Chapter Twenty
~ Liam ~
It was still dark. The kind of dark you get only when the sky’s so thick with snow you can’t even tell where the night ends and the next day is supposed to start.
In the kitchen, the under-cabinet light—burnt orange and no brighter than a traffic cone—was the only thing fighting back against the dark, and even it seemed to be on its last nerve.
I was up before dawn because Emilio was up before dawn, and we’d long ago ceded control of the household schedule to the kid’s inferior digestive system.
He was, at present, a damp, vaguely sweet-smelling loaf of bread with legs, pressed hard to my chest in his usual position: head on my collarbone, fists jammed under his own chin, daring the world to try anything.
I’d done the full drill—diaper, bottle, obligatory back-patting—by 5:35, which left approximately two hours to kill before I could admit I wanted to be awake at all.
The house was so quiet you could hear the fridge cycle on from the next room, the low compressor thump dovetailing with the breathy huff of snow against the kitchen window.
Not another sound: not the pop of the baseboard heater, not a single boot step from upstairs, not even the telltale shuffle of Hooper’s usual morning prowl.
I set Emilio in the crook of my arm and padded over to the sink. My socks, the thick kind with the band of red at the top, made a whispering noise against the linoleum, the kind of noise I’d trained myself to listen for in other houses, other lives.
Here it was just a reminder that the floors had been lived on, maybe even before the war, maybe by men who drank their coffee and left by six and never once imagined their grandkids would be standing in the same place, measuring their worth by the weight of a sleeping child.
The coffee maker was already loaded, a leftover act of kindness from someone who must have sensed the storm coming. I flipped it on and let it do its hissing, spitting thing, filling the room with the sharp, nearly burned smell of off-brand grounds and hot water.
I’d grown to love it, the way the scent clung to everything, the way it meant you were somewhere people expected to be awake and doing things.
Outside, the snow was coming down in unhurried sheets, falling so slow it looked like the air itself was turning to paste.
There were no tire tracks at the main junction.
No headlights bouncing off the tree line, no figures walking the fence.
Just the steady layering of snow on top of snow, like the world was wrapping itself in white bandages, erasing every sharp edge or trace of the day before.
I watched the yard fill up, Emilio radiating heat against my sternum, his hair sticking up in the back in a way that looked engineered for static. He made a low, throaty sound—an artifact somewhere between a snore and a curse—and I shifted my grip on him, careful not to break the spell.
For the first time in months, I noticed that I was not waiting for anything. Not waiting for a knock, not for the hum of an approaching engine, not even for the radio on the windowsill to crackle to life with some new list of problems. The silence was not a warning; it was just silence.
I stood at the window for a long time, watching the world get buried.
I could feel my own jaw tightening, the old, automatic part of me cataloguing all the ways in which peace and quiet could be a trick, a setup, the calm before a thing that was already inbound.
But there was nothing to be done about that, not now, not with a baby burrowing his face into my t-shirt like a truffle pig.
I took a breath and made myself look back out at the snow, as if the sheer act of seeing it would make it real.
The coffee was done. I reached for a mug—bottom shelf, chipped on one side, heavy enough to use as a weapon if things went to hell—and poured with one hand, balancing Emilio with the other. He did not stir. I set the mug on the counter, steam curling upward in a lazy, noncommittal loop.
That’s when Hooper came in. Shirtless, or nearly—he had on a flannel, but it was open to the waist and looked like it had been retrieved from the dryer during a halftime sprint.
His hair was sleep-mussed, eyes red at the edges, but he wore the look with a kind of deliberate, practiced casual that said he had more important things to do than put on a show for the kitchen audience.
He walked straight to the coffee, poured himself a mug without a glance, then turned and leaned against the counter, shoulder to my shoulder. Not facing me, not opposite—just lined up so the warmth of his arm bled into mine at the elbow.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask about the baby or the weather or whether I’d slept. He just sipped his coffee, his mouth twitching into a half-smile when he noticed I’d started without him.
For a long minute we stood there, the only sounds the quiet clink of ceramic, the faint breath sounds from Emilio, and the steady, patient scrape of snow against the glass.
