Barely after five o' clock on Tuesday morning, Ellie got a text from Lana. The text said, simply, "The arsonist struck again. Dean's work."

After watching Talia for the night and then putting Avery to bed late, Ellie had not gotten enough sleep. Truthfully, she'd relished in the freedom of finally having Dylan and Talia out of the house.

But good feelings were only ever temporary. Just like this recent reprieve from arson. It was like the whole town had forgotten about the fires, and the affected were no longer subjects of gossip. And yet: the arsonist strikes again.

After looking at Lana's text six more times, Ellie's heartbeat sped up, because it felt like every act of arson was one act closer to a strike against Clay's structural engineering firm.

"Oh my God!" Ellie finally texted back. "Are you okay?"

"We're fine," Lana responded. "Just a little shaken up."

"Can I do anything?"

"Let's meet for coffee," Lana said.

Ellie agreed, and she made Clay and Avery breakfast. She couldn't eat any of the steel-cut oats, fresh berries, hemp seeds, and coconut sugar she's prepared herself, so she pushed the ingredients around in the bowl as Clay and Avery ate theirs.

"The arsonist struck again," she finally said to Clay, somberly. "Lana's husband's work was the target."

Clay went still. "Limitless Software?"

Ellie nodded.

"Jesus Christ," Clay said, pushing his bowl away. He wasn't a fan of oats to begin with.

"What happened?" Avery asked.

"Nothing," Ellie said, smiling at him. "Nothing that you need to worry about."

He looked at her like he knew she was lying, and Clay looked at her like she was being a bad parent. She didn't feel like explaining to Avery that there were monsters in the world who got off on lighting things on fire. Did that make her a bad parent? To want to keep his childhood magical and safe-feeling for a bit longer? If she could, she would keep him feeling safe forever. Safe in her care. She put her arms around him as he was taking a bite of oats, and squeezed. "I love you more than pancakes, my little pterodactyl."

Avery smiled, and with his mouth full of food, he asked, "Do you love me more than Waffles?"

Ellie pantomimed looking around for their cat, then whispered, "Yes, but don't tell him. And please swallow your food before you eat."

By the time she eventually met Lana for coffee at Mountain Springs Café later that morning, the Lake End parent community was abuzz with news of the Limitless Software building being engulfed in flames the previous night.

Limitless Software, one of the largest buildings in Mountain Springs, never looked like it belonged in such a small town. Ellie found it reminiscent of the buildings she used to see in Scottsdale, Arizona: big, bold, and modern.

Melanie waited at a table in the café as Ellie arrived. She'd already gotten Lana a coffee, some sort of gag-me-sweet iced latte, but she told Ellie, "Sorry, I didn't know what you wanted."

"That's fine," Ellie said, since she would have had a hard time downing such a sugar-rich beverage, anyway. "I'll be right back." She went to the counter, and the college barista caught her off guard when he said, "How's your morning going?" like he meant it, his smile fit for an orthodontist's ad.

"Fine," she lied, attempting a smile.

"Oh, that good, huh?" he said back, obviously seeing through the lie. "Sucky classes later?"

"No." She realized he thought she was younger than she was, and she felt flattered, and found herself blushing. "I'm, um, not taking any classes."

"Taking the semester off? A gap year?"

"No. I'm... I'm twenty-five," she said, even though she wanted to say, "I graduated." The truth was she had never graduated from college, and he would probably see through that lie, too.

She had taken several classes at the community college in Scottsdale. Clay had verbalized on more than one occasion that she shouldn't let becoming a mother prevent her from realizing her life's goals. He could help her, they could hire sitters, they would make it work. She hadn't had any life goals in high school; she'd known she wanted to go to college, but she didn't know what she wanted to major in or what she wanted to do, career-wise.

With Clay's encouragement, she'd signed up for classes. They'd been great. She'd taken women's studies, some literature courses, a political science course, an economics course, and a business course. All of them had been very fulfilling, but it had been hard.

The work itself hadn't been the hard thing. Sure, classwork was difficult, and finding time to do it with a young child felt exhausting at times, but Ellie had great time management skills and a fool-proof way to become each professor's class pet. Since all her friends had gone off to universities, hardly anybody at the community college knew her, and it felt like she was leading a different life while on campus.

