She groped her way to the kitchen and fumbled through the drawer near the sliding glass door, where Andres stored flashlights and candles. Her pulse spidering at her neck, she fished out a flashlight and clicked it on, then slid open the back door. Why she expected to find Phoenix playing on his swing set or in his sandbox, she had no idea. But she headed there regardless. “Phoenix?” She shone the flashlight at the swing set below the slide. “Baby boy? You out here?” Beneath the picnic table, a hazy shadow, a slight twitch of movement. Could it be Phoenix playing a game, waiting for her to find him? Or huddled and frightened? She moved closer, her breath ragged. “Ay, there you are, mijito.” She bent down and shone the light under the tablecloth, revealing two milky eyes, tawny fur. A rabbit. Her stomach clenched. “Dammit.” She didn’t shoo the vermin away as she would have normally done, to keep its potential ticks and diseases away from Phoenix. She stood up, dizzy from the exertion, and once more shone the light around the backyard and beyond the fence toward the stretch of desert surrounding her home. If there was life in the scrub, she couldn’t see it.

Back in the house, Calliope flashed light on the dining room table, still laid out for Saturday brunch. Red, pottery-style ceramic dishes atop colorful place mats. In the center of the table, a pot of menudo, a platter of chilequiles, refried beans and cheese. The menudo was cold and gelatinous, the chilequiles wilted and spongy, the beans like playdough, hardened and cracked. Calliope began to shake violently. The babies cramped together in her belly, compressed her bladder with her ribcage, everything wiggling and softening, her innards poised to release if she didn’t wrap her arms around herself and squeeze. She swallowed back bile and tried hard not to vomit.

It didn’t work.

She staggered to the kitchen sink and, clutching the tile, let go.

Once she’d stopped heaving, she turned the faucet on, but it only spurted air. She shook her head and chuckled mirthlessly. Of course there wasn’t water. She sighed and cleaned her mouth with a dish towel folded beside the sink instead, scrubbing at her tongue with the cloth. She hadn’t checked upstairs. Her family could have been bunkered in a closet, unable to hear her while she’d been wandering around downstairs. She felt foolish for getting so upset, imagining Andres laughing as she told him she’d vomited in the kitchen sink. You never can handle crisis, he would say, but I’m here now. It’s all right.