I wonder about those other cases. I wonder if they were all family situations, or if some of them were business partnerships gone sideways, or a generous friend who’d signed the contract and then needed to step back, or something else entirely. I wonder if the outcomes were as complicated as mine, or simpler, or harder. I wonder if in any of those other cases the original client had also sat on the steps of a house in late spring and read a check and thought about what it meant.
Probably some of them did. Contracts are the formal layer of relationships, and relationships are complicated, and the formal layer exists partly because of the complications. Jordan had built a clause into her standard agreement that made it possible for the complexities of human lives to be acknowledged and addressed. The clause had limits: it couldn’t be invoked too late, it required everyone’s written consent, it didn’t undo deposits already paid. But within those limits, it made something possible that would otherwise have been a much harder problem.
I think about this when I am drafting agreements in my own work. The formal document is not the relationship, but it is the record of what the relationship has committed to, and building in space for the reasonable possibility that circumstances will change is not pessimism. It is just accuracy about how the world works.
The Willowmere transfer clause was clarity made useful. So was Jordan Ellis.
I wrote her a review on the venue’s website, after everything was over. Five stars. I said the venue was beautiful and the coordinator was exceptional. I left out all the particulars.
She sent me a note: “Thank you for this, and for being so professional throughout a complicated situation. I hope your family is well.”
I wrote back: “Getting better every day.”
That was true.