Bully Dogs Series

Adulting

Annie got married in her size ten, more like a size nine and a half, wedding dress and had a big gala event on a snowless evening. Dean and Marcus were married in their home, catered by someone Annie recommended highly but didn’t use for her own wedding. Annie went on to graduate with a post graduate degree and become a well known expert in eating disorders, traveling all over the world to give speeches at conferences. She is a terrific speaker. I graduated, and landed a plum teaching position at City University of Seattle. I had a small studio apartment downtown and on a cool November evening literally had a run in with my future husband while pulling into the parking garage as he was backing out of his space. Furious, I had stood glaring at him, pointing to the dent in the door of my new Prius. He had squatted down, looking intently at it, then smiled at me. “It really won’t affect the aerodynamics .”

“Effect,” I snarled. “And it will be fixed.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Certainly. A minor affectation.”

With this exchange came other offers of dinners, movies, a hike to Cedar Falls in the North Cascades where Aaron proposed. When I was five months pregnant we bought a starter house within walking distance of where my Mom and Dad lived.

“What’s your latest project, Mother? AS if I didn’t know.” I scrunched myself down onto the chair at my place at the kitchen island.

“A bab-y quilt,” intoned with a smile that would light up New York.

“Well, I’m sure she’ll just love it,” I replied with a smile.

“A girl! Any names yet?”

My goodness, was she really doing her happy dance? “Mother, you’re going to wear yourself out. I’ve got four months to go.” I sipped my cranberry juice. “What do you think of Tinker? Kind of catchy with the last name of Bell, don’t you think?”

She looked stricken, then tried to recover. “Tinker. She’ll love you for that.”

“Maybe just call her Baby? That was Aaron’s idea.” She looked truly distressed. I laughed and shook my head. “Seriously, I like Zoey. Short and sweet.”

Which brought back her smile until she answered the phone. “It’s for you. Frank Freeman.”

“Fran, this is Frank. Freeman.”

“Yes?” I tried to sound detached. I let him do all the talking.

“Fran! I’m calling because I need to make amends and I wanted you to know that I have been clean and sober for two years. I’m married with a family and I want to let Elizabeth know that I’ve really changed, you know? I want to see my son. I want to get hold of her.”

“Frank, I don’t know where she is. I have not seen or heard from her since that last time in the hospital, when she lost her baby girl.” Instinctively, I put my hand over my baby bump.

“Fran, I know it was an awful thing. I live with regrets. I want to tell her how sorry I am I hurt her.”

“Frank, what you did to Dusty hurt us all. Her friends—-me, Annie, Dean.”

“Well, like I care about that…guy.”

Like I care about you, Frankenstein? “In the unlikely event that I should see her, I’ll tell her you called and left information, in case she wants to talk to you. But, Frank, don’t hold your breath.” I hung up, thinking that maybe he should hold his breath.
I should have asked my mother for a catcher’s mitt, to take the curve ball that came next.

I needed supplies from a college bookstore for my upcoming classes. While I was browsing in the UW bookstore, I happened to glance up to see a young woman close to me, so close I could see her dark eyes. She was talking to a salesperson when a young brown haired boy, nine or ten years old, came up to her, “Mom! Mom!”, chattering excitedly. Calmly, she laid her hand on top of his head, finished her discussion with the clerk, and turned to her boy, her baby bump obvious.

I stood staring at her. No, it could not be Dusty. This woman had dark, cropped, straight hair, and brown eyes. She was muscular and had what appeared a very bad burn on her arm. But as blood calls to blood, bonded by love, and you just know who you know, I knew it was Dusty. She recognized me the moment I said her name.

“Fran! It is you!”

The hug was awkward, both of our baby bumps, well bumping, but we managed to get our arms around each other. “What? Where have you been? Oh, my, what now?”

We walked to a near-by restaurant.

And so we talked over lunch, poor William bored to fidgets. They had gone underground, that day she left her mother’s, courtesy of a woman’s network for abused women and children.

“And, Fran, I went to college, Central Washington University in Ellensburg and got my degree in Fine Arts. You know, “ she looked at me sheepishly, “I would ‘discuss’ ideas and projects with you, like you were my imaginary friend sitting beside me. Thank God, Fran, you were not imaginary!” Like quick fire, she changed the subject. “In fact,” she leaned back in her chair and laughed, “I earned my tuition by painting. House painting!”

“Well, you’ve obviously done a lot more than that, Dusty.” I pointed to her belly and her arm.

“”Yes, and Richard is wonderful. This,” she held her arm up, “is from a careless act of welding. I do metal sculpture and what can I say? I got distracted and paid for it.” Her eyes lit up and even her words had a smile in them. “I actually sold the last piece, Holding onto Faith, a bronze sculpture of Atlas. I sold it to a private collector.” She looked pointedly at me. “I have to say that my faith paid off!”

Teddy interrupted by blurting out, “Mommy! Why does she call you ‘Dusty’? Your name’s Juliet.”

“Because, sweetheart, that was my nickname when I first met Fran. We’ve been friends for a long time.” She leaned close to her son and rubbed noses with him. “Longer than ten years.”

“Juliet?” I raised an eyebrow. I would never think of Frankenstein as Romeo.

“Elsa seemed too obvious. And I needed to be reminded that blind romanticism can be costly. ”

I put down my napkin and pushed away my plate. “Frank called me. He wanted information about you.” I took a sip of water. “Of course, I had none.”

She leaned over and lowered her voice. “I’m not surprised. He’s contacted everyone in my previous life.”

“But you do have an order of protection, right?”

