I was fifteen the summer Jacob came to live with us, in what would become known as the Year of Tornadoes. In April an f2 ruffled the edges of a soybean field five miles south of my high school, nibbled the roof of a decaying shed, and evaporated over 480th Street. In May an f3 twisted along the river that separated sleek downtown office buildings from graying grids of low-income housing and strip malls. It gnawed a chunk off the side of a Pizza Hut and hobbled the pole of the old Dairy Queen sign before withdrawing into a placenta of green cloud. June and July had been hot and dry: blue sky, unblemished cumulus puffs. Tornado season, in our minds, was over.