She was right. I scheduled it for that Sunday.
## The Sunday Conversation That Didn’t Quite Work
Owen came over that Sunday afternoon. He sat at my kitchen table where Max had been doing his homework all month, and I made coffee, and I asked him directly: what was the plan?
He said he was working on it. He said the childcare situation was complicated. He said he appreciated everything I was doing, he really did, and he knew it was a lot. He said Brooke was settling into her situation but wasn’t in a stable housing spot yet — she was in a month-to-month sublet — and so the kids going to her wasn’t an immediate option.
I said: “Owen, I need a timeline.”
He said: “By the end of February. I promise.”
I want to give him some credit here. He didn’t lie to me outright in that conversation, not exactly. He told me things that were probably his genuine understanding of the timeline. The problem was that his understanding turned out to be optimistic in ways that kept revising against me.
I should have pushed harder for specifics. I should have asked what “by the end of February” was contingent on. I didn’t, because I believed him and because I am, when it comes to my family, somewhat more inclined toward hope than the evidence often warrants.
The end of February came and went.
## What the Records Show
I want to be precise about the financial picture, because Owen’s “just the babysitter” comment was partly about minimizing my role, and the money is one concrete, documentable dimension of what I was doing.