I had an image of her sitting at her rough-hewn kitchen table, alone. Shivering in the cold after her children and husband went to sleep. Staring at the extinguished fire, just waiting for morning to come, when it would all begin again. The domestic labor and child minding were relentless, tasks that would never be completed.

I had spent mornings like that, when we first moved. Emily was so little, and I didn’t know anyone yet in Whispering Farms. Each day felt like a continuation of the next, one long, dark day without any light. Except the light had come; spring did arrive, it always did. The light started to peek in when Emily began to sleep more, Mark began to help out more, and then my spirits lifted when I met Jess, and Melissa, and Liz. My life quickly went from very small, very suffocating, to full. Fulfilling, even.

Mavis had had none of that. Her life had remained dark and small until she couldn’t handle it anymore.

I closed my eyes. I could almost feel her rage, her anger at the way her life had turned out. And behind it, a deep sadness at being isolated. We as mothers weren’t supposed to be isolated in such ways. Going back thousands of years—millennia—women raised children together, in social pods. It takes a village and all that. We were supposed to be able to help each other, to play card games in the street, like Marianne Baker. Motherhood and child-rearing were never meant to be isolated experiences.

My shoulders drooped, and I put my feet up on the coffee table, glancing at the whitewashed fireplace. Liz, Melissa, and Jess had helped me paint it last summer, all of us taping it off and laughing as we brushed the red brick with the paint-and-water mixture. It turned out so well we helped Liz do the same to hers a few weeks later. We were each other’s village for things like that, always ready to lend an extra pair of hands.

But not everyone had that.

An idea was lodged somewhere in the back of my mind, patiently waiting its turn, until it moved to center stage. It had been marinating and growing stronger until I was ready to understand.

Before June died, some part of me always knew it would end badly. There would be a cycle of rehabs, relapses, and tears. We went through all of it, despite knowing that it would not result in the happy ending we all so wanted. We would not be featured on the covers of brochures, a smiling family who had slayed the monster.

We always knew it would end with tearful goodbyes in a packed church, with nodding silently while people offered platitudes.

We had known. And we still kept going.

Just the same way, there was something deep inside me that whispered about Liz. About the why. About the village of my friends.