Chapter 4

Ethan’s message remained on my screen while a respiratory monitor counted the breaths he had never bothered to ask about.

Morning light lay pale across the hospital floor. My burned palm was wrapped to the wrist, smoke made swallowing feel like sandpaper, and Elena sat nearby with an oxygen cannula. The quiet between us held the knowledge that she and Bruno had come back when my husband would not.

I typed, *Are you asking whether I survived?* Then I deleted it. A question could not force care into a man who had used his first message from safety to look…