“It’s only a piece of paper. There’s no magic in it.” She touched her shoulder to mine, laying her hand over mine. “Fran, I know that it is hard to understand, but I do not hate Frank. Oh, I did for a long time,” she removed her hand and rooted in her purse for a handful of coupons that she gave to William, ”sort these by color, sweetheart,“ with an aside to me,”I’m Queen of Coupons.”

With William distracted, she continued, “Fran, I was so lonely, so alone. But,” she sat back and carefully considered her words, “I had plenty of time to think about how my life had been like a see-saw. I’d just been sitting on one end of the teeter-totter, letting events be the heavier weight on the other end. Looking at the my situation from another perspective, I had been given a chance to change from being someone who always reacted, to someone who is a strong person in her own right. We all have choices, and I have made some bad ones. But, isn’t it all about the learning? Finding our way? Although some of us,” she sighed, “have a steeper learning curve than others.”

This woman sitting beside me definitely has a sense of self, I thought. The strength to let go, forgive and go on with her life, on her terms. “You once said you envied me, Dusty. Now I have to say I admire you. You’ve come out the other side a whole person, able to forgive and be loving. I don’t know that I would have been able to do that.”

We had a brief moment between us of silence but it felt like we were re-tying the broken ribbons of our friendship.
“Mom! Look! I got them all done!”

Dusty smiled at her son, then tried swiping at William’s, aka Teddy’s, mouth for the spot of jelly. “Fran, I have to run. Do you remember where my father’s house is? Can you come by tomorrow?”

I nodded. “I’m free after 10.”

“Meet me there at 11.” She hugged me, I hugged her again before she gathered her purse and purchases, and hustled herself and Teddy out to her car.

The next morning was balmy, with high clouds scudding across sunny blue skies. It seemed birds were everywhere, twittering loudly in the oak tree in the front of Connors’ house. Different paint on the outside, but still the same immaculate green lawn. I pulled up to park at the curb in time to see Teddy bolt from Dusty’s car. Teddy ran to Sylvia, who did not look any worse for wear after all this time, and threw himself into her arms. Dusty waited for a few minutes, then embraced Sylvia. I sat there, in my car, seeing this and wondering what else did I not understand; how many worlds do we exist in simultaneously?

I tucked the envelope with money that was to be given to Dusty that Sylvia had given me so very long ago, deep into my purse and approached the happy group on the lawn. Sylvia smiled warmly at me, offering her open arms for a welcoming hug. “Oh, my, it is so good to see you! Come in, come in! Let’s have coffee. Or tea. Whatever you ladies would like.”

I turned to Dusty; her eyes were green again. “You’re looking more like your former self! Except for the hair.”

“Contacts, and I am so glad to be rid of them!” She touched her hair. “It’s going to be ugly, but I’ll be so happy to have my color and curls back!” she laughed, with sparkling eyes and dimples. “To think that I used to want straight hair!!”

Once inside the house, the air filled with delicious scent of chocolate, I turned to Sylvia. “I think I owe you an apology. I thought you didn’t care. I never figured it out.” I took out the envelope with the fifteen hundred dollars in it and handed it to her. “I guess if you want, you can give it to her yourself.”

“Oh, Fran, I never expected it back. But I’m not surprised.” She leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “I so wanted to tell you, but you do understand that no one, not even Elizabeth’s father, knew that I had anything to do with it. That’s why we call it an underground operation.” She flicked the envelope on my shoulder as she headed for the kitchen.
Sylvia’s daughter, Sophia, dressed in jeans and black and white t shirt with “#1 Aunt” printed in glitter on it, came out of her bedroom into the living room. She motioned to William to come beside her and hugged him. “Hi ya, Teddy Bear. Want to help me make some more chocolate chip cookies?”

“You betcha!” Teddy grabbed Sophia’s hand and pulled her along into the kitchen.

Dusty and I moved to the couch and I turned to her. “But how can you be sure it’s safe to come out from hiding? Frank could show up and what if he went ballistic?”

“I’m told he’s in Michigan, and remarried. You said he said he was clean and sober. It’s a chance, a chance I’m willing to take.”
“He hasn’t changed, though, Dusty. Believe me.”

“But I have.” She locked eyes with me. “I won’t be with him alone and I won’t argue with him. Believe me, I’ve thought this through. And if I know Frank, he’ll want to see Teddy for a time or two, then he’ll fade away. Christmas, birthdays, is not something he will remember.” She looked from to Sylvia, to Teddy, back to me. “I have to get my life back. It’s time.”

And fortunately for all of us she was right. Frank made a grand show of the reformed father with presents for his son and flowers for Dusty when he came to her father’s house. He stayed a week at a near-by hotel, but after all the promises, never contacted Teddy or Dusty again.

I have a newer photograph beside the older ones on my desk that my husband took at one of our backyard parties. When I pick it up and look at it, I am reminded of that perfect summer day before time would unravel the threads of our relationships. In the background of the photo is my mother and father, my mother burping my baby girl, Zoey, and William behind my mother’s shoulder peering intently at her; Sylvia cradling Dusty’s daughter, Theia,—named after the Titan goddess who birthed Helios, the sun, Selene, the moon and Eos, dawn—Sophia holding Theia’s tiny hand, with Jon, Richard, Mr. Connor and Marcus beside them. In the forefront, I am on the outside, then Dusty, and Annie; Dean is behind us with his arms splayed across our shoulders, his head resting on my left shoulder. We are all in t-shirts and shorts, and similar sandals—-I am the only one wearing a necklace that reflects the light in a starburst. We are all smiling, the three of us together, like we have not a care in the world, captured in that twinkling forever.

