There have been a lot of people named Dorothy.
This specific person named Dorothy is a seven-year-old girl who has been locked in a closet. She is not crying, because she is afraid her mother will hear her, and because if she gets any snot on her dress she expects her father to make her to regret that. She's got a leaking stuffed rabbit tucked under her chin, its head reattached with a dozen clumsy loving paperclips poked through the fabric on either side of the tear.
Everyone involved, many of them named Dorothy, agrees that this Dorothy should be rescued.
They go to a great deal of effort to arrange that there be a suitable situation to receive the Dorothy from the closet, rabbit and all. (The rabbit is named Pencil. There have been a lot of rabbits named Pencil.)
Sometimes a Dorothy who's around five years old does fine with her great-grandmother, Nana Penny, once there's a Nana Penny ready for her. Sometimes a Dorothy, if she is about nine, wants to move in with Gina from school and this works out great. Sometimes a very small Dorothy can be adopted by complete strangers and pop up on the other side gladder of it than anything.
Once a Dorothy stayed with her mother and father for her whole life, but that doesn't need to happen more than once. Everyone agrees, especially the Dorothy it happened to.
The Dorothy in the closet with Pencil the rabbit wants her mother and father, she just wants them to have a good day and then another good day and then another good day and forget about all the things that happened on the bad ones. Her Nana Penny got dementia and she's soured on the relationship since being forced to visit her in the nursing home a few times, where she and Nana get no privacy and everything smells bad and Nana calls her by her mother's name, "Erin". Dorothy in the closet hasn't met Gina yet. Alas, some of the people named Gina think this wouldn't be a good time for Gina - there's no reason that they couldn't introduce this Dorothy to a nine-year-old Gina instead of a seven-year-old one, but it might not work. And Dorothy in the closet with Pencil the rabbit is too old to take to strangers well. She just wants a good day and a good day and a good day.
So: to rescue Dorothy in the closet, start with her parents.
There have been a lot of people named Erin. Which Erin is the right one for the job? It's impossible to say for sure. Some people are very good guessers, but they cannot make bricks without clay. Do they need Erin who has just been married, full of hope? Do they need Erin in high school, babysitting her neighbors and getting not quite the practice she might have been said to need? Do they want to swoop in just at the moment Erin realizes she's in labor and adjust her birth plan? Do they ask Nana Penny to move in with her son and her granddaughter Erin aged ten and go from there? Should they go find some nice strangers looking to adopt, and carry away an Erin who is six months and four days old, and come back thirty years later to see what they've got to work with?
No need to worry about Dorothy in the closet during those thirty years that Erin might spend growing up again. It is already true that Dorothy stayed with her parents all her life. It is already true a hundred and nineteen times that she got through this year and some of the next one and then moved in with Gina. It is already true a hundred and fifty-six times that her Nana Penny took her home and never got dementia. It is already true, thousands upon thousands of times, that Dorothy was not locked in here at all, did not grow up in this house with this closet. If they need to send baby Erin to nice strangers, they can still come back to the closet and fix it from here just the same.
Thousands upon thousands of times, they rescue Erin.
There have been a lot of people named Chris. They might need thousands of those too - not because Dorothy in the closet needs a thousand fathers, but because she needs her own father, her own father on a good day and a good day and a good day, and which Chris can be that father is not obvious without trying. And besides, the Chrises need their own rescues for their own selves. Is Chris who goes into the celibate priesthood because he never gets into that car wreck because he never takes that head injury in that scrimmage the right father for Dorothy in the closet? No. But that's no reason to make it true, always true, true every time, that he gets that concussion. Is Chris who never starts drinking, because his father's new best friend moves in to help out with the kids and the friend raises him better, going to want to live with Erin and raise a Dorothy with her? Probably not. But there's no call to make it the inevitable result of a Chris, every time, thousands upon thousands of times, that he cracks open that can of Heineken. There are so many other ways to be named Chris.
Thousands upon thousands of them.
It turns out that to be really thorough in getting Chris healed all the way through, you have to save his mother. And it turns out that to rescue Erin in all the ways an Erin should be rescued you need to save her big brother. It is a rare person who does not need their own rescue, when you look. Not even Nana Penny. It mustn't be true, not every time, not always, that Nana Penny falls into a blurry past and lives out the rest of her life in the nightmare. That is only allowed to happen once. The nurses in Nana Penny's nursing home who limp out of work every day - every day is another person with their name waiting for salvation.
But the dependencies for Dorothy in the closet are not quite so punishing as that. They will get to everyone else. They will get to Nana Penny's own mama, who needs to be rescued when she is three and when she is twelve and when she is twenty-two and when she is forty and when she is sixty-eight. In the meantime Nana Penny is well enough to do some rescuing of her own. They will get to priesthood-Chris's mentor, who needs to be rescued practically every minute of every day and most nights too. In the meantime, he is not necessary for Dorothy in the closet.
The right person named Erin and the right person named Chris take their time. Dorothy in the closet has already had other futures; this one can happen whenever it is ready to happen. They speak to the Erins and the Chrises who were rescued later. The ones who were pulled out of prison, out of the hospital, out of traffic, out of the bar, out of Dorothy's uncle's apartment, out of church, out of an alley, out of thousands upon thousands of moments after which it is true that things went wretchedly; but now it is also true that everything went up from there forever. Chris learns what Dorothy in the closet wants for her birthday. Erin learns to make chicken casserole the way Dorothy in the closet likes it. Chris learns to sew so he will be able to put Dorothy's rabbit together again. Erin learns all the things she's supposed to know about how Dorothy is doing in school.
They spend a long time on this, but not too terribly long. Dorothy in the closet wants her mother and father, not alien angels. She just wants a good day and a good day and a good day.
Erin lets her daughter out of the closet and tells her she is sorry.
It is true that Dorothy stayed in the closet without supper all evening and overnight and till she was hurried to the school bus the next morning, an ashamed groggy starving mess not ready to learn to do multiplication, and that her teacher who himself needs rescuing thousands upon thousands of times did not notice, while her classmates who were all overdue for thousands upon thousands of their own rescues did -
And now it is true that Dorothy came right out of the closet the minute after she went in it. And she had a good day, and a good day, and a good day.