That didn’t mean that they didn’t come to the house, though. I don’t recall a day going by when someone didn’t come to visit, and most of the time it was more than one. Helena was probably the most frequent visitor; she was looking after Kallie’s case, and often used that as an excuse to “look in on her” and visit with Alice. I thought it was cute. Not that she didn’t do her job. I saw her taking notes on more than one occasion, and she was constantly asking Alice and I questions. But she spent just as much time on the floor playing with Kallie. It was pretty sweet how quickly the two of them bonded.

I suspected that it had a lot to do with the fact that Helena was missing her own children. While they still came to see her a weekend or so a month, it was nowhere near the time they’d spent with her before, and it was obviously weighing on her. “It’s not that I don’t understand,” she told me when Kallie was a few months old. I’d mentioned the fact that I hadn’t seen Wilson or Jun-Ying for awhile, and she’d sighed and told me that her mother as well as the courts thought it best that they stay with Winnie the great majority of the time rather than spilt their time evenly between coasts. “They do have school in New York, and I’d hate to disrupt that. Even a trip here on the weekends would disrupt their schedules.”

“Yeah, but the whole situation still sucks,” I told her. She looked like she wanted to refute that out of kindness to her ex or something, but she didn’t. She just thought about it for a second and then nodded.

“Winnie’s still claiming that my lifestyle is deviant and extravagant, and that it will be damaging for the children to be involved in it. According to her, since moving to California I’ve thrown all sense of responsibility out the window. Which may have something to do with my mother’s overall decision, I’ve no idea,” she replied, looking rather perplexed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, helpless to think of anything else that would possibly make the situation any easier for her.