Chapter One

Episode One

Erin March was in trouble. She couldn’t catch her breath, and that could only mean one horrible thing. Please, God, not again! Please don’t let me die this time! she prayed as she fought the panic rising inside her. “Honey, I have to—” she began. She needed to use the bathroom, so she stood, but once the coughing started, having to pee didn’t matter anymore. She felt her husband, Todd, catch her as she collapsed to her knees. He made eye contact and held her while she gripped his shirt as more and more of her breath was expelled with each cough. Her body shook as her muscles fought, unsuccessfully, to bring fresh air back in.

“I’m here, honey. You’ll be okay in a few seconds. It’ll be over soon, try to relax,” she heard him say, the same way he’d done each time he’d been forced to help her through an episode over the last sixteen years they’d been together.

She felt the sweat of her body’s struggle run down her face and start dripping off her shoulder-length, salt-and-pepper hair. At last, the blackness came with its little white dots, and she was oblivious to pain and time. Consciousness came back when she finally gasped, drawing in that first, painful, shuddering breath that happened after every episode of her disease, the Fertilis Defect.

“Forty-eight seconds this time, honey, two seconds longer than your record,” Todd said softly, as he helped her back onto the sofa. He dabbed her forehead and patted her wet hair with the kitchen towel he’d had over his shoulder, then he covered her with a blanket.

“Thank you, honey. You are so good to me. I love you,” she said and fell asleep immediately.