My father passed away some years ago, and after we lost him, my mother spent nearly seven years living alone in the quiet house they had shared.

She managed.

She was not the kind of woman to collapse.

She got up every morning and made her bed and kept her accounts and tended what needed tending, the way her whole generation had been taught to do.

But managing is not the same as living, and I could see the difference in her.

But there is a particular loneliness in a house built for two and occupied by one, and I saw it settle into her over those years, saw the way the rooms seemed to grow around her, and I wanted, more than almost anything, for her to have some warmth in her life again.

So when she met Gavin Prescott at a charity banquet put on by some local business association, and came home lit up in a way I had not seen in years, I wanted to believe.