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, “You don’t know yet?”

“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.”