As the one-year anniversary approached, Rebecca’s therapist suggested she try a grief support group in Haverhill. She gave Rebecca a printed list of options. Rebecca liked the therapist, and she retained some of her old schoolgirl eagerness to please. She took the list, and she promised she’d go.

She walked into the first meeting and saw a half dozen people sitting in a semicircle. She saw a man at the snack table who looked vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t place him. He was looking at her in the same I-think-I-know-you way. She nodded, and he nodded, and together they perused the tray of store-bought cookies. Rebecca wasn’t surprised to find cookies: she had learned that when people didn’t know what to do with your grief they settled on feeding you.

“They should serve alcohol at these things,” the man said. “It’s not AA, right? Bring out the Dark and Stormys!” Rebecca laughed and then immediately thought she might cry; Peter had loved Dark and Stormys.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “Did I say something to upset you?”

She shook her head, mute, and he said, “I did. I can see that I did. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” she said, because she couldn’t figure out how to say, “No need to be sorry,” without bursting into tears.

“How can I make it up to you? How about I buy you a drink after the meeting?”

She looked around and realized she didn’t want to be at the meeting—there was so much grief and sadness in the room, and she didn’t have space for the grief of so many other people in her withered heart, which could barely contain her own. She hesitated, and he said, “Are you from Newburyport? You look so familiar.”

She nodded, still not trusting herself to speak, and he continued, “I teach economics at the high school. I’m Daniel.” He held out his hand. Daniel Economics, thought Rebecca. Easy enough to remember. “I’m Rebecca Coleman,” she said, meeting his own hand with hers. Then some part of her that she thought had died with Peter—the part that danced to Nirvana in high school, the part that used to like sunbathing and sex and staying out until sunrise—said, “How about we skip this whole thing, and you buy me a drink right now?”

They went to a new wine bar in downtown Haverhill, and saying, “Red?” and waiting for her nod, Daniel Economics ordered two glasses of Cabernet. She was grateful for this: there had been so many questions in the past year—coffin or urn? Where’s the life insurance paperwork? Do we have the kind of faucets that need to be turned off in the winter?—that she’d have been happy if somebody else answered everything for the rest of her life.

“So . . . ,” said Daniel when they were seated. “Let’s get the inevitable out of the way.”