The mediator—they had decided not to be contentious about it—told them they were lucky and smart to avoid a huge battle over their assets. There was no need for a battle. The fight had gone out of them both some time ago, slipping away unnoticed until it had irretrievably disappeared. In the end, being starkly honest, he and Sierra were forced to agree that they had the same goal—to end their marriage.

Will didn’t linger over the multipage document. He knew what was in it. The decree summed up their marriage in crisp, objective terms—how they would divvy up the cars, the Tiffany ring and other jewelry, the property, the pensions, the policies. A clean business transaction. It didn’t address the blurry details of all the ways he and Sierra had grown apart—his deployments, her loneliness, his accident, her ambivalence, his dream, her deception. Those things were all like a trickle of water through a crack in a rock, seemingly harmless. But when a deep freeze came along, the water cracked the rock into pieces.

That final deep freeze turned out to be the most frank and painful conversation they’d ever had. She told him she didn’t want kids.

Despite a churning disappointment, he had tried to be understanding. I’m married to you. I made a commitment, a vow. If you’ve changed your mind, I’ll make my peace with it.

That’s not what I want, she’d responded, her flood of tears seemingly endless. I tried so hard to want what you want. I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t. Could. Not. She told him then that, last year, in the middle of a major catalog shoot, she’d terminated an early, unexpected pregnancy.

After that, there were no words that could have saved them.

He believed absolutely that a woman had a right to choose. His wife had a right to choose. But he also knew that Sierra’s choice meant something more than changing her mind about having children. It was an acknowledgment that she didn’t want to be married to him anymore. Didn’t want the future they’d envisioned when they were both too naively young to know that life didn’t always go according to plan.

“Fair enough,” he said, recognizing the irony of the statement. Then he dropped the papers into a drawer filled with all the detritus of the past three months. “Fair enough.”

Sometimes, going about his business in town, he encountered his ex-in-laws. While he was married, Sierra’s parents had not hesitated to treat him like family, including him in holidays and traditions, even reaching out to his own unreachable father. These days, when they saw Will, they ducked their heads and avoided eye contact as if they were the guilty ones. Did they know about Sierra’s choice? Or did they think the breakup was caused by something else? Did they think it was his fault? Did they think he’d cheated? Cheating was almost always a factor in a divorce. Will and Sierra were an exception. They had diverged. Wandered away from each other and stopped wondering why. They’d lost each other in the weeds of everyday living. They’d stopped talking about the things that mattered. They’d stopped dreaming their dreams together.

He went outside to tackle the day’s project—replacing some dry rot under the soffit of the garage.

Ladder, crowbar, Sawzall, chop saw. He climbed the ladder and stabbed the crowbar into the soft, rotten wood. A couple of wasps shot out of the gaping hole—a bad sign. And a bad sound—a low, steady, ominous hum. The sound of anger.

He yanked out another portion of the soffit, releasing a storm cloud of wasps. They streamed from a huge dirty-paper hive, their fury rising to a deafening crescendo.

“Fuck,” he said, feeling the burn of a sting on his neck. “Just . . . fuck.”

He swatted at the gathering storm as more stings darted into him. He didn’t panic, though. Once you get shot in the face by a terrorist, not much else rattles you.

The hive was half detached. He made one more swing with the crowbar and missed. The motion took him off balance and he went over backward, arms wheeling, hands swiping at empty air. Every bit of air left him when he landed flat on his back. He lay motionless, unable to draw breath for several seconds. And the furious humming went on.

The hive hung from a few spirals of fiber. The wasps encircled it. Maybe they circled his head like birds over a downed cartoon character.

After a few seconds, he managed to take in some air. Did a mental check for injuries. Everything seemed to be in working order. He glared up at the hanging hive, the hovering wasps. When dealing with venomous insects, you were supposed to call a professional. Wear protective gear. Use appropriate pesticides. There were rules.

