My husband was working on his birthday, so I surprised him at the fire station with cake and balloons — no one smiled when I walked in, and his captain asked, “

“He’s been on leave.”

I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.

“No. He worked Thursday. He worked Sunday. He left the house this morning at six.”

Captain Holloway’s expression changed.

Not pity exactly.

Something worse.

Concern.

“Nadine, he hasn’t ridden on an engine since June.”

My fingers tightened around the cardboard cake box.

“That’s impossible.”

“I thought he told you.”

“He told me he was working.”

The captain rubbed one hand across his jaw.

One of my balloons slipped free from my wrist and floated toward the high ceiling.

Nobody moved to catch it.

“What happened?” I asked.

Captain Holloway led me into his office and closed the door.

I put the cake on his desk because my hands had started shaking.

He sat across from me.

“You remember the Carver Street fire?”

Of course I remembered it.

Four months earlier, an old apartment building had caught fire before dawn. It had been all over the local news.

Garrett had come home almost eighteen hours late that day.

One firefighter, Wade Mercer, had died.

Wade had worked with Garrett for almost six years.

They had fished together. Watched football together. Wade and his wife had eaten Thanksgiving dinner at our house twice.

Garrett had barely spoken after the funeral.

I thought he was grieving.

I hadn’t known there was more.

“Garrett was with Wade when the floor gave way,” Captain Holloway said.

I swallowed.

“He never told me that.”

“They were searching the second floor. Conditions changed fast. Wade got trapped.”

I stared at him.

“Garrett tried to go back.”

Captain Holloway paused.

“We had to pull him out.”

My mouth went dry.

“He told me Wade was on another crew.”

The captain looked down.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

He explained that Garrett had returned to work too soon after Wade’s death.

At first, he seemed fine.

Then during a routine kitchen fire a few weeks later, a ceiling panel crashed behind him.

Garrett froze.

Not for a second or two.

Long enough that another firefighter had to grab him and lead him outside.

Afterward, Garrett couldn’t breathe. His hands shook so badly he couldn’t hold a bottle of water.

The department doctor removed him from active duty and required counseling before he could return.

“He told me you knew,” Captain Holloway said quietly.

I looked at the closed office door.

Seven weeks.

For seven weeks, my husband had gotten up before sunrise, put on his station T-shirt, kissed me goodbye, and walked out with his black duffel bag.

Sometimes he didn’t return until the next morning.

“Where has he been going?”

Captain Holloway hesitated.

“I don’t know every day.”

“Do you know any day?”

His silence frightened me more than the answer.

“He’s been seeing the department counselor.”

“That doesn’t take twenty-four hours.”

“No.”

“Then where is my husband?”

“I think you need to ask Garrett.”

I stood so quickly the chair scraped across the floor.

Captain Holloway followed me into the bay.

I grabbed the cake.

The balloons suddenly looked ridiculous.

Bright, cheerful things floating over a woman who had just discovered her husband had been lying to her for almost two months.

One of the firefighters, a man named Curtis, walked toward me.

“Nadine.”

I stopped.

“He’s not doing what you’re thinking.”

“You have absolutely no idea what I’m thinking.”

His face tightened.

“You’re right. But Garrett isn’t…”

He glanced at Captain Holloway.

Then he stopped himself.

That made everything worse.

I drove home with the balloons filling half the car and the cake sliding back and forth on the passenger seat.

Garrett wasn’t there.

I called him.

No answer.

I called again.

Nothing.

By the fourth call, anger had replaced fear.

I went into our bedroom and opened the closet.

His station uniform was there.

So was his gear bag.

I began searching.

I hated myself for it, but I searched anyway.

Drawers. Jacket pockets. The desk in the spare room.

Inside the pocket of an old gray hoodie, I found a folded receipt.

It was from a hardware store.

Under it was a piece of paper with an address written in Garrett’s handwriting.

I recognized the last name beside it.

Mercer.

Wade Mercer.

I drove there.

Wade’s widow, Elise, had moved after the fire. I had sent her Christmas cards and checked in several times, but we weren’t close enough for me to know the new address.

Her house was a small white place at the end of a quiet street.

Garrett’s truck was parked outside.

I sat behind the wheel staring at it.

My first feeling was relief.

Then came another thought I hated myself for having.

What if Garrett and Elise—

I pushed it away.

But after seven weeks of lies, I no longer knew what was impossible.

I walked toward the house.

Before I reached the porch, I heard hammering from the backyard.

I followed the sound.

Garrett was standing beside a half-built wooden workbench.

Beside him was Wade’s fourteen-year-old son, Calvin.

Both of them turned when they saw me.

Garrett went completely pale.

“Nadine?”

I looked at his jeans.

His old T-shirt.

The work gloves.

No uniform.

No firehouse.

Nothing he had told me that morning was true.

“Happy birthday,” I said.

Calvin looked between us.

“I’ll go inside.”

Garrett pulled off his gloves.

“How did you find me?”

“That’s your first question?”

He closed his eyes.

“I went to the station.”

His shoulders dropped.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then I asked, “Where have you been for seven weeks?”

Garrett sat heavily on the edge of the unfinished workbench.

“Some days here.”

“Doing what?”

“Helping Elise with the house. Helping Calvin.”

“And the other days?”

“Counseling.”

“What else?”

He stared at the ground.

“Sometimes nowhere.”

I frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“It means sometimes I leave the house at six, park somewhere, and sit in my truck for hours because I don’t know where else to go.”

Something inside me cracked.

“Why?”

His eyes filled.