And the Other Thing

We spend a lot of time talking about Abby's staged escape and what had triggered that. (An alcohol fueled rage where he destroyed the condo where they were all living at the time. No wonder she'd gotten a police escort to get her things from her room.) We talked about how Moira would not leave her father. How she'd been so serious. She appears to have brightened up since then. At least from what I can tell on Facebook since we've all become friends.

And then Sandy tells me what she struggled with the entire time I was with J. She tells me that the girls have said we are so similar, that that may be why they loved me so much so soon.  And while she knew all the while that J. was in trouble, trouble he artfully concealed from me for so long, she was torn about what to do.

She knew J. would somehow, someway, ruin my life or come close to it. At a minimum there would be big trouble.

She knew he had me snowed about his drinking. He'd be pulling that same holier-than-though, tea totalling bullshit with me too, all the while maintaining a steady round the clock buzz at all times. Every morning OJ, every iced tea, every coke, every lemonade, dosed with vodka. I'd never smell it, I'd never know. His calm, reserved, quiet demeanor concealing the usual ups and downs of alcoholism because there were no ups and downs. Just buzz maintenance.

She struggled with what to do.  She wanted to spare me the heartache and trouble that surely were to follow. She wanted to spare my children the turmoil that trouble in one's mother's life always brings. She wanted to stop him from doing what he'd done to her. She'd barely made it out alive (Which explains some of the more selfish, seemingly heartless, wicked things she'd done over the years. In retrospect, I wonder why she was so tame.)

But she knew that so long as I was in J.'s life, I was in the lives of her children.  That I loved them in her absence. That I listened and guided and laughed with them. I cooked and I shopped and I doted. I filled in gaps, I helped them find hope and possibility.  And the ugly reality of what life would become for them if I were removed from the equation was almost too much to bear. A safety net pulled from all of them.

She'd talked to a therapist about her ethical dilemma. He'd ultimately told her that she could go out on a limb with me, but given the dynamics, I was unlikely to listen. And ultimately she'd left well enough alone, praying instead that Fate would find us all where we need to be.

And then Abby left.

And then I left.

And then J. moved in with his mother, and while he drank his life away on their sofa in secrecy, Endorra did what grandmothers the world over do when they must, she loved and cared for her granddaughter.

And Moira left.

Prayer, Fate - call it what you will. We all landed safely on the outskirts of J.'s life.  And with nothing left to live for, his life ended. 

A nice tidy ending for such a hideously ugly path.