The first weekend morning in the apartment felt wrongfully quiet.
No alarms. No school bells. No hospital calls.
Just a thin stripe of light leaking through the cheap blinds and the smell of coffee that was more habit than luxury.
MELISSA HARRIS woke to the soft ache behind her eyes that said she'd finally slept more than four hours in a row. For a few seconds she lay there, disoriented, hand reaching for a pager that wasn't clipped to her scrub pants anymore.
No pager. A borrowed nightstand. A window instead of a curtained-off ER bay.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, pulled on her gray hoodie, and stepped into the hallway.
The apartment was awake in pieces.
In the living room, WILLIAM sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes glued to a Saturday morning cartoon.
In the corner, MAYA crouched with the cat in her lap, coloring on the side of a cardboard box. She was carefully writing MAYA'S STUFF in shaky capitals and outlining each letter in a different color.
From the tiny kitchen came the clink of dishes and the faint metallic rattle of the toaster.
ALBERT JONES had his head halfway into the fridge, rummaging like he expected it to be deeper than it was. An open carton of eggs sat on the counter beside a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.
On the table, there was exactly one bowl. One glass of orange juice. Two slices of toast.
Melissa's brows pulled together before she could stop them.
Her feet carried her past the table toward the sink on old muscle memory. She tore off a slice of bread, spread peanut butter on it with the back of a spoon, and took a standing bite.
For years, that had been breakfast: whatever she could eat standing up over the sink in the few quiet minutes between other people's emergencies.
She was halfway through the second bite when she felt someone watching her.
Maya had stopped coloring. The girl's big eyes were fixed on her, solemn in a way that had nothing to do with cartoons or crayons.
"Mom," Maya said.
Melissa froze with the toast halfway to her mouth. "Mm?"
"You can't eat like that."
Melissa tried for a joke. "Why not? Gravity works the same."
Maya hugged the cat closer. "When you eat standing up, it looks like you're about to leave."
Her voice wobbled on the last word.
"The night of the fire you were eating a cookie like that," she added quietly. "Walking. And then you… didn't come home."
The room changed. The TV kept flashing bright colors, but the sound from it seemed to come from very far away.
On the couch, William slowly reached for the remote and clicked the volume down.
His gaze slid to the fridge.
On the door, a yellow sticky note shouted in bright marker:
HOUSE RULE #2:
NOBODY EATS ALONE.
They had taped it up days ago after the caseworker left, but this was the first lazy morning where the rule actually mattered.
"We have rules now," William said, trying to sound older than he was. "It's on the fridge."
Melissa looked at the toast in her hand. It felt heavier than bread should.
Albert straightened up from the fridge, an apologetic grin already on his face and a very burnt slice of toast in his hand. The edges were nearly black, the center just barely golden.
"Right," he said. "Okay. First course is ready."
He set the blackened toast in the middle of the table like it was something special.
"What's that supposed to be?" William asked.
Albert cleared his throat. "This dish is called Bread That's Been Scared Once."
Maya blinked. "Why?"
"Because it saw too much fire," Albert said. "It thought it was done for. But somebody pulled it out in time, so only the edges got burnt."
He broke the charred crust off and dropped the black strips into the trash can.
"The scary part stays in here," he said. "We keep the middle."
"Like that night?" William asked, softer. "We leave the worst bits behind."
Maya stared at the now-smaller slice. "Can we… can we only remember the part inside? The part where we were all in the truck together?"
No one laughed.
Albert broke the salvaged toast into four small pieces and held one out to each of them.
Melissa looked at her own half-eaten toast, then at their expectant faces. With a small sigh, she came back to the table, dropped her bread onto a plate, and pulled out a chair.
"Okay," she said. "Fine. I sit."
William looked smug, like a law had just been ratified.
Maya smiled for real for the first time that morning and set the cat gently on her lap. The cat, baffled but resigned, rested his chin on the edge of the table like a fifth family member.
They cobbled together a breakfast that would've made a nutritionist cry: burnt toast, leftover soup, reheated pizza, a carton of orange juice.
It didn't taste great, but it felt like something.
Halfway through, something thin and white slid under the front door with a soft hiss.
Maya was closest. She hopped down, picked it up, and squinted at the bold print.
"It says… 'Attention all residents: Mandatory building fire drill next week…'"
The words FIRE DRILL leapt off the page, huge and heavy.
Her fingers trembled. Color drained from her face so fast it made Melissa's chest ache to see it.
Melissa was on her feet in an instant, a hand on Maya's shoulder. "It's a drill," she said. "They'll keep the lights on. Everyone will know it's coming."
Albert walked over, took the notice, and scanned the details: date, time, required evacuation route.
He folded the paper neatly and stuck it under a magnet on the fridge, in the crowded little maze of sticky notes and flyers that was slowly becoming their command center.
"Okay," he said slowly. "Then we… run our own drill first."
William perked up. "Like practice?"
"Yeah." Albert's mouth tilted. "This time, we do the night over. Lights on. No smoke. No rushing. Nobody gets left behind."
Maya looked from his face to the notice and back again. Fear was still there, coiled tight—but something else flickered too.
She nodded.
Outside the door, other apartments stayed shut, sleepy eyes still closed.
Inside, the clock over the stove ticked on, nudging them toward a night they were about to repeat on purpose.