But last year we helped more than a thousand families remain housed or regain control of their bills.

The figure mattered to me more than any title.

Lily was now a public school librarian in Massachusetts.

June worked as an emergency department nurse near Providence.

Both were thirty-three, both had opinions about how little I slept, and both still called when they needed to talk through a difficult day.

They knew almost everything about their childhood.

Not the worst of every night, perhaps, but enough.

I had never pretended that our survival was the result of one person’s heroism.