“I put myself ahead of them. Me.” She smiles at me. “I was a teen mom at fifteen because I was looking for any type of love I could get, and just like that, I fell for an addict who destroyed himself at the end and took a piece of me when he left our child in the stroller while he went to get high in December.” My hand goes to my mouth. “I’ve made peace with it. God has a plan for us, and I didn’t know it then. I will never fully understand it, but …” She wipes a tear away from her cheek.

“How?” I ask. “How do you do it?”

“I stopped being my own worst enemy and saw that no matter what I did or how I did it, I can’t be blamed for other people’s actions.” The sound of the door slamming makes us both look toward the door, and we see a man coming in and sitting in one of the chairs. “I guess that’s my cue.” She gets up. “This was nice.”

“It was,” I say as she turns to walk out of the room.

“You know, the meetings are not just for the addicts but also for the ones living through this. If you ever feel like sitting with us.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I have a couple of things to finish before Father Rolly comes back.”

“Well, the meeting is always open,” she says with a smile, and then she turns to walk into the room, and I’m left with my head spinning. I get up and decide to update the filing system, and then when that is over, I see about maybe making all items digital. When Father Rolly walks in two hours later, I look up from the computer.

“Hey there, Father.” I smile at him. “How was this morning?”

“As expected. Mrs. Rodriguez is not going to recover from losing her husband, but we can sit and talk for as long as she wants.”

“It must be hard,” I say, and he looks at the files in front of me. “I’m going to try a system,” I say, and he just smiles.

“You young kids and your systems,” he jokes.

“Just think of all the extra space we’ll have if I get all these papers into this computer,” I joke, and he smiles at me.

“You have a great night,” he says and turns to walk up the stairs and, then I get bombarded with phone calls about baptisms and communions. When I finally hang up, the phone rings again, and I pick it right up.

“Hey, Mom,” Dylan says, and I’m already halfway out of my chair.

“Dylan, are you okay?” I ask, frantic, and if this was a cordless phone, I would be outside already.