Four years ago, when people asked if I was married or had children, my answers were easy: “Yes” to the first and “no” to the second, because my husband was alive and the newborn I had placed in an open adoption when I was a teenager hadn’t yet found me on Facebook.

Before the answers became complicated, my husband, Alberto, and I had spent the weekend in Connecticut celebrating my 34th birthday. The advertising agency he had founded with his best friend was weathering the recession, and I was climbing the ranks at a Manhattan public relations firm.

There were no overt signs that Alberto’s 40-year-old heart was about to give out, but one terrifying Sunday in March 2009, I awoke and he did not.

The year that followed came with a different set of questions, often from well-meaning friends: “Do you regret not freezing his sperm?” and “Don’t you wish you had children with him?”