I didn’t know the answer to that.
I called Brooke the following week. Not a text — a call. We talked for almost an hour.
What I learned was that Owen had been telling Brooke the arrangement was “almost over” since February. He’d told her the kids would be moving in with him in the first week of March, then the third week of March, then after spring break. He’d told her I was fine with it. He hadn’t told her about the dentist visit, the enrichment program fee, or the work disruptions he presumably knew about because I’d mentioned them to him.
Brooke was quiet for a moment when I laid this out.
“He didn’t tell me it had been going on this long,” she said. “I thought you were doing a few weeks.”
“It’s been three months,” I said.
Another quiet. “Lucy, I’m sorry. I would have been there sooner if I’d known.”
This was the moment I stopped being angry at the situation and started being clear about what needed to happen.
## What Ella Said at Breakfast
I’m including this not because I want to use Ella’s private feelings as a prop in this story, but because it clarifies what was at stake emotionally and why the “just the babysitter” comment at the birthday lunch six weeks later landed as hard as it did.
It was a Thursday morning in early April. I was making the right cereal. Ella had her shoes on, correctly, both of them, which she’d been doing reliably for about three weeks by then. She was sitting at the counter watching me and she said: “Aunt Lucy, are you going to be my aunt forever?”