The End

As Time Goes By

Grandma’s memorial was held at the Episcopalian church that Uncle Ryan belonged to and was an Alderman. He gave a short and surprisingly lyrical eulogy to Grandma. I listen dry-eyed, but my mother did not. I finally slipped the box of tissues between us on the pew. The reception was catered by the ladies of the church. There were no friends of Grandma’s, all her closest in their eighties like her, had preceded her in dying. I had not expected to see anyone but family and was thrilled to recognize Mrs. Wessenfeld, hunched over a cane, overly dressed for the occasion with crinkled make-up, in the crowd. I hurried over to her.

“My, dear, my dear! Look at you, so grown up and pretty!” She clasped my hands and I gave her a gentle hug. “I am so sorry to hear about your Grandmother’s passing. Evelyn and I used to have our morning coffee on the deck and gossip. She was a wonderful person and a good friend.” She laughed that marvelous laugh of hers.

I wanted to ask about her husband and whatever became of the dogs, those bully dogs that used to chase me to school everyday. My mother had made me talk to Mr. Wessenfeld, and long story short, I got a job walking the dogs, met Dean on his paper route, and a had a new perspective on life. I figured Athos, Porthos and Aramis were long gone to the dog park in heaven, but Mr. W, as I affectionately called him, had had a heart attack way back when I was in junior high school, and been on oxygen when he came home; two years later, he and Mrs. W. sold their house and moved to a retirement community in Kent. I’d gone once to visit, with my parents and Grandma, but never made it back there to see them again.

“Are you still at that nice place in Kent?”

“Oh, gracious, no, Fran. After George died, March 11, 2002, I went to live with my sister, Helen in Issaquah.”

Oh, crap. I’m sure my mother told me George had died and they, with Grandma, had gone to his memorial. I was embarrassed by my thoughtlessness.

Mrs. W., was much too nice of a person to make any reference to my lack of civility. She continued, “Helen’s husband passed several years before George and she was all by herself in a big rambling rambler.” She snorted a little laugh, leaning into me with a lowered voice. “George never liked her much and I didn’t get to spend much time with her. Now all I have is time to spend, and it’s mostly with her.”

I was not going to touch that subject; let sleeping dogs and the male chauvinist lie.

“Come with me. I’ll get you a cup of coffee while you talk with Mom and Dad.” I took her free hand and guided her over to where my Mother and Father were standing talking with cousins.

“Oh, dear Fran, not coffee. Tea if you please. Sugar and milk.”

Changes, changes in everyone’s life. Time is the only immutable thing in our lives.

After everyone had left and we were on the way home, my Mom turned in her seat and spoke to me with a wistful note in her voice. “My, I thought Mrs. Wessenfeld has aged. I guess I hadn’t thought of her being eighty-two. It was nice of her son to drive her today. And he’s in his fifties!”

“She was Grandma’s age? I always thought of her as so much older than anyone I knew! Mrs. W. said she and Grandma used to sit on the deck with a cup of coffee and talk about people, gardening and irritating chin hairs.”

My mother rubbed her chin. “Yes, they are.”

Even my Dad laughed, and we were all in a wonderful moment together.

“I had planned on a special night out for your birthday, Fran. But, truthfully, would you mind if we did next week? I thought your Dad and I would take you to Canlis.”

“Next week would be perfect! I’ll have my dinner with Dean and Marcus, and maybe Annie, too, will come to their house. She’s a little too obsessed by her wedding plans.”

“Well, it is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Better that she is going forward and not in the place she was not too long ago.”

Annie met me at my house and we drove together to have dinner with Dean and Marcus. They had put up streamers and strung a glittered ‘Happy 21st Birthday Girl’ banner in the dining room from wall to wall, and made us wear party hats. Annie clicked picture after picture with her iPhone, until I shot her a look that made her cease and desist.

“Look at this spread! Spring rolls and crab cakes for hors d’oeuvres. Marcus, did you do this all yourself?”

“Oh, no, Dean helped.”

Dean handed me a glass of Asti Spumante. “Yes, I did everything he told me to do. I am quite good at taking orders.”

I looked from one to the other, hoping that his comment was not an indication of domestic strife. But they were both smiling at each other.

“Oh, none for me,” Annie waggled her fingers. “I have a low tolerance for alcohol. Besides, someone has to be sober to drive.”

I looked at Dean and he looked at me; this was a different incarnation of Annie than one we had known in a previous life in junior high and high school.

At one point during dinner, Annie excused herself to go to the bathroom. I sighed and leaned over to Dean. “I hope she’s not sticking her finger down her throat. It’d be a terrible waste of the salmon ala Hollandaise.”

“I don’t think so, Fran. She appears to be pretty much in control of herself these days.”

I raised my glass and Dean and Marcus clinked a silent toast to hope.

Annie had some of her dessert, I had all of mine. “Mmmm, this is delightful! Caramel flan and mangoes! I never gained the ‘freshman fifteen’ but I may put it on tonight.”

“Actually,” Dean steepled his hands, leaning forward on his elbows, “a study done by Ohio State University showed the average student gains only two to three pounds in the first year.”

“It’s comforting to know I’ve put on maybe two pounds. Anyway, Marcus, thank you again for all your culinary efforts to make this evening perfect!”

With a tilt of his head and palm up, he said, “M’lady, it was a pleasure. Happy Birthday,” and came over to kiss me on the cheek. They all sang the birthday song, and Annie was right; no one could carry a tune.

Annie popped up from her seat and a horrifying thought ran through my head that she was going to run off to the bathroom again. But she picked up plates and flatware instead. “Marcus, let me help clean up. I’d really like to do that.”

