Everything that was soft and hurt and confused in me pulled back, and what was left was a kind of machine, a woman who could look at her sleeping husband and feel almost nothing but the cold arithmetic of what had to be done next, and in what order, and by when.

I would grieve later.

I promised myself that in the dark of that room.

I would grieve properly, and fully, when there was time.

But first I was going to make sure that when the grief finally came, it would arrive in a home that was safe, with a roof that was mine, over a son who was protected.

The grieving could wait.

The protecting could not.