The compliment made my chest tight. "He misses having..." I stopped, unable to finish.
"A mom?" She said it simply, without weight. "Of course he does. But that doesn't diminish what you are to him."
We sat in comfortable silence, the fire crackling, snow beginning to fall again outside. I found myself telling her about my rookie year, how Sarah had been the only person who didn't treat me like a future star or meal ticket. How she'd made me laugh during the worst slump of my career, bringing ridiculous signs to games until I broke out of it.
The wind picked up outside, rattling the windows. Without thinking, I added another log to the fire, then grabbed an extra blanket from the couch, draping it over her shoulders.
Her eyes met mine in the firelight, something shifting in the space between us. I escaped upstairs, but found myself pausing at Finn's door, watching him sleep surrounded by the steady hum of his air purifier and the glow of his breathing monitor. Through his window, I could see Serena's destroyed cabin, the massive tree still piercing through its roof like nature's reminder that control was always an illusion.
When I finally made it to my own room, I could hear her moving around downstairs, the quiet domesticity of anotherperson in my space. It should have felt like an intrusion. Instead, the house felt less like a fortress and more like a home.
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."