The kitchen had a flavor to it: woodsmoke from last night’s fire, the sour edge of old coffee, something faintly metallic from the water in the pipes.
In other houses, mornings like this meant a countdown, a list of urgent tasks, a reason to get dressed and leave as quickly as possible.
Here it just meant you had survived to another morning.
I glanced sideways at Hooper. He caught the look, grinned full-on this time, and nudged the handle of my mug so the rim lined up with the edge of his. “Cheers,” he said, so soft it was barely sound, and I felt something in my chest uncoil.
We watched the snow for a while. We didn’t talk about the road, or what might be waiting outside, or whether the storm was supposed to last another two days. We just stood there, two men in socks and shirts, watching the world turn itself over and over.
I thought, suddenly, about last December.
About standing in the tree line with numb feet, watching a porch light, telling myself I’d leave once I was sure Emilio was inside.
How sure I’d been that I was doing the right thing by cutting the line, by making a clean break and leaving the world tidier than I’d found it.
I’d thought I was good at that. I’d thought I was doing everyone a favor.
But now, standing in the kitchen with Emilio breathing damp against my throat, Hooper’s elbow pressed into mine, I felt the small, dumb part of me that wanted to believe this could last. That the world, against every precedent, would let us keep it.
It wasn’t hope, not exactly. More like the memory of hope.
I stood at the window and watched the snow. For once, I didn’t check the county road. I just watched it fall.
By eight, Emilio was out cold again, his arms splayed wide in surrender. I laid him down in the portable bassinet in the living room and tiptoed back to the kitchen, shutting the door with the kind of reverent care usually reserved for bomb diffusers or funeral directors.
Once, a few months ago, I’d read a study online that claimed even babies in a coma would startle awake if you so much as looked at them too hard. I believed it. The kid had a sixth sense for motion, for distraction, for anything that suggested the universe was daring you to get something done.
So I sat at the kitchen table and did nothing.
Not nothing in the way of killing time until the next crisis, or nothing in the way of running through worst-case scenarios on a loop.
Nothing, as in: no phone, no notebook, no prepaid burner face-down in a pocket.
Nothing but the grain of the wood under my palms and the pale, off-white rectangle of morning sneaking in through the window above the sink.
Across the room, the account ledger waited on the top shelf, already bulging with new receipts, corners dog-eared, a few slips of paper marking places where the math had fallen apart or the documentation just gave up and walked off the page.
There was a Pyrex casserole dish with a cracked blue lid on the counter, evidence of Jojo’s latest peace offering—some kind of baked ziti with more cheese than structural integrity.
Next to it, a folded kitchen towel, a knife with a green handle, a note in Hooper’s handwriting that said simply: “Eat the rest or I will.”
I watched the nothingness unfold for what felt like an hour. In reality, it lasted about four minutes.
By minute five, I was on my feet, pulling the ledger from the shelf, shuffling through the receipts to find the latest red-flagged disaster.
Not because anyone was watching. Not because Rawley had ever once mentioned the books since Eleanor’s defeat.
Not because I needed to prove anything to anybody.
Because this was my home, now, and the books mattered.
The numbers were a mess, a slow-motion train wreck of misfiled fuel invoices and purchases from three separate hardware stores, each with their own approach to spelling “Hooper.”
I started to sort them, quietly and methodically, not even aware that I’d begun to hum under my breath—just a flat, monotone drone, the same two bars of “Jolene” over and over again.
I’d made it halfway through reconciling last month’s seed order when Jojo walked into the kitchen, Ethan balanced on his hip.
He wore a gray hoodie with a barn cat embroidered on the breast pocket, and a pair of jeans that looked, to the untrained eye, like they had survived at least three livestock emergencies this week.
Ethan, as always, had yogurt on his face.
“Hey,” Jojo said, eyes darting past me to the living room. “He out?”
I nodded. “Dead to the world.”
Jojo set Ethan down on the floor, bracing him with a knee while he poured himself a coffee. Ethan beelined for the lowest cabinet, found the sack of potatoes, and immediately started gnawing on the mesh bag.
Jojo took a sip and made a face, then shrugged, as if bad coffee was just another part of the life he’d signed up for. “How long you think he’ll go?” He meant Emilio.