He pushed the gate open. It whined loudly. He stepped onto the porch and knocked. No answer. The doorknob felt loose as he twisted it. The door drifted open, and a smell hit him like a slap. Rot. Dampness. Something sour and medical. He fumbled for the light switch, but nothing responded. He lifted his phone and turned on the flashlight.
The beam cut through darkness and revealed a living room stripped of joy. Furniture pushed against walls. Stains across carpeting. A coffee mug with mold blooming inside. On the far side of the room, someone lay curled in a thin blanket.
“Tessa,” he whispered. His throat closed.
He dropped the backpack and rushed forward. The light shook wildly. Tessa’s face had hollowed into sharp angles. Her cheeks were sunken. Her skin looked gray beneath grime. Sunken eyes fluttered open. She stared for a second, as if thoughts took too long to connect.
“Miles,” she breathed. The word barely formed. “Is it really you.”
He pressed his hand to her forehead. Fever. A violent heat that terrified him. He glanced beside her and froze. Their son, Cal, lay tucked against her stomach, skin pale as candle wax. His breathing came out in tiny wet whistles, like each inhale was clawing for space.
Miles’s lungs collapsed inward. “God. Oh God.”
Tessa’s lips trembled. “I tried. I tried so hard. I asked for help. Nobody believed you would come back. They said you chose money instead of us.”
He felt something inside him crumble into dust. “I thought… I thought this would save us.”
She coughed sharply. Her voice rasped. “Save us. We needed you. Not this dream of fixing everything later.”
He gathered them both up in his arms. Cal’s small body felt light as if bones were missing. Tessa barely held onto his shoulders. He stumbled back toward the door, shouting into the cold.
“Somebody. Please. Help me. My wife. My son. Please.”
Porch lights snapped on across the street. A neighbor in a robe hurried across gravel. Another man jogged from his driveway yelling for someone to call the emergency line. Within minutes, a woman with silver hair pulled up in a pickup. She rolled down the window.
“Put them in the back,” she ordered. “I am driving.”
