Something called to her, that day. A spiritual awakening, perhaps. A contentedness with all she’d done, all she would do, all that had passed. Of being a grandmother, even, to some rampant seductress’ ill-gotten child.

… That was unkind, but the bar’s door hadn’t been working properly for a while now. She drank herself back to kindness.

Maybe the girl would make a good mother, out of sight, out of mind.

Mmph. Were these gin bottles getting shorter or what?

Either way, finding peace had meant rifling through a bar’s unattended basement in the night, uncorking bottle by bottle muffled under her skirt and chugging her favorites down like a bored, small bear.

That night found her in the woods, listening to her conscience … which sounded like a man? A very weak man? Oh, Harry! Was he out here?

But then she saw a hole in the ground … and what called strongest to her this night was her bladder.

“Hold on, Harry!” she called back, hiking up her skirt and squatting by the general vicinity of that hole in the ground. “Just got to take care of business, first!”