Chapter 9 Serena
By the third day of our confinement, Brad's medication inventory checks had become an obsession.
I watched him spread everything across the kitchen counter for the fourth time that morning—inhalers, nebulizer solutions, oral medications, emergency epinephrine—counting doses with the focus of someone defusing a bomb.
"Six days of preventive inhaler if we maintain current usage," he muttered, making notes on his phone. "Four days of nebulizer solution. But if he has an attack, if he needs extra treatments..."
"The roads should be clear before then," I offered, though the news reports suggested otherwise.
He pivoted—poorly, his injured knee buckling before he caught himself on the counter. I pretended not to notice, just like I'd pretended not to see him dry-swallowing ibuprofen behind the refrigerator door.
"I can't risk running out." He checked the weather app again, though it hadn't changed in the last ten minutes. "The pharmacy might have emergency services. Or the hospital."
"Brad—"
"I'm going to the supermarket." The declaration came with the kind of finality I'd learned meant arguing would only make him dig in harder. "The main roads are supposedly passable."
"Then I'm coming with you."
"You don't have to—"
"You can barely walk without limping. You need backup."
His jaw tightened, but before he could refuse, Finn appeared in the doorway.
"Family meeting without me?" Finn stood there, hair defying several laws of physics. "That's illegal. I'm calling the police."
"Nobody's calling anyone," Brad said, just as I said, "We're going to the supermarket."
Finn's entire face reorganized itself around joy. "ADVENTURE! Can I come? Please? I'll wear seventeen coats! I'll breathe through my nose! I'll—"
"It's too cold, buddy."
The light in Finn's eyes died so fast I heard it flatline.
"I never get to do anything real." His voice went small, contained. "Just hospital and home and school and home and hospital. Like I'm made of glass."
Brad's expression cracked. "Finn—"
"I'll be so careful. I promise. Please, Dad?"
I watched Brad's internal struggle play across his face—the desire to keep Finn in the controlled environment versus the guilt of his son's isolation. Finally, his shoulders dropped in defeat.
"Fine. But you wear everything—coat, hat, scarf over your face. And if you feel even a little wheezy—"
"I'll tell you immediately!" Finn raced upstairs to get ready.
Brad looked at me. "This is a mistake."
"Maybe," I admitted. "But he needs to feel like a normal kid sometimes."
"Normal kids don't have to worry about—" He stopped, running a hand through his hair. "Let's just go."
Brad's SUV was a military-grade fortress on wheels—heated seats, advanced climate control, emergency supplies that would make a prepper proud. He'd remote-started it twenty minutes ago, ensuring the interior was warm before Finn entered.
The buried roads stretched before us like white tunnels carved between snow walls.
Brad drove with intense focus, hands gripping the wheel, constantly checking mirrors and monitoring Finn in the rearview.
The city's attempts at plowing had created narrow passages barely wide enough for one vehicle, forcing creative navigation when meeting oncoming traffic.
"It's like driving through a snow globe," Finn observed from the backseat, face pressed to the window despite Brad's repeated reminders to sit back.
"Buddy, please sit—"
That's when the engine coughed. Not a polite clearing-throat cough—a wet, tubercular hack that made my stomach drop.
"What was that?" I tried to keep my voice casual for Finn's sake.
Brad's knuckles went white on the steering wheel. The engine coughed again, then died completely. We rolled to a stop in the middle of the snow-packed road, steam beginning to rise from under the hood.
"No." Brad turned the key. Nothing. Again. A weak turnover, then silence. "No, no, no."
"Dad?" Finn's voice had gone small.
"It's okay, buddy. Just a little engine trouble." Brad's calm tone didn't match the panic in his eyes. "How's your breathing?"
"Fine, but it's getting cold."
It was. Without the engine, the heater had stopped, and the mountain air was already seeping through the windows' seals. Brad grabbed his phone—no signal. Mine showed one bar that flickered to none as I watched.
"I'm going to check the engine," Brad said. He quickly got out of the car and popped the hood, disappearing into the steam.
"Hey, Finn," I said, turning in my seat. "Want to play Twenty Questions?"
"Okay." He pulled his scarf higher. "But Dad's scared."
"What makes you say that?"
"He does this thing with his jaw when he's scared. Like when I had to stay overnight at the hospital last year." His eyes met mine, too knowing for seven years old. "Like when the machine started beeping and all the nurses came running."
This seven-year-old's emotional intelligence never ceased to amaze me. "He just wants to keep you safe."
"I know. But sometimes I wish he'd let bad things maybe happen instead of being scared all the time." He coughed—soft, but enough to make my chest tighten. "Being scared doesn't stop bad things."
Before I could respond, Brad yanked the passenger door open. "Battery connection's loose, but there might be a coolant leak too. I need to—" He noticed Finn watching and forced a smile. "Just need to tighten a few things."
For fifteen agonizing minutes, Brad worked under the hood while I kept Finn distracted with word games and silly stories. The windows fogged from our breath, and I could see Finn starting to shiver despite his layers. Brad's muffled cursing drifted through the hood gap.
