Excerpt from Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He was in there now pulling together files to return to Helene's employer, which at least seemed less personal than razors and hairbrushes. Willa kept asking him not to take on any task that felt too hard, but really, what part of this was not too hard? He retained the instincts of the charming young man he was, moving quickly to take heavy objects from Willa, opening the car door for Helene's mother. But sleepwalking through all of it. When the baby cried, Zeke seemed relieved to wade out of the Helene morass and go meet simpler demands. The only happiness in this apartment came from direct contact with infant skin, so Willa made herself stand back and let Zeke do most of the feeding and changing. She watched her son becoming a father, cradling a tiny life in his large hands, searching the rosebud face at close range, but she couldn't guess whether he was falling in love, thunderstruck, as she'd been by her firstborn. The workings of love might be damaged, in a beginning overshadowed by despair. Zeke might end up blaming the child for his loss. The pregnancy had killed Helene; this was a fact. Willa spent hours trying not to speak of these things. It was hard enough to bring up necessary subjects such as where Zeke was going to live.

She took a break between bathroom drawers and stood in the doorway watching him move file boxes into the hall, lining them up like boxcars. He knelt beside a box of books and tucked its four cardboard flaps into one another.

"I can take care of Aldus this afternoon if you want to go look at apartments."

He glanced up with an expression that confused her. Fear, she would have said.

"Or I could go," she added quickly. "I don't know quite what you want, what part of town you can afford. But if you head me in the right direction I can do some recon."

He sat on the floor and exhaled, resting his forearms on his knees. "I can't afford an apartment, Mom. Not in any part of Boston. I was thinking I might move in with Michael and Sharon, but they just texted me. I guess a baby is kind of a game changer."

"Moving in with your friends?" Willa was dumbfounded. He wasn't some gap-year kid who could set up life on a buddy's couch. He was a father.

"They didn't exactly say it's because of Aldus. But I'm sure his performance at the funeral was a reality check. I knew it was a lot to ask."

Willa took a moment to process this, including her part in it, her failure to keep Aldus quiet. Were these people previously unaware that babies cry? "Your roommate from grad school?" she asked carefully. "You were thinking of living with him again?"

"Right, the Michael I'm planning the start-up with. Of Zeke, Mike and Jake. Michael's married now, I told you that. They bought a house in Southie so they've got a lot of room. Well, an extra room. We've been thinking we could operate the business out of that space until we can take on the overhead of an office."

"So you asked if he would take on the overhead of you and Aldus."

Zeke looked miserable. Any rejection hurts, but this was beyond the pale. She hated this smug couple hoarding their childless serenity. Also Helene, and her short-sighted doctors, and everyone else involved in the outrageous reversal of fortune that had left her son begging his friends for shelter. "You two need your own place," she said calmly. "You're a family now. We'll find something you can afford."

"Mom, we won't. I have no income."

"You're working full time."

"Technically it's an internship."

"But you're doing so much. You're probably working harder and getting more commissions than anybody in that office."

"Yeah, but it's still an internship. Usually if you turn out to be golden, they'll put you on salary after six months or so."

Excerpted from Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. Copyright © 2018 by Barbara Kingsolver. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.