Dear Z,

Around 3pm today, you sent me a text: “I’m pretty near the end of my rope.” A few hours later I arrived at home to find our living room rearranged – furniture pushed to the edges of our area rug – and you and J in the middle of it holding onto one another like shipwreck survivors in the middle of the sea.

Our dog was acting in some ways like a shark, in some ways not. She was circling you, but more whining than snapping her teeth. She probably thought we were moving out, which isn’t the most unreasonable guess. It has been over a year. You kept shooing her away with the same confident irritation that I could imagine you just as easily directing towards a real great white in pursuit.

I put my bag down, picked up J, and started trying to woo you with what I believed would solve our family’s downward spiral: protein. You insisted that a night out getting subs was outside of your scope, but I knew I had you because you haven’t eaten a sub in six years. Thanks to Jersey Mike’s, the long sub drought of the 2010s was about to be over.

Even as you gave countless reasons for why leaving the house was a bad idea, you were showing your hand: slipping on your leather boots, fitting J’s little hat on his head, shooing our frantic pup away from the door so we could open it.

And what a night it was. We bought our sandwiches, swindled the store for a couple free cups of water, then sat down and took turns eating while the other person danced with J to the overhead music. After that, we headed to a grocery store for junky cereal and ice cream, pondering the whole time why a lady was eating a bag of microwaveable popcorn while getting her goods for the week.

As we got home and settled in for the night, sitting on our recently relocated couch, I couldn’t help but notice something. The living room adjustment fits the space much better. Now we have a wide open area for J to play as he learns how to crawl any day now. And our pup has more space to stretch out on her favorite rug. Even in your hardest moments on your most difficult days, you’re making our life better.

Yours,

S