The Short Version

There is a long version, of course. There always is. But the long version includes a mind-boggling network of details, plus silly little things like safety and confidentiality.

So, the short version? My friend L has been in a not-good-enough relationship for several years, and it kept getting less and less good-enough. But it was a slow, insidious process, and she didn’t realize how truly bad it had gotten until it was unbearable. So she packed up X, her three-year-old daughter, and left.

Various circumstances, legal and financial and professional and academic and familial and, well, you get the picture, they all intervened. As of yesterday morning, the plan was that L and X would move in with her parents in New York, uproot their lives on any number of levels, and start over. Then a betrayal was followed up by a number of other complications, and by yesterday afternoon, she held a lease that expires in six days, could not use the women’s shelter because of its location, and did not have the wherewithal to put together first/last/security funds for a new apartment.

Willem and I had one of those moments of instant telepathy, the same kind that lets you signal your spouse that a small tree is wedged between two teeth after a salad or decides who gets to play the good cop in the current round of parenting and discipline. Later, we went over it all again with several hours of discussion and consideration, and came to the same decision anyway. I talked it over with L, and she agreed.

L and X will be moving in here next weekend.

They’ll be using the room that my father vacated last year.

It’s a lot to process, and of course my brain is trying to address it all at once. My mother wants me to be more cautious and self-protective, and for every variable I’ve considered I’m sure there are three that will catch me by surprise. There are risks, of course, but they feel manageable.

At the end of the day, we’re able to help, and it feels right.