Oh, Annie! We had discussed how fastidious Marcus was, especially the right way to do this or that in the kitchen. Actually, I said peculiar and she had corrected me that he was particular.

I might have said his smile was a little strained, but his voice did not betray any stress.

“I’d be delighted to have your company in my kitchen. You can tell me, I hope, the name of a good wedding caterer. Let me show you how I load the dishwasher.”

Dean poured me a second glass of champagne. “Well, that’s new one.”

“Let’s see how long it lasts before the fur flies.” I tipped my glass, and felt the warmth of friendship and alcohol. “She has at least a dozen caterers he can choose from, with all the details no one should know.”

Dean put his glass down carefully. “That’s a gorgeous ring your Grandmother gave you. I’m glad you’re wearing it on your right hand.”

“Yes, it is sparkly, isn’t it? Funny, you’re not the first person to mention to me wearing it on my right hand. No worries about me getting engaged anytime soon.”

“Fran, promise me something. When you find your right mate, don’t change for him. So many people try to be an ideal, or have an ideal person, that they stop being true to themselves. You know, like Dusty did for Frank. It’s not only her, but I see it in a lot of relationships. It never works out.”

I chuckled. “Good advice, Dr. Dean. Soon you will probably have your own talk show or reality show, and I can be your first guest.”

He slid a blue velvet box towards me. “The terms and conditions for you birthday, my friend.”

I took out the necklace out, stroking the dove with my thumb. “This is beautiful. For more than aesthetic reasons. I appreciate what these precious stones mean.” I dangled it, the jewels winking. “Great symbolism.” I twirled it, light refracting into rainbows. “The ruby, the oldest symbol of passion and commitment, is red, the color of love. The diamond—-forever. The gentle dove, a symbol of the link between heaven and earth. Flowers and dove—-Fran and Dean.” I kissed his cheek softly and handed the necklace to him. “Put it on me?”

He squeezed my hand as he took the necklace. When he had clasped it around my neck, he bent and kissed the nape of my neck. “Forever and a day,” he whispered.

And this time, the chain lay cool against my skin. “I shall wear it to every wedding I go to: yours, Annie’s and mine.” I reached for and took his hand for a perfect moment, one that I would always remember as the best of all birthdays.

“Not knowing anything is the sweetest life.”
– Sophocles

Annie calls just as I come into the house. “Now?” Trying on bridesmaid dresses is not something I had looked forward to, even less so on a summer day in July. “Give me an hour, oh! all right! thirty minutes. I’ll meet you there.”

The box would have to wait to be opened later. The hours I spent with Annie at the wedding shop with one dress after another seemed endless; like the wedding itself seemed too far away.

“Fran! This one!” She had chosen a strapless magenta gown, quite elegant in its simplicity.

“I thought your theme was blue?”, though the dress was very flattering on me, which was a pleasant surprise after the seven others she had not liked.

“I think I’ve changed my mind. I can have the same color sash for my wedding dress. And the guys can have matching cummerbunds. Oh! this is going to be so perfect!”

“I hope it doesn’t snow.”

She gave me a withering look. “We’ll be inside the church, Fran. With two hundred people, it’ll be plenty warm enough.”

My shorts half pulled up, I hopped around to get in her face. “Annie! When did this become a celebrity event?”

“We have big families, Fran.” She chirps, expanding her hands as she continues. “One over here, two over there, his side, my side and mother, father, grandparents, cousins, friends. Get the the picture?”

“Have you talked to your sister, Elizabeth? Will she be in the wedding?”

She collapses her hands. “No, she wishes me the best but will not come back here even for my wedding.”

I pull my T-shirt over my head. “In a perfect world. But you know, she might change her mind. There’s a lot of time for reconsideration.”

Annie looks at me with a wry smile. “Fran, ever the optimist. Really, I just hope the groom shows up; I really don’t care about anyone else.”

I arch an eyebrow and shoot her a look. “I’ll be there,” I wave to the dress, “in my formal. And so will Dean and so will Marcus. We’ll go do karaoke.”

She guffaws. “Not one of you can carry a tune. Yes, that would be a hoot!” She gets serious. “If Dusty were here, it’d be like we were the Three Musketeers again.”

That hurt. “Yeah, I’ve thought the same. I think about her a lot. I hope, no, I pray, she’s all right. I wonder what part of the world is she in?”

“What about Scott? You guys get past that glitch?”

“Let’s go get something to eat and I’ll tell you about it.”

We met at a Mexican restaurant across the street and during the course of the meal, I filled her in on the last conversation I had with Scott, the same basics I had already told her about but apparently she had not been listening too closely.

Annie asks for a take-home box and scoops most of her meal into it. I push my nearly empty plate aside and point my fork at her. “Brides usually lose weight; you are going to have to do better if you want to wear that size ten.”

“I am. I’m a size eight. I have to work at it and it’s not easy, I can tell you that. Not with all eyes on me every time I put my fork down.”

I lowered my fork. “Well, you did a good job on that, I guess. You are looking really healthy. Like your old self.”

“Thank you, Mother Fran.”

She stops outside the doors of the restaurant. “Fran, I’m sorry I haven’t been much of a friend to you, especially lately. I hadn’t realized that you and Scott had broken up, that it was really over. I guess I’ve been self-absorbed and not paying attention like I should.”

It’s an awkward moment, as I am always uncomfortable when someone apologizes to me. “Oh, Annie, you’re my friend through thick and wedding.” I give her a quick hug and a promise to see her the end of the week.

