REBORN BEFORE THE ASH:MY MINE IS THE LAST SAFE PLACE

The last thing I heard before I died was my husband telling me there was no room, so I couldn't understand why his mother was now shouting at me about soup. Her voice cut through my thoughts, sharp and impatient, and when I looked down I found a ladle in my hand and steam curling up against my face. The air I pulled into my lungs was warm and clean, and my fingers, which had been gray and cracked with ash the last time I saw them, were pink and trembling.

"Jenna! Are you deaf? I said Steve's soup is getting cold."

Linda sat at the kitchen table in her silk robe with her hair already set, tapping one nail against her teacup exactly as she had on a thousand other mornings. She was my mother-in-law, the woman who had ordered me around since the day I married into this house, and seeing her alive and complaining made my stomach twist so hard that I had to grab the edge of the counter. Then the memories came back all at once, and I had to close my eyes to get through them.

I remembered the day the volcano erupted, when the sky turned dark red and ash fell so thickly that it buried the street. I remembered dragging Linda down the cellar stairs because she refused to move faster than a stroll, then hauling every can and water jug into the hidden shelter that Steve's father had built years ago. For three days I kept all of them alive, taping cracked vents and rationing water, and not one of them said thank you. On the third night, a woman named Vanessa, a colleague from Steve's office, pounded on the hatch with a little boy on her hip, and the air counter on the wall blinked a number that was one short.

"There's no room, Jenna," Steve had said, without even looking at me.

He reached past me and pulled Vanessa inside, the woman he always swore was only a friend, and then he pulled the boy in after her. The boy was Max, the four-year-old I had bathed and fed and rocked through every fever since Linda brought him home as the orphaned son of a distant cousin. Max screamed for me over Steve's shoulder, and then he stopped, wrapped his arms around Steve's neck, and called him Daddy. That was how I learned the truth, with the hatch sliding shut between us and the first breath of ash burning down my throat.

"Jenna, did you hear me?" Linda's voice dragged me back. "What is wrong with you this morning?"

"What day is it?" I asked. My voice came out thin.

"Tuesday. Don't think you can play dumb to get out of your chores."

I turned to the calendar on the fridge, held up by a magnet shaped like a lemon, and counted the squares between today and the day the mountain would blow. I counted three times because I couldn't believe the number.

60 DAYS UNTIL THE ERUPTION.

I was standing in the same kitchen, in the same apron, with the same people who had shut a door in my face, and this time I knew exactly what was coming. My hands wouldn't stop shaking, so I pressed them flat against the counter. In my last life I had spent years believing that if I worked harder, gave more, and complained less, this family would finally love me, and I had died believing it. The worst part was that I had been proud of it.

"Mom, Jenna's being weird again," said a bored voice from the doorway. That was Jessica, Steve's younger sister, twenty-three years old and permanently glued to her phone, who had never once washed a dish in this house. She dropped into a chair without looking up. "Also, I need a new laptop for school. Just send me the same amount you sent last time, okay? It's not like you're using that money for anything."

It was my money, the savings I built over six years of work before I quit my job to take care of this family, and in my first life I had handed it over without a word.

This time I only looked at her until she glanced up. "No," I said. "Ask your brother to buy it."

"Jenna!" Linda slapped the table so hard that the cups rattled. "Jessica is family. You don't say no to family."

Before I could answer, a small hand tugged at my apron. Max was standing beside the stove in his dinosaur pajamas, round-faced and sleepy, and he had Steve's chin. I had never noticed that before, and now it was all I could see, and it hurt more than I expected. "Auntie Jen, I'm hungry," he whispered.

"I know, sweetheart." My voice cracked on the last word, and I put a piece of toast on a plate and set it in front of him. I touched his hair once, gently, because none of this was his fault, and then I turned off the stove.

Steve walked in just then, buttoning his gray shirt with his phone glowing in his other hand. He was my husband, a sales manager with an easy smile and a polished look that had once made me believe I was lucky to be his wife, and he didn't glance at me as he sat down. On his screen I caught the name Vanessa followed by a little heart before he flipped the phone face down. "Jenna, iron the blue shirt for tonight," he said. "I have a late meeting."

"A late meeting," I repeated. "With Vanessa?"

The kitchen went quiet. Steve's fork stopped halfway to his mouth, Linda's eyes narrowed over her teacup, and Jessica finally looked up for real. "What did you say?" Steve asked slowly.

"I asked if your late meeting is with Vanessa," I said. "The woman from your office you told me was only a friend."

"Have you lost your mind?" Linda snapped, shoving back her chair. "How dare you accuse my son at his own table! After everything this family has done for you, you will apologize right now, and then you will send Jessica her money."

I looked at the three of them, the people I once believed were the only place I would ever belong, and I realized I wasn't afraid of them anymore. I already knew what they would do when it counted, so nothing they said now could hurt me. I pulled the apron over my head and laid it on the counter. "I won't apologize," I said. "I won't iron your shirt, and I won't send Jessica a single cent."

"Jenna." Steve used the low, patient voice he saved for when he thought I was being dramatic. "Sit down. You're upset, and we'll talk tonight. Where would you even go? Your parents are gone and you haven't worked in six years."

"She'll be crying on the doorstep by Friday," Linda said, settling back with a look of grim satisfaction. "And this time I won't be so forgiving."

"She can't even buy groceries without asking for the card," Jessica added with a snort, already back on her phone.

That made me smile, because it was true, and because none of them had any idea how little it mattered. I looked straight at my husband and said, "I want a divorce."

Nobody moved for a second. Then Steve's chair crashed back against the floor, and the look on his face wasn't guilt or fear or even regret, only pure fury, the fury of a man watching something he owned slip out of his hand. Before I could step away, his palm cracked across my cheek so hard that the whole kitchen rang.