Hurricane Frances did a 270-degree turn and came back. What I watched in the days surrounding that evacuation — from inside my own considerable fear — was a study in what pressure does to people. The storm didn't determine how people responded. Their assumptions did.

I argued with her for thirty minutes. I had evidence. I had debt and no home ownership and a list of financial constraints that felt very real to me. She listened to all of it. And then she looked at me with calm, matter-of-fact certainty — the way you'd state the weather — and said: "Yes, but you are rich."

Someone said it to me once, out loud, with no apparent awareness of how it landed. She learned Dave was military, and her response was immediate: "Oh, you're military. You'll be leaving, so..." The sentence didn't need to be finished. The ellipsis did the work.

My daughter explained how she'd made a best friend within a week of arriving on base. She looked at me like the answer was obvious: "We're only here for a little while, so let's be friends fast." She went on to attend four high schools in four years. She never stopped knowing that.

I had spent thirty years being the foundation — holding everyone else steady so the family could function. I was good at it. I had mistaken being good at it for being sustained by it. When the role disappeared, I discovered the difference.