The first storm since they'd moved in rolled across Sierra Glen a few nights later.
Rain hammered the windows hard enough to rattle the thin glass. Wind bullied the hallway posters into flapping like they were trying to escape their staples. Somewhere down the street, a car alarm went off and then choked into silence.
Maya woke to the sound of it all, heart already racing before her eyes opened.
For a moment, she didn't know where she was. The dark shape of the dresser could've been a row of cots. The sound of rain could've been fire hoses.
"Mom?" she whispered.
Melissa was awake before the word left her mouth. Years of night shifts had trained her body to spring up at the slightest change in sound.
"I'm here," she said, reaching across the narrow bed until her fingers closed around Maya's.
A crack of thunder shook the walls.
In the hallway, someone yelped. Then, abruptly, the humming ceiling light went dead.
The apartment plunged into black.
Maya's grip tightened painfully. "Are we leaving?" she breathed.
For one traitorous heartbeat, Melissa wanted to say yes. That they could climb out of all of it—debt, forms, tiny rooms—in one neat evacuation.
Instead she took a slow breath and made her voice firm. "No. Power's out. That's all."
A neighbor shouted something about the fuse box. Somebody's baby started wailing.
Across the hall, WILLIAM Jones cracked his bedroom door and peered out.
"Stay put," Albert muttered, already reaching for his phone.
William ignored him. He padded barefoot into the hallway, using the weak glow from his screen to check every window he passed, palm hovering under the sill to feel for leaks.
By the time Albert opened their door, he nearly tripped over his son.
"What are you doing?" Albert asked.
"Checking," William said, as if it were obvious. "If the water comes in, the floor will get slippery. We need to know."
Albert should have sent him back to bed. Instead, he found himself saying, "Any leaks?"
"Not yet." William frowned. "But we should have lights."
"We do," Albert said. "They're just not plugged in."
He raided the kitchen drawer for the small flashlight, gathered all four of their phones, and lit them up. The little circles of light pooled on the table like a cluster of fireflies.
Melissa appeared in the doorway with Maya glued to her side and the cat tucked under her arm. The cat's fur was puffed up to twice its usual volume.
"The hallway's fine," Albert said. "We're gonna build something."
"Build what?" Maya's voice quivered between fear and interest.
"A fort," he said. "One that doesn't care if the lights go out."
Chairs, cushions, and blankets migrated to the middle of the living room. In a few minutes they had a lopsided blanket fort draped over the furniture. Albert put the flashlight and all four phones in the center, screens up.
Light turned the fabric thin and warm.
"New rule," Melissa said, crouching to peer inside. "As long as this light is on, nobody hides by themselves in a corner being scared."
"What if somebody has to pee?" William asked.
"Then at least one other person goes too," Albert said gravely. "Buddy system."
Maya snorted despite herself. The knot in her chest loosened a fraction.
She crawled into the fort, setting the cat down near the flashlight. The cat glared at the light, turned in a circle twice, and settled down anyway.
Shadows of their faces rippled across the blanket ceiling, distorted and funny.
"I'm scared too," Melissa said.
Three heads turned her way.
"I pretended I wasn't, the night of the fire," she went on, eyes on the little pool of light. "At the hospital, when the power flickered and everything beeped and then stopped, I thought: if I go down, maybe I won't have to watch any more bad endings."
She had never said that aloud before. It sounded uglier, and truer, than she'd expected.
Maya slid one of the phones closer to her, the light pooling in her mother's hand. "Then you can be the kid tonight," she said. "We'll protect you."
Melissa let out a breath that was half laugh, half sob. "Okay," she said. "Tonight I'm the one who gets the extra blanket."
William wedged the flashlight into the top of the fort so the beam shone upward, glowing through the fabric.
"That's our lighthouse," he said. "If anybody gets lost, they can look for it."
Outside, rain kept pounding. Lightning flashed behind the curtains every few minutes, turning the whole room white for a heartbeat.
Inside the fort, it was just four breaths and the cat's rumbling purr.
Sometime around dawn, the refrigerator buzzed back to life and the overhead lights snapped on with a pop.
Albert woke with a kink in his neck and the taste of stale crackers in his mouth.
He turned off the exhausted flashlight, then reached over and gently pried a phone out from under William's cheek.
"Hey," he murmured, nudging Melissa's shoulder. "For a scared kid, you slept pretty hard."
She rubbed her eyes, hair sticking up in every direction. "If I'd known all it took was building a fort, I would've done that in nursing school."
She staggered toward the kitchen on autopilot. Before she could start the coffeemaker, an envelope whispered in under the door.
"More rules," William said sleepily.
Albert picked it up. This one wasn't bright red. It was just plain white with a government logo in the corner.
He tore it open and read.
"Dear Mr. Jones," he started. "Thank you for your interest in the Sierra Glen Rebuild Initiative. We are pleased to invite you to join the upcoming community rebuilding program. The pay is limited but there is potential for long-term employment."
Melissa's head snapped up. "That's good," she said. "That's really good."
"Keep reading," he said.
"Volunteers," he continued, "are required to provide documentation of stable caregiving arrangements for any dependents in their household."
He looked at the kids.
At his son, yawning around a mouthful of cereal.
At Maya, who had crawled back into the blanket fort to rescue the cat.
"Caregiving arrangements," he repeated. "Which basically means we have to put in writing who's taking care of who, and how."
Melissa glanced at the fort, at the little lighthouse that was now just fabric and shadows.
"We've been doing it," she said. "We just haven't put it in boxes yet."
Now, apparently, they'd have to translate something as messy as love into checkmarks and signatures.