I had spent three days with my parents’ I told you sos. Three days of humiliation that my life had fallen apart. Three days of, quite honestly, missing the man I thought I knew. I needed to see Bill; I needed to know the truth, good or bad.

But I didn’t mention any of that to Alice. To her, I just said, “Maybe so.”

Alice opened the glass door, and I stepped out onto the porch, taking a deep breath. “These would be your rooms,” she said. “Joy’s children have graduated and she has left us, so we have the space.”

I studied her, my heart quickening. “Seriously?”

“If you and Iris choose to join us here at the mommune, we’d be happy to have you. There are responsibilities, but I think you’d find that, overall, being in a friendly, loving environment in the company of other women and children is quite satisfying. I feel that it would be a good fit for you. A step in your healing journey.”

I wanted to fall into her comforting, motherly arms again. I wanted to sink into the king bed and take a nap. Instead, I said, “Alice, I’m so flattered, but there’s no way I could afford the rent.”

“Get on your feet and then we’ll worry about rent.”

My breath caught in my throat. Bill was the only non-relative who had ever been this nice to me. I was suspicious of that at first. I wondered how it could be real. Maybe it hadn’t been, in the end. And so this, too, seemed too good to be true. “But why?” I whispered.

Alice took both of my hands in hers, and I found myself, not for the first time today, unable to look away from her. “Charlotte,” she said with so much emotion, “I know how it feels to have nowhere to turn. And when I saw you in the bank this morning, I knew that’s how you felt.”

I bit my lip to keep from crying again. But I nodded because she was right. That was exactly how I felt. Trying to lighten the intensity of the moment, I said, “Wait. In the car, you said we’d be helping each other.”

She nodded. “Oh yes. Well, we have homework time at night and each of us helps the kids with a subject. Julie is language arts, Grace is history, and I am somehow stuck with science and math. I am terrible at math. So you can take math.”

I burst out laughing. I was overwhelmed by so many emotions I wasn’t sure which one was at the forefront. But then I recognized it. Relief. Because my daughter wouldn’t be on the street.

“It’s perfect here,” I whispered, getting choked up again.

Alice squeezed my shoulders. “Charlotte, darling, welcome to the mommune.”

Iris Two Things