The email came in early Wednesday morning. I was in one of those brittle creative moods where every unfinished project seemed gathered around my desk like creditors. I had been checking sales figures for my memoir, Easy Street: A Story of Redemption From Myself, because I am apparently the sort of person who can write publicly about spiritual growth while privately refreshing BookScan like a lab rat hammering a pellet dispenser.

I was preparing to bring a new book proposal out to publishers, and suddenly every number attached to my previous work seemed freighted with meaning. Had I sold enough? Had the work landed anywhere human, or had I mostly been speaking into the void with decent lighting and a publicity plan?

Easy Street is, among other things, the story of how I became the legal guardian of a previously unhoused neurodiverse woman named Joanna who was, inconveniently, in love with my husband. I usually describe it as a dark buddy comedy about two middle-aged women with psychological problems and unstructured days. At first Joanna and I seemed radically different. I was socially polished, eager to please. Joanna moved through the world with almost no protective coating whatsoever.

Over time, the very qualities that unsettled me eventually exposed how much of my own personality had been built around approval, competence, and the management of other people’s perceptions. So perhaps I should have been more prepared for what happened next.

The email was from a woman named Susan Jordan. Her profile thumbnail showed an African American woman with large, thoughtful eyes and a soft half-smile. Even in........

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