.

“I hope not,” she replied. “We’ll have to wait and see. But we can’t go near Daddy until he says he’s better, okay? Promise?”

Hope’s face clouded but she agreed. “I promise.”

IT WAS A sleepless night. Cara had settled in the guest room with Hope in her own room across the hall, while David slept in their bedroom on the other side of the house. Though they all were together again under the same roof, Cara felt very alone.

The night cloaked the room. She had left the porch doors wide open, allowing the cool night air to waft through the bedroom and whisk across her skin. The storm had raced off to sea, as storms often did when they traveled from the mainland, over the barrier islands to the ocean. David had been in Europe on business frequently all fall and winter, and she was accustomed to sleeping alone. But tonight, knowing he was so near, she longed to feel his arms around her. She would not share his bed again for at least two weeks, or longer if, God forbid, he had caught the virus.

The threat of another serious illness on the heels of Hope’s measles had her trembling in anxiety. Cara was no stranger to sorrow. What woman was as she approached sixty years of age? Life, she knew, was like the tides. They rushed in, filling the marshes to the brim, then retreated, revealing the dark mud.

She brought the sheet over her shoulders. No one really knew what this virus was capable of, only that the elderly were the most vulnerable. David was nearing sixty-five, and he’d been in London, which already had cases skyrocketing. Cara closed her eyes tight. Please, God, do not take another husband from me. I could not bear it.

Her restless thoughts drove her from her bed. She glanced at her phone—3 a.m.—and sighed. Her usual wake-up time. Too early to get up, yet impossible to fall back asleep. She’d read once that one should give up the fight and embrace the early hours. Do something and wait for sleep to return. Cara pushed back the covers, rose from her bed, and stepped out into the steely gray of early morning. The moon was waning. In the darkness, she heard the ocean crashing against the shoreline, fierce, aftermath of the storm.