When Dorothy joked about with a DNA genetic test to find long-distance relations, she was shocked to learn she had a daughter even though she had never been pregnant. Until her husband passed away at the age of 57, Dorothy Weaver had never thought of herself as a lonely lady. As human rights lawyers, Dorothy and her husband Thomas had an intensely passionate commitment to their cause.

They fell in love right away when they first met at a college student demonstration. They’d considered having kids on and off for the next thirty-five years, but every time something came along to distract them, the baby project would have to wait another year. The decades passed by more quickly than Dorothy had anticipated, and eventually having children was out of the question.

Nevertheless, they might still adopt. When he passed away, Tom and Dorothy had begun the adoption procedure. The phone rang as Dorothy was in the office discussing a desperate plan to spare a teenager on death row.

She took it up, annoyed at being interrupted. She’d snapped, “This had better be good!”

The quiet voice on the telephone asked, “Mrs. Weaver?” making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“It’s about your husband, Mr. Thomas Weaver…”

Dorothy gave up on the phone, shutting out the pleading voice and all the pointless justifications. Tom had vanished.

That bold, large heart had let him down. “I’m alone,” Dorothy muttered to herself. “I’m all alone.”

Tom was raised by devoted parents, but Dorothy was moved around in foster care until she reached adulthood.

Despite this, her sharp intellect and determination allowed her to make it to college and eventually law school. She returned home to find that Tom was no longer there to enjoy a bottle of wine over takeout pasta, to talk passionately about the causes they supported, or to reach for in that chilly, empty bed. When she met Tom, the awful loneliness that had consumed her entire life—of being split apart and reduced to a mere shell of a person—became nonexistent.

Dorothy worked longer hours in the office and took on more cases, until one day she just gave up during a passionate closing argument, defending a young homeless mother who had killed the social worker who had attempted to take her child. Dorothy, the steely woman, had vanished. Following an extended period of recovery, she at last evaluated her life.

At the age of sixty, she was neither too youthful nor too frail to continue practicing law as she had in the past. How could she respond? instruct?

She made an offer to lecture a few hours a week at the esteemed law school that she and Tom had attended. That certainly was impressive! She would be surrounded by intelligent young people, useful, and busy!

Although teaching was helpful, at the end of the day she was alone herself, watching awful late-night television while sitting up in bed. She would later blame the stylish guests and the late-night talk program for what transpired next. It was two in the morning, and a large black woman wearing a huge wig was interrogating a small, nearly hairless white woman.