“I do wish she’d believed me from the start,” Helena lamented to me over the phone one night just after I’d put Kallie to bed. “But I can admit that my separation with Winnie wasn’t exactly void of drama. She was right to be suspicious. But she says that now, with the reports she’s gotten from the chair of the family charities, that she believes I’ve made enough positive strides in my life even without my fortune to have proven me more than capable of not only caring for my children, but having free use of the fortune given me.”

I was happy for her, of course, but it still made me a little bit sad. Helena had done extremely well for herself in working with then Center for Social Justice, and was very smart with the money she earned. She was responsible and had never acted like the loss of her fortune bothered her, but it was obvious that the loss of her children’s regular visits tore her up inside. I thought it was beyond sad that Helena’s own mother hadn’t been able to see this.

“I’m glad you’ll get to see your kids again,” I told her softly, having no idea what else to say. She just laughed a little and thanked me, and she got me to agree to go to lunch with her when she and Alice got back.

“Lord only knows how much paperwork I’ll have to do. I’m sure a break would be nice, and we haven’t spoken for awhile. Not when it was just the two of us,” she said. I agreed, and realized that with everything going on lately, I’d missed her. We’d started to bond before I’d gone into the hospital when my cancer had gotten so serious, and I felt a little badly that we hadn’t explored the friendship afterward.

Alice called from Hawaii too, on a pretty much nightly basis. She seemed much more relaxed, and even suggested some more couples’ therapy for the both of us. I agreed immediately. While she was relaxed and seemed to have gotten some distance on the beach, once she got home it would be a different story.

I knew she was really trying, though, and it made me really happy. The rest of our friends seemed pretty happy about it, too. They’d been helping me take care of Kallie while Alice had been gone, and I appreciated it more than I could have told them. Kallie was a really good kid, and she didn’t give me any real problems to speak of, but it was still really hard for me to watch her without Alice around.