Since Paula Magrini was a little girl, she thought -- no, she knew -- she and her future husband would fall madly in love and would live happily ever after, just like her parents.

Never in Paula's storybook fantasies was she a single mother.

Paula met her dream man, Leo Magrini, in her late 20s, right on schedule. Like most couples, Paula and Leo had big plans. Paula, a former news . . .

Diane Bergeron sits in a small conference room at the Hilton Head Marriott Beach & Golf Resort. She sits upright with her hands folded and wearing a crisp suit with a gold nametag that displays her title, "director of catering."

In passing, you might think Diane is a serious, focused, no-nonsense lady. You'd be right. But ask Diane about her four children — ages 31, 30, 28 and 27 — and her face lights up . . .

Clement DuMont on many mornings wakes up before four, often meeting the paperboy at the front doors of Country Squire, an assisted-living center. Force of habit, he suspects, from a time when he was awakened three, sometimes five times a night to deliver a baby, sew the wounds of a beaten-up drunk or act as St. Joseph's interim coroner.

"Some guy died at home, and I went out there to say, ‘Yes, he's dead,'" . . .