Chapter 9
The house was quiet. Her parents’ bedroom door remained closed, and Sophia, who could sleep through almost anything, would be out for at least another two hours.
Charlotte pulled on her robe and made her way downstairs, careful to avoid the third step that always groaned beneath any weight.
She filled the coffeemaker and checked her phone while it brewed.
There were three missed calls from unknown numbers.
A text from her supervisor asking if she’d be in for her shift.
Several news alerts about the SNA. A notification from the power company blamed the outage on equipment failure at the regional substation and apologized for the inconvenience.
Charlotte chuckled softly. She poured her coffee, black and without sugar, and settled at the kitchen table with her phone.
Headlines about the conflict dominated the news sites, though the tone had shifted overnight.
Yesterday’s warnings had given way to cautious optimism.
One headline read: SNA forces pulling back from the Syrian border.
Charlotte clicked the first article and scanned the details.
According to unnamed Pentagon sources, SNA troops had begun withdrawing from positions along the Syrian border shortly after midnight Eastern Time.
Satellite imagery confirmed the movement of armored vehicles and personnel carriers away from the contested area.
The White House praised the responsible action and expressed hope.
She switched to another site, then another, looking for consistency.
Each told the same story. The crisis that had seemed imminent just hours before had begun to recede.
Analysts speculated about back-channel communications and secret agreements.
No one seemed entirely certain why the pullback had occurred, but everyone agreed it was happening.
It should have been reassuring. The threat of war was receding, and normal life should have been resuming.
Yet something about the reporting nagged at her.
The tone was too uniform; the relief was too carefully orchestrated.
It reminded her of the way doctors had spoken after Jacob’s accident, calm and measured even as his condition deteriorated by the hour.
She set her phone down and took another sip of coffee. Her route would be waiting regardless of what was happening on the other side of the world. The mail would still need sorting, and the packages would still need to be delivered. The routine would continue as it always did.
The power outage had left her uneasy. Twelve years as a mail carrier had given her an intimate knowledge of the neighborhood’s rhythms. The complete darkness she’d witnessed from her window had been wrong in a way that was hard to articulate.
Houses didn’t go dark all at once unless something had caused it.
She rinsed her cup and set it in the dishwasher, then made her way quietly upstairs.
Sophia’s door was slightly ajar, and Charlotte paused to look in at her sleeping daughter.
At sixteen, Sophia still slept like the child she’d once been, one arm flung above her head, her face relaxed in a way it rarely was when awake.
The worries about college, tests, and the future were temporarily erased.
Charlotte resisted the urge to go in and adjust the blanket that had slipped to the floor.
Sophia would be embarrassed to be caught sleeping and would take the gesture as infantilizing.
She knew it was better to let her rest. She had just turned away from Sophia’s door when her phone rang, the sound unnaturally loud in the predawn quiet.
Charlotte hurried back to her room and closed the door before answering.
“Hello?”
“This is an automated message from Tuckerton High School,” the recorded voice said.
“Due to the ongoing air quality alert affecting our region, all classes will be canceled for Thursday, September 21st, and Friday, September 22nd. All school activities, including sports practices and club meetings, are also canceled. We anticipate classes will resume as normal on Monday, September 25th. Please check the district website for updates. Thank you.”
The message ended, leaving Charlotte staring at her phone in confusion.
There had been no mention of air quality in the warnings from the day before.
The notification had mentioned weather and electrical interference.
She pulled up her weather app but found nothing beyond the generic extreme weather warning that had been active since yesterday morning.
She set down the phone, a chill running through her despite the warmth of the house.
Something was happening, and the authorities weren’t being entirely straightforward about it.
The war, the power outages, and the schools closing under the vague justification of air quality felt like puzzle pieces falling into place one by one.
In the hallway, she heard the soft creak of her parents’ bedroom door.
Her mother would be getting up soon, starting breakfast, and beginning the careful choreography of their morning routine.
Charlotte knew she should go tell her about Sophia’s school being closed and start getting ready for her own workday.
Instead, she stood motionless in the center of her room, phone still in hand, as the first true light of day began to filter through her curtains.