I said, “This is your house. You bought the couch and the table and the wood in the fireplace. You secured the loan for your car. You buy Toby’s clothes, and you’ve made a good life.”

She shook her head some more.

“But now comes Peter, and you’re scared that it won’t be yours anymore. You’ll be the woman who was married to Peter Alan Nelsen, and Toby will be Peter’s son.”

She stopped shaking her head.

“You’re scared of losing yourself.”

Two tears squeezed out of the inside corners of her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “You sonofabitch.” She might’ve been talking to me, but maybe not.

I said, “Don’t think about Peter. Think about Charlie. Charlie is who you have to focus on. Charlie can hurt you and Toby a lot worse than Peter.”

She brought one hand up and rubbed at the tears but still did not open her eyes. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No.”

“It sounds so stupid, worried about losing myself. It sounds weak and silly, like something one of those idiot Cosmo feminists would whine about. I don’t want to be weak. I don’t want to be stupid.”

I made a shrug. “Pride isn’t male or female. It’s human.”

“I’m a vice-president at the bank. I have a real estate license and I am a certified financial planner and I’ve been president of the PTA twice and vice-president of the local Rotary.” The tears were coming harder.

“Unh-hunh.”

“I have a B.A. in finance. I am Toby Lloyd’s mother. I will not lose those things.”

“No. You won’t.”

“I will not lose who I am.”

“I won’t let you.”

She opened her eyes and looked at me.

“Saving selves is one of my best things.”

She rubbed at the tears again and then she put her face in her hands and sat very still. I guess she wasn’t convinced.

I used the Scot towels on the floor, then put them in a white plastic trash bag and took the bag out and put it into a blue garbage can in the garage. It seemed twenty degrees colder than it had been at dusk, and the north wind rattled tree limbs and dead leaves and pushed dark shapes across the lawn. Thunder rumbled many miles to the east, a winter storm moving with the front. When I went back inside, Karen Lloyd had gone to bed.