“Yes,” she said. I ran around the fire and hugged her. She said, “Aren’t you going to ask if I’m worried, if I’m worried about being a single parent and being so fucking old?”

“No guarantees,” Karen said, “but most likely you’ll be fine.”

“And you’re not a single parent,” I said. “You’ve got us, and Rudy’s been dying to have a kid.”

“Right,” Helen said. “Dying to drink lukewarm beer while the kid uses his chain saw. Wait, how did you know it was Rudy?”

Karen and I looked at each other, then back at her.

“Well, anyway,” Helen said. “It’s over now.”

“Does he know?” I asked.

“Don’t push her, Lily,” Karen said.

“He knows I’m pregnant,” Helen said. “He’s excited. He actually pumped his fist in the air and said something like, Who is the man? But we’re not going to be together. It just wouldn’t work.”

“Took you so long to try it,” I said. “Might as well give it a go.”

“Rudy doesn’t want to,” Helen said. “He said it doesn’t feel right after all. He says what brought us together was just the grief, that and shock from losing Aldi. He’s still all fucked-up from that.” I put my hand on Karen’s shoulder. There was still so much she didn’t know. Helen went on. “He says, I don’t know if it’s such a good idea, you and me.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Do you want to be with him?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Helen said. “Not really.” Then she shook her head. “But I probably would’ve kept it up. I mean, it’s not like I love the guy, and I definitely don’t like him, but my body—goddamn, I could have done it all day. For a long time, I wondered what had happened to that part of me, where it went, if it ever existed. Now I can locate it. It’s not Rudy, it’s that feeling. That sex thing. The world’s in color, that’s what people say, and it’s true. I’ll be honest. I’ve been masturbating like a teenager for weeks. Then one day the cramping started. I’d get off, and then waves of pain, like menstrual cramps, except my period won’t come. I’ve never known anything like it.”

Eight years in a shack together, hearing every single thing through the walls, and never had there been such an outpouring between us. We’d always been private in that way, or shy. Eager for details, curious though I was, I blushed and looked away. But Karen, a nurse, was unembarrassed by vocation.