She looked around, noticing the lingering flowers and the traces of the service—a few chairs still scattered, an empty program on the ground. The people had come and gone, paying their respects, but life, it seemed, had moved on. For everyone else. How was she supposed to?

With a deep breath, Nancy pulled her coat tighter around herself. “One step at a time,” she told herself. She needed to leave, to start putting one foot in front of the other. Patrick was gone, and she had to face the future alone.

As she turned to leave, a voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Are you Nancy?”

Nancy froze, looking up to see an older woman standing in her path, clutching a crying baby. The woman’s appearance caught her off guard—her expression was worried, yet there was an odd calmness in her demeanor. She