"Animal, vegetable, or mineral?" I asked Finn for the dozenth time.
"Animal," he said, then coughed slightly.
My heart rate spiked, but I kept my voice steady. "Does it have four legs?"
"Yeah." Another small cough.
Brad must have heard because he slammed the hood and dove back into the driver's seat, frantically turning the key. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Then—miraculously—the engine turned over.
"Thank God," Brad breathed, then louder: "Okay! We're good. Everyone okay?"
"I'm cold," Finn admitted, his voice smaller than before. "And my chest feels funny."
Brad cranked the heat to maximum and pulled back onto the road with newfound urgency. The engine made an unhealthy rattling sound, but it was running. In the mirror, I could see him blinking hard, forcing down whatever had almost broken through.
"Supermarket's five minutes away, buddy," he said, though we all knew it was at least ten. "Then home. Then hot chocolate."
"With marshmallows?" Finn asked hopefully, his breathing already easing as warm air filled the car.
"All the marshmallows," Brad promised, his shaking hands gradually steadying on the wheel. "Every damn marshmallow in the store."
The supermarket parking lot looked like a disaster movie scene. Cars abandoned at odd angles, shopping carts buried in snow drifts, people moving between vehicles with grim determination. Inside was worse.
The shelves were mostly empty, what remained being fought over by increasingly desperate shoppers. A man shoved past me to grab the last gallon of milk. Two women were literally playing tug-of-war with a package of batteries.
"Stay close," Brad commanded, positioning himself between Finn and the chaos while I pushed the cart.
We grabbed what we could: Finn's medications from the pharmacy counter, food, canned goods, and bottled water. Brad's athletic presence cleared a path through the crowd; people instinctively moved aside at the sight of his broad shoulders and determined expression.
We were almost to the checkout when two men blocked our path. They were both large, wearing work boots and heavy canvas jackets, faces red from cold or alcohol or both.
"That's a lot of supplies for one family," the taller one said, eyeing our cart.
"Move," Brad said simply.
"See, thing is, my kids need supplies too." The man reached for our cart. "And you look like you can afford to share."
Brad stepped forward, using his size, but the second man noticed his limp.
"Hurt yourself, tough guy?" He deliberately bumped Brad's bad knee.
Brad's face went white but he didn't move. "Back off."
"Or what?" The first man grabbed items from our cart—including Finn's medication bag.
That's when Brad moved, injured knee or not, snatching the bag back with his left hand while his right connected with the man's jaw. The second man immediately went for Brad's weak side, sweeping his bad leg.
Brad went down hard, crashing into an endcap display of soup cans that exploded across the floor. Finn screamed. Without thinking, I rammed our cart into the first attacker's stomach, then swung it sideways into the second man's shins.
"Security!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "SECURITY! HELP!"
The men hesitated just long enough for Brad to get back to his feet, though I could see the agony in every movement. An actual security guard finally appeared, hand on his radio, and the attackers melted back into the crowd.
"Sir, are you—"
"We're leaving," Brad gritted out, leaning heavily on the cart.
I took over pushing while Brad limped alongside, trying to hide his pain from Finn, who'd gone silent and pale. We made it through checkout—the teenager working the register looked as traumatized as we felt—and back to the car.
"I can drive," I said.
"I'm fine—"
"You're not. Keys."
To my surprise, he handed them over.
I'd never driven anything this large or expensive, and certainly not on roads like these.
The SUV felt like piloting a boat through ice channels.
Brad sat rigid in the passenger seat, hands gripping the door handle, clearly fighting not to backseat drive while also trying not to let Finn see his pain.
"Dad, are you hurt?" Finn asked quietly.
"Just bumped my knee, buddy. I'm okay."
"Those men were mean."
"Yes," Brad agreed. "They were."
"Miss Serena hit them with the cart."
"She did."
"That was badass."
"Yeah, she was," Brad said automatically, but I caught the hint of a smile.
I navigated us home through sheer determination and possibly divine intervention, pulling into Brad's garage with shaking hands. The moment we were parked, I turned to assess Brad properly. His face was gray, jaw clenched against pain.
"Finn, honey, can you carry the light bags inside?" I asked. "Your dad and I need to get the heavy stuff."
Finn looked between us, too smart to be fooled but willing to play along. “Okay. Just come in soon, Dad. Miss Serena’s here for you.”
As soon as Finn was inside, Brad's controlled facade cracked. "Fuck. Sorry. It's—"
"Bad. I know. Lean on me."
"I can walk—"
"Brad. Lean on me."
He did, his weight warm and solid against my side as we made our way inside.
The protective fury that had driven me to ram those men with a shopping cart still hummed through my veins.
They'd hurt him. They'd scared Finn. The intensity of my response—the maternal instinct toward Finn, the protective rage for Brad—should have frightened me.
Instead, it felt like something clicking into place.