What was hard was catching glimpses of futures she could no longer have. Clay's job would always take precedence over any job she wanted. Her dream of studying abroad could never come to fruition; leaving Avery to go to a foreign country would be selfish.

The worst: the whole experience made her dislike her time with Avery. He'd been a wonderful infant and a manageable toddler, but Ellie began to resent her time with him after spending time with college students who were actually doing the college thing.

So, she'd stopped going. Hadn't even finished her associate degree.

Maybe it was for the best. She still hadn't figured out what she would even want to major in, which field she wanted a career in. And she'd stopped resenting her time with Avery so much.

However, now, in Mountain Springs, well-educated women with various degrees surrounded her, making her feel inadequate. Melanie had a bachelor's degree in marine biology. Lana had a degree in marketing. Trina had a master's degree in business management.

Never mind that only some of these women had jobs, that many of them were, technically speaking, stay-at-home mothers who weren't putting their degrees to use, who were overshadowed by their husbands. Melanie's husband owned a remodeling and repair business. Lana's was a finance director. Trina's, the CEO of a software development firm. Despite this, these women were smart. They were fierce.

Ellie was not. She continued to blush at the barista's comment, but no longer because she felt flattered. Right then, she felt embarrassed and ashamed in front of this college student, this younger guy who was probably smarter than she was, like everyone else.

"You could have fooled me," he said. "I would've pegged you for a journalism student. What would you like today?"

She smiled at the compliment, but didn't carry the conversation forward; she didn't want him to think she was flirting back. "A medium latte, please. With oat milk and an extra shot of espresso."

"Sure thing," he said. As he operated the espresso machine, he continued to look up at her. "So what do you do? Here in Mountain Springs?"

"My husband has a structural engineering firm. I...work for him."

"Wow," he said, looking something like surprised. "Well, that's cool. Structural engineering."

Again, she smiled, but she did not feel cool. She was an administrative assistant. There was nothing cool about that.

The coolest thing she'd done was be a good mom and volunteer a lot, and this younger guy wouldn't care about that.

When she returned to the table, coffee in hand, Lana was sitting next to Melanie, the two of them sipping their lattes through straws, their faces serious. Ellie suddenly remembered that Lana's world had just been rocked by arson, and she felt guilty for being swept up in her own "problems" that didn't even qualify as problems.

She sat down and leaned in, as they were talking in low voices.

"They have no leads," Lana was saying.

"Oh, gosh, Dale Gurney must be devastated," Melanie said. 

Lana frowned, looking insulted.

"Who's Dale Gurney?" Ellie asked, knowing she'd heard that name recently, perhaps earlier that morning. Melanie looked like she felt sorry she'd said it.

Lana appeared to roll her eyes slightly before saying, "He owns Limitless Software, and like all the other arson victims, he has children at Lake End. A son and daughter, in fourth and fifth. I'm sure he's devastated." She looked at Melanie pointedly here. "All of the employees of Limitless Software are devastated." It was clear she didn't want to talk about the devastation of other families, just the devastation of her own family.

Realizing her mistake, Melanie reached her hand out to Lana. "How's Dean?"

"He's been pretty upset this morning. He wouldn't eat breakfast. He doesn't even have an office there anymore. That entire side of the building is pretty much beyond repair." Lana put her face into her hands, and Ellie rubbed her back.

"Please," Ellie said. "Let me know if I can do anything for you two. Watching your kids, starting a Meal Train—anything."

Lana sat up straight, taking Ellie's hands. "Thank you so much, Ellie. Your friendship means the world to me."

Melanie snuck a glare at Ellie before offering up her own friendship services, and Ellie felt delighted in herself and the way she'd beaten Melanie to the punch, before realizing that there was nothing to be delighted about: an arsonist was on the loose, and this could happen to Clay. Clay would be in a worse-off situation because he owned his work building, and he'd be responsible for dealing with insurance and overseeing the repairs, something Dean wouldn't have to do; that responsibility would fall to Dale Gurney or whatever his name was.

Ellie grew more somber then.