I went home feeling a little bit better. Not a whole lot, but I guess it was better than nothing. Alice apologized later and said that she knew she was being weird about it, but that she was really trying to get over her fears since she knew they were so irrational and unlikely to happen. “I’m talking it out with my therapists,” she told me. “I’m sorry, baby. I don’t mean to be so fucked up.”

“You’re not fucked up, Alice,” I assured her. No matter what she said, I loved having her in my life and couldn’t even begin to imagine what I’d do if either she or Kallie left it for some reason.

**********

Alice and I found a group of other parents in our neighborhood after we’d quit the more formal gathering at the preschool. Bette and Tina seemed a little miffed that we hadn’t liked it more, but we figured that Kallie didn’t seem to be getting much out of it that there was no reason to go.

Instead, Alice started scouring local classifieds and postings on the board at the YWCA, where we’d been taking Kallie to hold her in the water a few times a week during the open swims. Eventually, she came across a posting that sounded pretty good. Only four other couples, all with one or two kids each. They met on Wednesday nights, which was perfect for us since it didn’t interfere with Al’s schedule at KCRW or with the weekly family night that we were still having with our more immediate circle of friends.

Kallie seemed to get along very well with then other children, and Alice and I liked the other couples. There was one straight couple, two gay male couples and a pair of lesbians, and they were all pretty nice. I liked them in the context of the parents’ group but didn’t think I’d be too keen meeting outside that scenario, which seemed to be just fine because they never mentioned it.

Aside from that, we’d started to take Kallie over to visit when Helena invited us to a children’s activity for the Center. Kallie really seemed to love that. She got to see her aunt Helena and seemed to really like the kids.