"Maddie—"
"Stay put, Jack. I'll bring it."
I hung up before he could argue. BeforeIcould argue.
Tom was watching me from the couch, the tactical movie still exploding in the background. His wine glass was still in his hand, but his entire body had gone still, wired for a different kind of tension.
"Everything okay?"
"The Henley girl," I said, my words coming out fast as I scanned the floor for my shoes. "Cassie's daughter. She has ahigh fever—a hundred and three—and her uncle... he’s out of his depth. He’s stuck out there with no medicine and no way to leave her to get it."
I spotted one flat by the door. The other had somehow migrated under the coffee table. I dropped to my knees to fish it out, my fingers grazing the dust on the floorboards.
Tom got up. He came over and put his hands on my arms, not stopping me, just—there.
"Hey," he said softly. "Madison. Look at me."
I looked up, a shoe in each hand, my hair falling into my face.
"You're shaking," he noted. His eyes were searching mine, looking for the cool, collected surgeon he knew and finding someone much younger, much more raw. "You sound... distraught."
"I'm fine. It’s a high fever, likely viral, but a child that age can't sustain that kind of heat for long. I just need to get some supplies out to Clear Creek."
"Right." He let his hands slide down to my wrists. He didn't ask why the uncle couldn't handle it. He didn't ask why it had to be me. He just stood in the space where my excuses usually lived. "So."
"I know." I pulled on my coat. "I know. It's just—it's Cassie's kid, and I—" I stopped. There wasn't a clean way to finish it. "I just need to go."
Tom looked at me for a long moment. He was a smart man; he could see the ghosts of a twelve-year-old life standing in the room with us, but he was also a kind man. He leaned in and kissed my forehead—a brief, warm pressure that felt like a goodbye to the quiet evening we’d planned.
"Go," he said. "Drive safe. The bridge over the creek gets slick when it’s this dark."
Chapter Twenty-One
Madison
The pharmacy took ten minutes. I moved through it on autopilot—children's Tylenol, the right dosage for her weight, a bottle of Pedialyte because it was there and it made sense. I stood at the self-checkout and didn't let myself think about where I was going.
Clement Street was quiet. I parked behind a rental car I didn't recognize and sat for a moment with the engine off.
I knew this street. Knew the house—the porch with the step that dipped in the middle, the gutter above the door that rattled every time the wind picked up. I'd been here more times than I could count, back when this address meant something different. Back when coming here meant Jack's jacket on the hook and Cassie's laugh carrying from the kitchen and the unthinking ease of a place where you were expected.
It looked exactly the same. That was the disorienting thing. Twelve years and the house hadn't moved an inch.
I got out.
Jack answered before I’d finished knocking. He looked like he’d been awake for a long time. The hall light was behind him, casting his shadow long across the wet porch, and for a second I just stood there in the rain taking in the weight of him. He wasbroader than I remembered, his jaw dark with several days of growth, his shoulders holding a tension that hadn't been there a decade ago. But the eyes were the same.
His gaze dropped to the pharmacy bag in my hand.
"You didn't have to?—"
"I know," I said, cutting him off before he could turn it into a debt.
I stepped inside.
The house stopped me for a second. Not the layout—I knew the layout, could have walked it blind—but the smell of it, that stale, familiar warmth, and the coat hooks by the door with a child's purple jacket on them now where there used to be nothing. I knew this hallway. I'd stood in it a hundred times. It had just never felt like the past was something you could actually step into.
"How's she been?" I said, keeping my voice low. The silence of the house felt fragile, like a thin sheet of glass.