In spring and summer 2023, catastrophic wildfires spread across Canada, filling Toronto with smoke and making the disaster feel national and immediate. George is in the middle of the crisis, reporting from fire zones for the CBC, and Frankie follows his work closely because she is afraid for his safety.

Because George is constantly in danger and often exhausted, Frankie texts him at odd hours and keeps her phone close in case he calls. Their near-daily contact recreates an old intimacy: George tells Frankie about towering flames, destroyed homes, and overworked firefighters, while Frankie fills George in on news from their friends and on her own life.

During those conversations, Frankie admits to herself that she is unhappy and worn down by seven years of kitchen work. Brie wants Frankie to join her in a new creative opportunity, but Frankie resists because changing paths feels like surrendering to her mother’s judgment. Even from far away, George becomes Frankie’s emotional anchor, and Frankie recognizes that she still knows his habits, routines, and moods in detail.

The chapter turns when George asks Frankie to watch The National. Frankie sneaks out at work to see George reporting live on television with calm authority as a wildfire burns behind him, and the sight makes her realize he is no longer the boy she grew up with but a changed, capable man. After Frankie congratulates him, George reveals that the CBC wants him to keep doing television hits and send him to Yellowknife; Frankie worries about the danger, while George downplays it, ending the chapter on a note of rising anxiety.