"We're wasting valuable time," I said. "We haven't stopped and truly planned our activities. Everything is decided by committee and constant bitching, or worse yet, on the spur of the moment." I was surprised when the others nodded in agreement, fortifying me to continue.
"We're all on the same page here; we know what we're doing is incredibly valuable but we need some organization to better accomplish our objectives."
"Which is saving children," Howie said.
The others, even Quinn, didn't disagree, but added, "And protect ourselves in doing so."
Betsy joined in. "And recognize we have a life, even if it's only by necessity; the bills keep coming and I get hungry once in a while."
"The children come first," Martha said. "We all want to do more, but we can't afford the time away from life to do as much as we want."
We agreed on our mutual commitment. As long as Quinn could place Howie in the past, we'd do everything in our power to support the effort. While our employment hampered our work with Howie, we all recognized our need to continue our day to day lives. We would restrict our altruistic activity to weekends and possibly an evening or two a week by phone, if it worked.
Here we were, caught up in the euphoria of our accomplishments, like a group of dissimilar workers sharing a winning power ball ticket, and thinking that success made us friends for ever. Holdings hands like an old world family; we were committing our lives together like marriage vows. Yet in reality, five individuals, some joined by love, some nearly strangers and others with a history, that might surface and run amuck. Four dissimilar individuals, tied to a damaged being known only to one of us who at one time hated him for the loss of her friend. True feelings lay hidden in the wonder of what we'd accomplished.
I speculated out loud about giving up my job. Contrary to the others, my employment wasn't a career and frankly, I didn't enjoy what I was doing.
"Don't even think about moving up here and leaving me in New York," my new wife snarled removing that possibility from consideration. As inconvenient as it would be, Betsy and I would continue to travel north each weekend, flying at Howie's expense.
"How much money do you have, Howie?" asked Martha, the most outspoken of our group.
He named a figure that surprised us by being far less than we'd guessed. "That's not much more than enough for you to get by," Quinn said. I saw funded air fare fly out the window.