SHE COMES RIGHT IN without knocking or ringing the bell because Charlene knows that my house is her house. Disney greets her with his monkey. Last time I saw her, a little more than a month ago, her hair was a light brown, but since then she’s highlighted it blond. She’s trying to get back into life. Charlene lives in a town about an hour away and she’s spending the night with me. Her purse and overnight bag are on her shoulders. She’s dressed in black jeans and a decorated jean jacket. Charlene is still too thin. Still without the twenty or so pounds she’s lost since Luke’s death. “Fashionably thin at last,” she had joked, “at way too great a price.”

She places her overnight bag on the table along with her purse and hugs me. I feel her shoulders tremble as she relaxes in my arms and I hold her. “When I see you, my brave front drops away.”

I just hold her.

“I keep telling myself that God is with me and Luke is with Him.” Charlene pulls back and straightens up, sees the trimmed tree, the pot of soup, and the cookies in their containers. “You got it all done and it’s only one o’clock.”

“Woke up early today.”

She shakes her head as though the very thought of so much activity exhausts her. “What happened to your cheek?” She leans away and squints red-rimmed eyes, then tilts her head slightly. “Jim didn’t …?”

Charlene’s second husband beat her and she escaped him by entering a safe house with Luke and Adam, who was then an infant. She was living in L.A. then. To ensure her safety, she had eventually relocated to Michigan.

“Jim? No! I hit a kitchen cabinet while I was making the cookies. Couldn’t stop to put ice on it.”

She shakes her head. “That’s fierce cooking.” And musters a laugh.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve heard you laugh.”

She goes back to her car and brings in her bags of cookies, and a platter of cheeses and a box of crackers. Her cookies are in plastic bags. “I didn’t have a chance to buy the boxes for them, so maybe we can run out and look for something together?”

“Good. I want to get some flowers, anyway.” I place my containers of cookies in a Trader Joe’s bag and take it to my office. We put the cheese platter in the refrigerator and Charlene’s cookies on the counter. Disney almost trips her.

“I see you’re all dressed for the party,” she says to him, and he wags his tail, satisfied by the attention.