The two girls didn’t drift apart, though: The Birthday Girl has a Skype account, and The Child and she spend a lot of time video chatting after school. I tried to warn off The Child in the futile way parents do, but she brushed me off: It’s just that Birthday Girl is having a very hard time. Things are hard for her. Her mother died. Her father and stepmother are getting divorced.

Her determination to hold on to her elementary school friends is renewed after the failed Niagara Falls trip, and for her own birthday party, The Child decides to gather together her elementary school girlfriends for a sleepover. Although several of her friends have moved on to the same middle school The Child attends, the others have not. She waxes nostalgic: I want a night with my real friends.

I plan a simple sleepover on a very unfortunate night, right when school starts. Many of the girls can’t stay overnight, but the mothers all call and make plans for their girls to attend and stay as late as they feel they can. We make party food and arrange gift bags filled with silly striped kneesocks and the usual candy. The Child carefully decorates the plain bags, each one personalized for its intended recipient: six girls, six bags.

The Stepmother’s email is the only one I have for that family, but I receive no response to several email inquiries. I am reluctant to call Birthday Girl’s father, since the subject of the iPad repairs I paid for will likely come up, or worse, not come up but linger in the frosty air. The Child informs me the girl is coming, though. She’s positive. They’ve discussed the party plans on Skype.

A few hours before party time, The Child comes downstairs in tears.  She’s not coming, she wails. Birthday Girl.

I had assumed this would be the case, but ask, Why not?

I don’t know, wails The Child.  She  didn’t make sense. Her dad has to work so she has to be at her sister’s house.

I inquire, Why can’t her sister bring her? She can stay here as well as there.

This thought had not occurred to The Child, who disappears back upstairs, reappearing a while later, even more distressed.

She can’t come! She has some friend over at her sister’s house. She hesitates before the next statement: She doesn’t even seem to be upset about missing it.

I try to soothe the child, but her plans for an elementary school reunion are ruined: she will not be consoled. I try to help her understand the difference between reasons and excuses, but she wants no part of it. Birthday Girl’s life is so hard, she tells me, and things are so complicated. She finally cheers up when her other friends arrive.

After the party, Birthday Girl’s gift bag remains on the table for several days, but when I attempt to remove it, The Child says no, she will give it to the girl when she sees her. I wonder when that will be, if ever, but put the bag on a side table, where it remains for several months before I rearrange some furniture and it finally disappears, unnoticed.

I don’t mind helping at a birthday party, or even helping to throw one, although I’m a little put out by The Stepmother’s request that I help organize something a couple of days before Christmas, accompanied by a request to front money for the party. Promises of repayment notwithstanding, I don’t have tons of extra cash. If she knew me better, she would know that.

But she doesn’t know me better. We chatted once, when she was married to The Birthday Girl’s father, and she picked the girl up from a sleepover. It was not a long chat, though she seemed pleasant enough.

Sometime after that, The Birthday Girl slept over again. She made me somewhat uneasy: She seemed mature for her age, and I had heard stories from other mothers – and The Child – about her behavior at school. Making a boyfriend of someone else’s crush was one incident that stuck with me. Not nice, and not typical for fifth grade, it seemed to me.

A couple of days after that sleepover, I discovered The Child’s iPad was cracked – and not a little, with webbing all over the front. She didn’t want to tell me, but it had happened when The Birthday Girl was there. Birthday Girl was playing with it.

The Child had saved the money to buy this iPad, and kept it in perfect condition in two years of constant use, so I did not have any trouble believing her version of events. Still, I was diplomatic when I called The Birthday Girl’s father. I hate to make this call, I said, but there was some expensive damage when your daughter was here.

He was frosty, and unpleasant, and said he would get back to me, which he did, but he is challenging: It wasn’t like that, according to his girl. He grudgingly offered to pay for half of the repairs, and though I did not expect the conversation to go well – how could it? – there was no half-apology (“I’m sorry this happened”), nor any indication of half-hearted consequences (“I’ve had a talk with her, and impressed on her the need to be respectful of others’ property”). In short,  he will pay me, but he is the wronged party, not The Child and certainly not me.

I paid for the repairs myself, and was relieved The Child was no longer at the same school as this girl. The two would drift apart: The family didn’t live anywhere near us, and we most decidedly had no other ties.

One Tuesday in early December, I get a text message. I don’t know the phone number, but it’s local, from the Stepmother of one of The Child’s friends. Hi, she says, I need to talk with you about my Girl’s birthday party. I’m thinking about a swimming party at the y. Please call me. She gives a date that is a couple of weeks off, and a couple of days before Christmas. I check the calendar and since we’ve canceled most of our plans, there’s nothing on the calendar for that night. So I reply, That date is fine. Thanks much.

I’m surprised to hear from The Stepmother. When I invited Birthday Girl to The Child’s birthday party several months ago, I emailed The Stepmother, and received no reply. When I told The Child, she said, oh, she’s not the stepmother anymore. They got a divorce.

That explained the lack of reply then, but not hosting a birthday party now. I chalk it up to communication misfires and a stressed situation.

The Stepmother calls me a few hours later. Do I know of a Y where she could host a party that night?

I suggest perhaps the Y not far from the elementary school The Child and Birthday Girl attended together. We’ve been to a party there, I tell her.

Please call them and schedule a party. If there is a deposit, I will pay you back, she tells me.

I suggest that she should call the Y, and tell her where it’s located. They will be able to tell you, or suggest another place, I say.

The Stepmother starts crying. She seems to be very upset and confused, and says, she just wants this to happen for The Birthday Girl. That Girl can’t lose another mother, she says, referring to The Birthday Girl’s late mother – I have to do this for my girl. She’s sobbing. She’s calling me from a break at work, she says, and it’s hard for her to make phone calls there.

I’m confused. I’m happy to provide information, of course, but I assumed that she would make any needed phone calls. I actually thought I was RSVP-ing to a party.

But she seems to need help organizing things, so I say, okay, I’ll call the Y and let you know what they say.

She’s very grateful, she sobs. Thank you. Thank you.

She texts me again shortly after we hang up: Awesome LADY IN OUR LIVES, THANK YOU SO MUCH.