What happened next would stay with her always. Dave, sitting next to her, dived toward the open door. Dived. As if the floor were a pool. Without any hesitation or even time for conscious thought. Dave was not a great athlete nor did he possess lightning reflexes. He was not particularly quick or agile, and yet he dived across that linoleum floor with a speed he could never duplicate if he trained for ten years. As Kaylie started to fall out of sight, Dave slid across toward the open door, stretched his arm out, and grabbed the falling Kaylie by her ankle. He couldn’t stop his momentum, couldn’t stop himself from falling down those harsh steps, but somehow he managed to throw Kaylie back toward the kitchen floor, saving her. Dave had no way to break his own fall now. He crashed to the bottom of the steps, breaking two ribs.

Megan had heard about such heroics before, those rare spouses or parents who sacrificed themselves without thought. She read about shootings where husbands naturally stepped in front of their wives, saving them. They weren’t always good men, by classic definition. Some were drunks or gamblers or thieves. But they also were on some base level congenitally brave. There was a selflessness within them, a purity of action. They made you feel safe and cared for and loved. You couldn’t teach it. You had it or you didn’t.

Even before that, Megan knew that Dave had it.

He sat next to her and took her hand—the hand of the good arm—in his. He stroked her hair gently, as though she were suddenly made of porcelain and might break.

“I could have lost you,” Dave said, and there was a terrible sense of awe in his voice.

“I’m okay,” she said, and then because life can also be frighteningly practical in moments of abject horror, she asked, “Who’s watching the kids?”

“They’re with the Reales. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” she said. “More than you can ever know. But I need to tell you the truth.”

“It can wait,” he said.

“No, it can’t.”

“You’re hurt. My God, you were nearly killed tonight. I don’t care about the truth. I only care about you.”

She knew that at this very moment he meant that—and she also knew that eventually that thought would change. She would heal and come home, and then life and questions would nibble around the edges again. Maybe he could wait. But Megan couldn’t.

“Please, Dave, just let me talk, okay?”

He nodded. “Okay.”

And then while his hand slowly slipped off hers, Megan told him everything.

WHEN THE DOORBELL RANG, Del Flynn’s hand automatically went for the Saint Anthony medal.

Del sat at home watching the Celtics take on the Sixers. He cheered for the Sixers—they were his favorite basketball team—but the only team the Flynns truly loved was the Philadelphia Eagles. Football was Del’s game. Three generations of Flynn men—Del’s dad; Del; Del’s son, Carlton—had been huge Eagles fans. Twenty plus years ago, when Del had finally started making some serious dough, he started to buy Eagles season tickets right on the fifty-yard line. It took him two years to persuade his old man to skip working the pub on just one Sunday and attend a game. It had been a great day, the Eagles beating the Cowboys by three. Del’s father died not long after that—lung cancer, probably from all those years in that smoky pub—his work literally killing him. But that game was a good memory, one Del kept with him and took out sometime when he wanted to remember his old man before that damned disease ate away at his insides.

Del remembered taking Carlton to his first game when he was only four. The Eagles had played the Redskins, and Carlton had wanted to buy a Redskins pennant, even though he hated the Skins. After that, it became something of a tradition—Carlton collecting pennants of the opposing team and hanging them on that wall above his bed. Del wondered when that stopped, when Carlton didn’t want the pennants anymore, and when he eventually moved from that to taking them down.

From the TV, the Sixers’ new center missed two straight free throws.

Del threw up his arms in disgust and turned as if to bemoan the poor shooting with his son. Carlton, of course, wasn’t there. He wouldn’t care anyway. He was all about the Eagles too. Man, that kid had loved going to the games. He loved everything about it—the tailgating, throwing a football in the parking lot, buying those pennants, singing the Eagles’ fight song. Of the eight Eagles home games per year, Carlton usually got to go to only two or three, though he begged for more. For the others, Del took friends or business associates or gave them to some guy he owed a favor.

Man, what a dumb, stupid waste.

Of course, as Carlton had gotten older, he didn’t want to go with Del either. Carlton wanted to go with his friends and hang out and party afterward. That was how it was, right? Dad and son can’t get on the same page—like that old song “Cat’s in the Cradle” or whatever. Del wondered where Carlton had started to slip off the tracks. There was an incident his senior year of high school where a girl accused Carlton of rape and assault after a date. Carlton had told Del that she was just pissed off because he’d dumped her ass after a one-night stand. Del believed him. Who raped someone on a date? Rapists hid in bushes and jumped out and stuff. They didn’t get invited back to a girl’s place, like Carlton. Still, there were bruises and some bite marks, but Carlton said that was how she liked it. Del didn’t know, but in the end, he didn’t care about thin lines and all that she-said, he-said stuff. No way was his son going to jail for some misunderstanding. So Del made some payments, and it all went away.

That was the way it worked. His son was a good kid. It was a stage he was going through maybe. He’d grow out of it.

But still, something had changed in his boy, and now, with so much time on his hands, Del tried to figure out what. It could very well have been football. When he was really young, Carlton had been a great running back. Even in eighth grade he broke all the town records for yardage in a season. But then Carlton stopped growing. This frustrated the hell out of him. It wasn’t Carlton’s fault. It was genetics, plain and simple. Nothing you can do about it. When Carlton got demoted to second-string, he started lifting more and, Del suspected, started taking steroids. That was where it started. Maybe. Who knew for sure?

Del tried to concentrate on the Celtics and Sixers, and, surprising himself, he could. Funny how life worked. He actually gave a crap if the Sixers won. Still. Despite what was going on in his life. Maria, of course, would laugh her ass off when she saw him get so involved in watching a game. She’d point at the TV and say, “You think these guys would go to your job and cheer you on?” She had a point, but so what? And as if to show she didn’t mean any harm, Maria would always bring out a snack for him then, potato skins or nachos or something.