I try not to think of Dusty, but flashbacks stream throughout my thoughts. I have a painting she did for me of Paris in 1625, peopled with historical figures from Dumas’ The Musketeers : Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu, Treville, Milday; in it, Dean, Annie, Dusty and I are the Musketeers. The picture is framed and hung on my wall, next to a photograph of Annie, me, Dusty and Dean, where I see them everyday. So long ago it was, when we were all for one and one for all. Now that’s history.
I’m satiated and exhausted from my outing with Annie. Sitting on the deck with my Kindle I fall asleep and wake with a start. I had actually forgotten about Grandma’s box. It takes several times running hot water over the jar before the rusted lid budges and the pop resounds in the too quiet house. Once unwrapped, the key is tarnished and I rummage around the garage until I find some WD-40. Finally, the key slips in the lock.

I snatch the velvet ring box and wrench it open. And gasp. It is the most beautiful piece of jewelry I have seen. It is a thick gold band with an oval ruby surrounded by diamonds that continue down the sides; I cannot read the all of the inscription inside, but part of it; to my lov. It does not quite slide onto my right hand ring finger. I stare and stare at it, turning it this way and that; it is such a beautiful ring.

When I unscroll the leather document keeper, the first piece of official paper is my mother’s birth certificate. Only this isn’t right. It reads Teresa Georgette Bernard; my mother’s maiden name is Karlson, Teresa Lynette Karlson, just like on her high school diploma, her BA in Fine Arts and her Master’s of Fine Arts. The next official paper is a divorce decree, stapled to a marriage license, my grandmother and George Samuel Bernard; the next one is a marriage certificate of my grandmother to Isaac Karlson, and the last one, a copy of adoption papers by Isaac Karlson with my mother’s correct birthdate and name change. And a photo beneath all the papers.

In the photo, my grandmother is holding a baby girl, my mother; beside her is George, so handsome in a suit and tie; but it is an odd picture. He is looking fiercely at the camera, unsmiling, with his hand not quite on my grandmother’s shoulder, like he is leaning towards the camera and pushing away from her and the laughing infant with her eyes focused on him, as are my grandmother eyes. She half-smiling, as if she had asked him a hopeful question. It is a disturbing picture, and inscribed on the back is the date: June 23, 1951, the last kiss. The divorce had been finalized February,15,1952 and the marriage to Isaac Karlson, May 21, 1952.

I don’t know how you can be stunned breathless, yet not all that surprised, but I was, because so many little puzzle pieces fit together to make this picture. Two scenarios occurred to me: my grandmother had had an affair with Isaac and George found out or George left my grandmother and his daughter for someone else.

My mother and I wear the same ring size, so I figured if I have it resized, she can wear it until she gives it to me. I argue with myself all the way to the jeweler’s that the ring really isn’t mine, even if Grandma said I could have it, the ring really belonged to my mother. Oh, but I wanted to wear it and have it for mine.

Two days later, the jeweler called to say it was ready. I had agonized how to approach the subject with my mother and today was the day to pick my parents up at Pier 91 at 4:30. When Mr. Black slid the ring onto my finger, we both just looked at it a minute. He gently turned my hand to show of the sparkling ruby and diamonds. “The ruby is the precious stone that is symbolic of passionate commitment, love and powerful feelings. From very ancient times, it was considered the perfect wedding stone. These diamonds are an example of a brilliant cut and high grade.” He looked up at me, and I could not help but think that his jeweler ’s loupe made him appear to be someone out of a sci-fi story.

“I am sorry to say, though,” he let go of my hand, removing the loupe, “when I enlarged it, the inscription was lost.”

“That’s okay,” I said with a smile. Somethings are better not found.

Traffic was heavier than I planned getting to the pier to pick up Mom and Dad. They were waiting for me, and waved with untroubled smiles and glowing suntans. Both of them talked at once about their trip and their stay in Victoria, Dad leaning over from the back seat to interject a comment over my Mom’s shoulder. At a stop sign when it was my turn, my Mother suddenly grew very quiet. I had forgotten to take the ring off.

“That’s a beautiful ring. I assume Scott would not have given it to you, since you broke up with him,” she said flatly, her most dangerous voice.

“No!” I merged. “Grandma gave it to me. Can we talk about this when we get home?”

Well, great! I had managed to spoil their homecoming. I had hoped to surprise both of them with a clean house, laundry done, dishwasher empty, lawn mowed and watered, before laying the bombshell.

“I understand from Ryan that you had some uneasy times with Grandma.”

“Just one incident, that’s all. No big deal. She had a bad day. Don’t we all?”

Dad unloaded the suitcases once I parked the car. “Whoa! Fran-tastic!! The yard looks great!”

“Thanks, Popsicle. All those years working with Dean and Dusty paid off—-I no longer leave divots when I edge.” I looked beseechingly at him. “Dad, there’s more to this than the ring. I didn’t want to spoil your first night home.”

He squeezed my shoulder. “Go talk to her.”

Mom was in the living room, at the dining table. “Honey, thank you! You put a lot of time and effort in cleaning. I appreciate it.”

“Mom, can we talk?”

“Yes, I think we better.”

I scurried to my room, took the picture out of the metal box, and with box in hand, sat opposite my mother. “I made iced tea,” like that was the most important thing I had to say.

“I’ll get us all some,” said my father from the kitchen.

