Others in town helped, too. For all their many shortcomings, people around here come together when someone needs them. Ben Malloy insisted on giving me five hundred dollars to help with my expenses while I was out of work. He gave it anonymously, but I heard through the grapevine that it was him. Darrell, his wife, and daughters were always bringing over meals. Norm shoveled my driveway. Will, who’d mostly recovered from his own injuries, made me a couple of pieces of new furniture to replace ones that had been damaged in the fight. He talked and walked a little slower than he had, but he was alive, and his charming smile was back, if tinged with more sadness.

As for Ricky, he left town. Rather than face criminal charges, he vanished, taking his truck and the clothes he was wearing and nothing else. No one was sure where he’d gone, but I heard a rumor that he was in Pennsylvania under a different name. With Norm’s help, I filed for divorce, which went uncontested because Ricky didn’t show up in court.

It was the day after Easter in early April when I got the official confirmation of what I’d suspected for weeks. I was pregnant. Missing a period in the wake of what had happened to me didn’t necessarily seem unusual, but missing two was something I couldn’t ignore. Plus, the truth is, I already knew. I felt you inside me, sweetheart. I was sure you were there. You gave me the strength to get better.

When the doctor called that Monday, I was eating jelly beans and chocolate and playing with the green paper curlicues filling the big Easter basket that Darrell had made for me. As soon as the phone rang, I knew it was the doctor, and I knew what he’d say. Even before I answered, I remember staring at the Easter basket as if it were a bassinet and imagining a baby amid those curlicues, rather than a chocolate bunny. The doctor broke the news to me, and I started to cry. They were tears of pure joy. Knowing that I was going to have a baby was the first happiness I’d had since awakening on the floor.