Some people said she had no pride. But she had too much pride-too much to just throw in the towel and file for bankruptcy.

“Mommeeeeee,” came the little voice from the bedroom at the end of the hall. Their four-year-old daughter was not a great sleeper, and calling out for Mommy at midnight was becoming routine.

She looked up from her check ledger but didn’t move from her chair. “Katherine, go to sleep, please.”

“But I want a story.”

She hesitated. It was late, but working till eleven o’clock, five nights a week, didn’t allow her the luxury of putting her child to bed. That was Mike’s job, before he headed out for the eight-to-midnight shift as a security guard, or his mother’s, who was good enough to come over every night and watch television while Katherine slept, filling the gap between the time Mike left for his second job and Sally came home from hers. The thought of reading to her daughter made Sally’s heart melt. She rose from the table and went to the bedroom.

“All right. One story.”

“Yeah!”

“But then you have to go to sleep. Promise?”

“Promise.”

She slid into the bed beside Katherine, her back against the head-board. Her daughter nuzzled close to her. “What story do you want?”

“This one,” the little girl said as she took the book from the nightstand.

“Where the Wild Things Are,” said Sally, reading the title. She knew it well, the story of a little boy whose imagination transforms his bedroom into a scary place where he must confront an island filled with monsters and become their ruler. Sally remembered how her own mother used to read the same story to her when she was going through her nightmare stage as a little girl. Twenty years later, the message was the same: Fear is all in your head.

“Are you still having nightmares, sweetheart?”

“Mmmm hmmm.”

“Why?”

“Scared.”

“What are you scared of?”