I jumped into the topic of our conversation. “Grandma wasn’t trying to bury food all those times. She was trying to un-bury a mason jar with a key to this metal box, She asked me to dig it up, only it was’t under the roses, but in front, beneath the rhodie. She said she wanted me to have the ring—-I had it resized because I know we wear the same ring size—-I really think you should have it. It’s an engagement ring, the jeweler says, a halo ruby engagement ring, with an oval cut .51 natural ruby and genuine, high quality diamonds, worth about $2,500.00.” I stopped my run-on to catch a breath and my mother reached over to take my hand and examine the ring.

“Yes, it is stunning. But you should have it. After all, it is your birthstone, very fitting for a 21st birthday gift from Grandma.”
I slid the picture out in the middle of the table. Mom put her hand over it.

“I know what’s in the box, Fran. Ryan and I are snoops, too.”

Miffed, I snipped, “Grandma gave me permission to open the box, Mom. She wanted me to give the contents to you.”
“It doesn’t matter what is in that box, because it won’t ever change that for me, Isaac Karlson was my father, my Dad, my Daddy. And I thank God that I never, even in my horrible teen years, let him know I knew otherwise.“

Oh, how I wanted to ask her if she knew more, knew what the truth could be. But some things cannot be known and life goes on anyway. I would never know; it would always be left a mystery in our life, and we never spoke again of it. I don’t know if I would have asked Grandma if I had had another chance to speak with her; she got pneumonia and died the next week.

“Truths and roses have thorns about them.”
– Henry David Thoreau

I had the day to myself after dropping my parents off at Pier 91 to board the Alaskan cruise ship. My mother had been unusually quiet during the morning preparations to leave, and I jabbered non-stop to fill the void. Grandma had recovered and was doing well enough to leave the rehab center. Just three days ago, a family group of us had moved her into her room at the new home. It was a good-sized room with a big picture window overlooking the well-tended gardens; it was large enough for Grandma’s small recliner situated close to the television, always on, and a metal folding chair. My mother had hung Grandma’s favorite seascape painting on the blank wall next to her bed, done by an artist she had met years ago; brought her the blue and yellow patchwork quilt she had made for her, and Uncle Ryan peopled the dresser with photos of family, mostly him with his boys. Grandma reveled in the attention, just like she had always done when Mom, Uncle Ryan, his two sons and myself, spouses, had surrounded her while she held court. The heartbreak for all us, especially my mother, was when Grandma announced it was time to go home—-whose car would she be riding in? Five of us quietly bled out of the room, leaving Mom and Uncle Ryan with Grandma. Uncle Ryan, in his brusk way, had tried to make her understand she was home, which had upset Grandma so much she had latched onto my mother’s hand and pleaded to go home with her. After what seemed hours, probably in reality fifteen minutes, Mom and Uncle Ryan joined our motley crew in the lobby. After all the histrionics, Grandma had drifted, come back and talked about how she had always liked living here in the condo with such lovely landscaped grounds.

I was restless, and after re-reading yet another page of Magic for Beginners, I turned off the Kindle. The one thing I could do for my mother was pack up Grandma’s belongings in the empty boxes in her room. I’d call my Grandma a neatnik, so well organized was her room, unlike mine. She had a journal with a fat, black pen on the nightstand next to her bed. I hesitated before I sat on the bed and opened it. Pasted inside the front of the journal was a typed poem, “One Perfect Rose”:
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet–
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

I laughed out loud, feeling at that moment a thousand connections to my Grandma, for I had read that same passage and highlighted the page in my book of collected poems of Dorothy Parker. I flipped through the pages, a twinge of guilt for snooping pinching me, but went ahead and read a few of her most recent entries.

All these voices whispers of ourselves that should be heard
memories are puzzle pieces, capturing moments in our lives to piece together as a puzzle
my mind, so clear some days like an endless blue sky. then my thoughts, like wispy clouds, almost real memories floating I can’t quite capture some days it rains from dark clouds I am overwhelmed by sadness of what I cannot remember.

I put the journal down, my hand resting on the cover feeling the waves of melancholy wash over every part of me, imagining Grandma in a lucid moment writing this. I will take this with me when I go see her this afternoon, give it to her. Then I remember the photo album and after looking in desk drawers, dresser drawers, underneath the bed, I find it in the closet on top of a locked metal document box. The box is about the size of a shoebox. Whatever object is in there makes a muffled noise when I shake the box.

Once again, I sit on the bare mattress to browse through the photographs, many of them of people and places unfamiliar to me. I recognize my mother in old black and white pictures that captured her maturing from a toddler to a young woman in a new Easter outfit. I really like the baby pictures of her, especially a series of her running alongside a Golden retriever naked with a discarded diaper behind her.

Of course, I am more interested in the picture Grandma showed me of the man named George. I pry behind each photo carefully with my fingernail until I find it. There is another one I find, one where my Grandma is in a satiny formal dinner dress, beside George; and another one, with George, and some other man. Upon looking closer I think it might be my Grandfather, Karl, as a young man, and the picture Grandma had shown me of her as a young woman on a picnic with George. It occurred to me that someone else was there taking the picture.

And there is something else about the photograph of George that alerts me, but it is elusive. I look again, very closely. Something about his smile. I flip back to the pictures of my mother in her Easter outfits and there is one of her smiling directly at the camera, a very similar pose to the one of George in his tuxedo.

I put the photos all back as I had found them, then with the journal and photo album together, leave the room to get ready to go see Grandma.

She is awake, sitting up in bed sipping a cup of tea. “Fran! My goodness, if I known you were coming I still wouldn’t have baked a cake.” She put aside her cup. “Seems I can’t do much of anything lately.”

“Hi, Gram,” I kiss her forehead with a loud smack. “How are you?” It’s an auspicious sign that she knows who I am.

