It seemed right to offer every teaspoon of conferred civility that I could. So I pulled off at a nearby Target, and apologized for this being the only choice for haberdashery. But Stefan loved Target, he always had; he thought of it as a bazaar of consumer delights. Target, not homemade dinners or a proper bed, was what always headed the list of things he missed. His excitement was poignant. He appeared in the dressing room door, posing in a striped pullover, then a bright Green Bay Packers hoodie. I thought helplessly of Stefan as a little boy, wearing matching shorts and sailor tops from The Children’s Place, so expensive and foppish that Jep complained his son looked like one of the dolls in a Victorian child’s bedroom on Masterpiece Theatre.

He was my only. What could I do? Then and now. It is far easier to hate yourself than to hate your own child.

We bought jeans and a sweatshirt, flannel shirts and Carhartt boots and a light down parka, and he threw out the stiff black prison-sewn shirts and the two pairs of mended chinos, as well as the coat that stank of sweat and cigarettes that had once belonged to some criminal—though, of course, Stefan was a criminal, too. The only thing he kept was the pale blue sweater he had knitted himself, just in the past year when he’d been trusted with plastic knitting needles. Cheerfully disdaining the new jacket, he wore the Green Bay Packers sweatshirt out of the store, the way a child would do. When he grinned and pointed to the gold Packers logo, I took a picture and messaged it to Jep, who texted back, Yes! He then texted me privately, Is he okay? And I answered, So far so good. Who would have imagined that this was how I would communicate that news? In this new universe, the most critical exchanges—between parents, between a long-married husband and wife, new sweethearts, or a stalker and his victim—were shared on a four-inch screen, with emojis of hearts and smiley faces. This was probably a metaphor for something but I could not fathom what.

Newly outfitted, Stefan and I headed back toward the highway.

We’d driven only a few miles when the blizzard leaped upon us. We edged our way into a hotel parking lot. I couldn’t even see the sky. A check of the local weather on my phone promised hours of possible whiteout conditions.

“Did you get a good night’s sleep?”

Why was I talking to Stefan as though he were my great-aunt?

“I never slept a whole night the entire time I was in there,” he said. “The last couple of nights, I didn’t go to sleep at all. I was afraid I’d die before I got out.”