There is a version of this story that could have been weaponized. I chose not to weaponize it. That is a choice I made for myself as much as for Paige — I did not want to become someone who used her daughter’s worst moments as content.
## Ruth and I, Separately From Everything Else
There is a relationship developing between Ruth and me that is entirely independent of Paige and Andrew, and I want to acknowledge it because it is real and because it is one of the more unexpected outcomes of this situation.
We are not friends yet in the way that Donna and I are friends. That took twenty-two years and is not a standard I apply to new relationships. What Ruth and I are is something like: two people who respect each other and are glad the other exists and are genuinely curious about each other’s life.
She called me in November, not about the community meals meeting, just to call. She had read something about hospital kitchen logistics, a piece about food supply chains in healthcare facilities, and thought of me, and called to ask whether the piece reflected anything like my actual experience. We talked for forty minutes about hospital food procurement and volunteer coordination and the specific challenges of serving people who are in medical crisis and have complicated dietary needs. It was, in some ways, the most normal conversation I’d had since Ruth showed me her phone at the fellowship hall.
We are not performing a relationship for Paige’s benefit. We are not demonstrating to Andrew that his mother and his mother-in-law can coexist. We are genuinely interested in each other, which is the only durable basis for any relationship.