“I have been better, thank you anyway.” She points to the walker. “I hate that damn thing. I’d rather use my cane, but I can’t find it.”

This isn’t going easy with Grandma in one of her dark moods. “I’m thinking that when your hip is totally healed, you’ll be able to use your cane again. And by the way, Gram, I brought you something.” I put the journal down beside her with the pen clipped to the front cover. “I thought maybe you would like to write in it.”

She stares at it for long moment before she sighs, takes the pen and lays it in her lap. She turns her hands over, tracing age spots with a finger on her left hand. “Look at my age spots. Maybe if I connected them with a magic marker, my whole life would come together as a puzzle does.”

“Well, how about this? I also brought your photo album.” I scoot my chair close her bedside. “I’d like to ask you some questions about the pictures you showed me.”

I watch her intently as she thumbs through the album. She pauses. “This is your other Grandmother. You called her Mimi. There’s a story behind that.”

“Actually that’s great-grandmother, but…”

“You were just four and eavesdropping when I was pointing out to your father that all that woman does is talk about ‘me, me,me’; after that you wouldn’t call her anything but Mimi. And she thought you were so clever to have a special name for her!”

“I haven’t heard that story before. Um, Grandma, who’s taking the picture here, where you and George are sitting on a blanket?”

She smiles at me, kind of a goofy look that I know means she is drifting away. I am desperate to hold onto the thread of truth that connects to her memory. “Grandma! Can you tell me who this is and who is taking the picture?”

She flicks her hand weakly, dismissing me. “I am an old woman now. I forget things.” She closes her eyes and I know I’ve lost her. As I start to get up she says to someone, or no one, “Then it all comes back to me and it is too much. I am tired, tired to my bones.”

I leave the photo album within reach, take the pen and clip it back onto the cover of the journal before I leave.

And it goes pretty much the same day after day. Some days she is happy to be there, some days she implores me to take her home. I brought her a bouquet of roses from her George Best rose bush and she burst into tears.

“Grandma! I didn’t mean to make you cry!” I swipe at her tears. She grabs my hands and brings them to her lips to kiss.
“It’s okay, pet. You’ve made me so happy.”

She certainly didn’t look happy.

“Fran,” she pulls me closer and I dread that she might beg me to take her home with me. Why didn’t I think this thing through? Of course roses from her beloved bush would trigger an emotional outburst. “Fran,” she whispers, though there is no need, “if you won’t take me home with you, do me a favor, please?”

I pull back a bit, my hands still lassoed by hers. “If I can I will.”

“Beneath the rose bush I buried a half-pint Mason jar. It has a key in it that will unlock the metal box on the upper shelf of my closet at your house. Bring those to me. Tomorrow.”

“Grandma, all this time you were trying to unbury something?” Well, another upending of an assumption.

“Yes, yes, I’m older and just a bit wiser.“ She shakes our hands and lets go of mine. “I realize that I cannot bury my past.” She examines her hands for several minutes. “These brown age spots on my hands…when I was young, they were freckles.” She draws her finger along, connecting them with an imaginary line. “These are the stories of my life.”

“I’ll go right home and find that key. Grandma, I love you.” I kiss her as she closes her eyes and decamps.

I spent three hours digging a five foot moat with a spade around the rose bush without finding anything but rocks. I threw the spade down, near tears. Maybe the jar fell down a rabbit hole and landed in Beijing. It took an hour to fill the trough back in with dirt, and by that time all I wanted was a cold drink and a shower.

Exasperated with everything, even the steady plopping of droplets from my wet hair, I sat staring at Puget Sound. What was I going to tell Grandma? I’ve never broken a promise made to her.

The mind works in ways a lot like a computer, scrolling through the subconscious for answers in stored memory. Out front is a purple rhododendron. When I get my laptop, I type in the browser what I know it is: Rhododendron Loderi, and up pops pictures of the Rhododendron Loderi King George. If my hunch is right, I’ll find that jar.

It only took me forty minutes to find it with a shovel this time. And the bonus: the bush got some needed TLC.

I got to Grandma’s room earlier than I had any day previously. She was flipping through the photo album too fast to really see anything but a blur I am sure.

“Gram! I found the jar!” I held it up for her to see that the seal had not been broken and the key was still encased in a wad of wrapping paper. “It was beneath the rhodie.”

She studiously ignored me. I sat down in the padded, folding chair and waited for her attention.

“Gram…”

She threw the album at me, but it landed short of hitting me and skidded to my feet. “I don’t like it here. I want to go home!” She impaled me with her stare.

It felt like I was super-glued to the chair; I couldn’t move or speak, but every breath I took sounded in my ears like a steam engine laboring up a mountainside. It might have a minute, it might been an eternity when I realized someone was standing next to me.

The nurse lay her hand on my shoulder. “Your Grandmother is having a bad day.”

“Really.” I nodded.

Grandma hunched over and glared without replying. The nurse approached Grandma but stayed out of harm’s reach. “Mrs. Karlson, Dr. Smith will be in to see you in five minutes. I’m afraid I have to ask your granddaughter to leave.”

Finally able to move, I gathered the scattered pictures up, shoved them into the album, got my wallet and the box, and left.
I was still pretty shaken up when I got home, thrown into a whirlwind of self-recrimination, blaming myself for setting her off with the roses the day before, scared at the monster in her, and mad that it was this way. I had been so curious to know what was in the box, so sure it had something to do with my history, and now all I wanted to do was pitch it in Puget Sound. I did not want to ever go back to the home and see Grandma. That woman was not the person who is my Grandmother. She may have her mean, petty, little ways, but she never, ever, would do bodily harm to me.