“Fuck it,” he said, and levered himself up. He went and got a lighter and a can of WD-40. Warning: Do not expose to open flame. He aimed a stream at the hive and lit it. The homemade flamethrower roared. The hive exploded into flames, the flaky dry material disintegrating, the insects roasting. The whole thing drifted to the ground like remnants of the Hindenburg. It lay in the dry grass, igniting the brush, flames licking the side of the old garage. Will grabbed a shovel and flung loose dirt on the fire until it went out.

Looking around at the mess he’d made, he inventoried several livid stings. Then with one more fuck it, he peeled down to his skivvies and made for the dock, hitting the deep water with a satisfying splash. He floated on his back, gazing up at the sky while the salt water flooded over him, cooling the stings.

It was weird, being on his own. A new situation for him, now that he thought about it. He’d lived in college dorms. Then with his training unit and team in the navy. With Sierra after they married. On base during deployments. He’d never actually lived all on his own like this.

After Sierra left, friends and colleagues had rushed to him, offering comfort and companionship—one of the perks of living in a small community. The women especially had been attentive. An unattached guy, gainfully employed, was back on the market. He’d never consumed so much mac and cheese, so many Bundt cakes. He’d even gone on dates, mainly to distract himself from the fact that his heart was broken.

It really was, he reflected. And a broken heart was a lot worse than a fall from a ladder and a few dozen wasp stings.

A heartbreak can turn the world on its head.

A heartbreak can lay you out.

A heartbreak can change the shape of your dreams.

The clinic on Monday after school was crowded with sniffling children. That was how it seemed to Caroline, anyway.

There were a lot of things about raising children she didn’t understand, and one of them was that kids got sick all the time. They traded germs and viruses like baseball cards, passing them from one to another in an endless circuit. Today, though, both kids were sniffle-free, which was a good thing, because they were due for booster shots.

“I’ll tell you what. If you’re good at the doctor, I’ll take you for ice cream.”

“Ice cream is not as good as a shot is bad,” Flick said.

He was getting so smart.

“Fine, then tell me something that’s as good as a shot is bad.”

“A dog,” Flick said.

“What?”

“I want a dog. Like Ribsy in the book you read us.”

“Oh, Flick.”

“A dog! Let’s get a dog!” Addie jumped up and down.

Although the children didn’t know it, Caroline had already talked to her parents about getting a dog for the kids. They were on board, even excited. Ever since she’d arrived, they’d been urging her to live with them on a permanent basis. The house was so big, they’d said. Way too much house for them. It was a house meant for kids and dogs.

Caroline couldn’t deny that the arrangement was helping her beyond measure. To have a place to live, loving people to look after the children while she was reorganizing her life, was a gift, to be sure. Yet in the back of her mind, she also couldn’t deny that she regarded this as a temporary arrangement. She refused to be that boomerang adult child who came running home to lick her wounds after a setback.

She had plans. She was making a go of it. If her line of apparel succeeded, she could move to the city once again, make a name for herself, and resume the life she’d envisioned so long ago—only this time on her terms.

Getting a dog felt permanent. It was another line on the anchor embedded so deeply into the yielding ocean floor of home. Another knot in the apron strings.

An assistant called their name, and the three of them stepped into a small exam room.

Addie went first. The little girl sat on the paper-covered table, staring ahead with admirable stoicism. With her free arm, she hugged Caroline tight and clutched Wonder Woman in her hand. The nurse introduced herself as Connie. She managed the syringe with a clever sleight of hand, practically concealing it.

“You’re going to feel a quick pinch,” she said. “Can you hold still for me?”

Addie nodded. Then she looked at the needle and went completely slack, collapsing on the table like a dropped marionette. Wonder Woman hit the floor.

Caroline gasped. “Addie! What the—”

“Fainted,” the nurse murmured. She quickly laid Addie on the table and checked her breathing and pulse. The nurse was preparing to shine a scope into the little girl’s eyes when Addie blinked and sat up, glancing around in confusion.