Chapter 8
The small bedroom at the back of the house had once been Charlotte’s childhood sanctuary.
At thirty-eight, she was back within its familiar walls, surrounded by remnants of her teenage self.
Family photos partly covered faded band posters, and a bookshelf still held dog-eared paperbacks from high school English classes.
She closed the door quietly behind her, grateful for a moment alone after the tense evening of news and power fluctuations.
Her father had checked the breakers after the second power flicker and found nothing out of the ordinary.
The television had kept up its coverage of the escalating conflict until Evelyn finally declared enough and switched it off.
Sophia had come downstairs, drawn by the unusual activity, only to be reassured that everything was fine and sent back to her homework.
Charlotte had seen the questions in her daughter’s eyes, the same ones growing in her own mind since the first alert that morning.
She sat on the edge of the bed, running her hand over the quilt her mother had made for her sixteenth birthday.
It had gone with Charlotte to college, to her first apartment, and to the home she’d shared with Jacob.
Still, it was back where it had started, covering the same bed in the same room, as if her life had folded in on itself.
The room wasn’t large, but it was comfortable.
Her parents had cleared a space for a desk in the corner, where her laptop sat among bills, school forms, and the paperwork of modern life.
A small dresser held her clothes, and the top drawer was dedicated to the few pieces of jewelry she owned, including the wedding band she’d stopped wearing after Jacob’s death.
It had felt wrong to keep wearing it when he could no longer, though she kept it close and couldn’t put it entirely away.
On the nightstand, there was a framed photograph of Jacob, taken on their last anniversary before his death.
He was smiling with his arm around her waist as they stood on the beach at Cape May.
She’d chosen this image because she wanted Sophia to remember her father happy, not as he’d been in those terrible final days in the hospital.
The settlement from the wrongful death suit sat in the bank, untouched except for Sophia’s college fund.
It was six figures representing the value the court had assigned to Jacob’s life and to all the years he would never have.
It felt like blood money, and spending it felt like acknowledging something she still wasn’t ready to accept: that he was truly gone, and this was all that remained.
There were apartments in town and small houses for rent on the outskirts.
She’d looked at listings online and had even driven past a few promising places.
Each time she considered moving, something held her back.
Sophia had adjusted to living with her grandparents and had found a fragile stability in the rhythm of their household.
Uprooting her again seemed selfish when weighed against the comfort of the familiar.
So, they stayed. Sophia had the bedroom across the hall, the one that had once been the guest room.
Her parents had the master suite at the front of the house.
They’d settled into a routine that accommodated all of them, with Evelyn cooking most meals, Liam handling outdoor maintenance, and Charlotte taking care of the bills and Sophia’s school needs.
It wasn’t the life she had planned, but it worked.
It kept them moving forward when everything in her wanted to stop.
Charlotte changed into her sleep clothes: an old T-shirt of Jacob’s and a pair of soft cotton pants. The ritual was so familiar she could do it without thinking. She pulled back the covers and slid under them. Then she reached for Jacob’s photo, as she did every night.
“Hey,” Charlotte said. “Rough day.”
The Jacob in the photograph continued to smile, caught forever in that moment.
“Sophia took a mental health day. Mom called her in sick from school. I got an alert and panicked when I couldn’t reach her.
You would’ve handled it better. You always did.
Something is happening. War, I guess, though they’re not calling it that yet.
Russia and China have an alliance. The president says we’ll win, but I don’t know.
The power’s been acting strangely. Flickering.
The alert this morning mentioned electrical interference. ”
The words sounded absurd when spoken aloud. Electrical interference was too simple an explanation for modern life going wrong all at once. Beyond her window, the night was perfectly still, with no visible cause for the disruption.
“I still think about what you’d do if you were here.
Would you take us somewhere else? Stock up on supplies?
Or would you say I was overreacting and that it’s just another crisis that’ll blow over?
Probably the latter. You were always the calm one.
I’m trying, Jacob. I really am. Sometimes it’s just so hard without you here. ”
The light above her flickered once, then went out, plunging the room into darkness.
Charlotte sat up and reached for her phone on the nightstand.
Its screen provided enough light as she made her way to the window.
Outside, the street was dark, with no lights from the houses across the way and no glow from the streetlamps. The entire neighborhood had gone dark.
“This isn’t good,” Charlotte whispered.
In the distance, a faint glow suggested that power was still on somewhere beyond their area. In her pocket of Tuckerton, the world had gone quiet. Charlotte reached for her robe, suddenly certain that whatever was happening had only just begun.