Stefan and I sat there waiting.

“What happened?” Stefan finally asked her. “I know what happened, but now I have to hear the rest, even though I really don’t want to hear...”

Becky interrupted him. She said, “Please give me a minute.” She added, “Some things get easier. This one doesn’t.”

At about eight that morning, police had spotted what appeared to be a red blanket on top of a snowbank a few hundred yards from Mickey’s Fishbowl Tavern. On closer inspection, it was a red wool coat. Alice had probably died a few hours before in cold so extreme that she had all but frozen solid. She almost certainly didn’t suffer at all: She would have been drunk and passed out. As I listened, I thought unavoidably of the lines from Emily Dickinson... As freezing persons recollect the snow, first chill, then stupor, then the letting go. The bartender had called Alzy a cab at closing time and watched her leave. He remembered her saying that, by this time next year, everything would be merry and bright. Those were the words she used. Who knows what happened next? It would not have taken very long for Alzy’s body temperature to plummet. At that point, the brain would no longer care. She would not have been thinking about all she was losing.

“Jesus,” Stefan said. “The words she said make it worse.”

The Hodges family invited Becky to stay on for a while, to ease any of the fallout, she said. They knew how much she loved Alzy, how dedicated she was to her. Their big hearts were cracking too. Eventually Becky found a new job, as a research librarian. A year passed, and then two and then three. Slowly, unable to forgive herself for her role in Alzy’s death, Rebecca began to look for an emotional way forward, a way to pay homage to her friend. She was still living in the carriage house; the main house remained empty. But she was determined not to ask the Hodges for anything more. Then recently, from Merry Betancourt’s newsletter at the Unitarian Church, she learned about Stefan’s Healing Project. And her idea for a way to make amends took form.