The phone rang and I literally jumped out of my chair. My hand was shaky when I answered to hear Dr. Smith introduce himself.

“…and it is typical behavior of Alzheimer patients. Please try not to take it personally. She’ll have no recollection of this incident.” He paused.

Not take it personally? How else do you take an act of aggression? I swept my hair from my forehead, trying to think clearly. “Did I make her mad? I brought her roses from her favorite bush and I think I may have stirred up some bad memories.” No, I meant sad memories.

“Miss Reed, I assure you, you did not make her mad. I repeat, this is typical behavior of the disease in advanced stages. Tomorrow she won’t have remembered any of it.”

“Oh! You think I should come back?” I don’t think I want to do that. “Okay, yes, I’ll come around the same time as the other days. She seemed more like herself. Thank you. Good-bye.”

Advanced stage; I knew what it meant. You can only bury your head in the Kindle for so long before the reality of the situation becomes apparent. But a little voice inside my head reminded me that we are all in advanced stage of life; the minute we are born, we move towards our death. Not that it was all that comforting to know my grandmother was never going to be the person I loved before, but I found solace in having had her throughout my life so far. And I will love her until the day she dies.
What to do with the box? and the key? Because curiosity compels me is a refrain through my head. I think the right thing would be to wait for my mother and discuss it with her when she comes back from her trip. But isn’t it funny how you can make a solid resolution and it turns out to be as substantial as a cloud.

It was Grandma who made the decision for me. I skipped a day before going back to see her and I came no earlier, no later than I had on her ‘good’ days.

She perked up with a radiant smile. “Hello, my favorite granddaughter!”

I’m her only granddaughter, but today this is the best salutation I’ve ever heard and I feel a tingle of happiness throughout my whole body.

“Hugs and kisses!”

I only hesitate for a split second, but I am still ashamed that it was my first impulse. She traced her finger along my cheek. “I’ve been thinking.”

No irony in that.

“I want you to open that metal box. There is something I want you to have. You will find some papers. You must share those with your mother. And a ring. I want you to have the ring.”

“Grandma, I could bring the box here and you could open it.”

“No, Fran, please don’t. You’ll understand it all better after you open the box. I used to think of it as my own Pandora’s box.”

“Geez! Maybe I don’t want to let out all those ills upon us!”

“Ah, but,” she tapped the air with her finger, “hope was left behind. And I hope empathy.”

“Oh, Gram, you’ve never done anything to be forgiven for.”

“And young lady, how would you know? You’re not your mother.”

I ease away, backing off to the folding chair far enough from her that she can’t reach me and keep a lightness in the tone of my voice. “I am my mother’s daughter, and your granddaughter, that’s how I can be certain of what I say.”

She grunts. “You’re young yet. You’ll learn. You’ve got heartache in your future, that much I know.”

I blow her a kiss from the doorway. “I know, Grandma, I know.”

“It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
– J. K. Rowling

Dean sweeps his hand in a grand gesture to welcome me as the door widens for my entrance. The first impression one gets upon entering the room is that every item in the room has its place. Not exactly over-orderly, but with careful consideration for balance, texture and color. It must be Marcus’ doing because Dean is generally indifferent to his immediate environment. I would always be wary of tripping over his running shoes.

“Fran, I would like to introduce you to Marcus.”

He startled me by materializing beside Dean. Taller than Dean, in crisply ironed shirt and denim jeans, darker hair, no-rim glasses, even features short of handsome, green eyes framed in thick eyebrows, a soul patch on his chin.

“So glad to meet you!” I offered my hand for him to shake. “You must be the wizard of the home. I don’t remember this place being so well-tended.” I flustered. “I didn’t mean that as a back-handed compliment. Really, your place is beautiful.”

“Thank you, m’lady. I rather like being thought of as wizard. It took some magic to tidy this up when,” he jerked his thumb, indicating Dean, “the master of clutter lived alone.”

“All right, now that you two have hit it off using me as a ping-pong ball, shall we make ourselves comfortable in the living room?”

“And not the rec-room?” I follow Marcus as Dean comes to my side.

“Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me.”

“The night’s not over. Marcus might not like me.”

But the night sped through the hours with small talk and catching up and knowing each others’ histories. Dean had decided on pediatrics and Marcus already had a job as an environmental engineer with the Office of Sustainability and Environment.
“So, Fran, what’s after Reed?” Dean gulped the last of his green tea.

“I’m graduating ahead of schedule and doing my graduate studies at the UW, starting in October.” I put down my tea cup, waving away the proffered refill. “No, thanks. No more tea for me, Marcus.”

“We’re all going to be Huskies! Woof!” Marcus put the teapot back in the exact spot it came from on the tea tray, then the tea cozy over the tea pot. “We’ll wear our Husky shirts under our wedding finery.”

“When’s the wedding?”

Dean had color in his cheeks and a grin I remembered so well. “Next March.”

“You know Annie’s getting married in January? I’ve spent hours, and I mean that literally, with the wedding plans. I will not be a bridesmaid ever again.”

“How about my best person at my wedding?”

Marcus picked up the tray. “If you will excuse me, I’ll just get these out of the way.”

As he left, I took the box with the flowers and dove necklace from my purse.

Dean sat back, stunned. “You’re giving it back to me? You came over tonight to give this back to me?” He tucked his hands beneath his legs, refusing to take the box I offered to him.

“Yes, on one condition. You have the chain fixed and give this back to me on my birthday. I am not going to wear a Husky shirt underneath a formal, but I will want to wear my necklace.”

He hovered for a moment then ever so gently, ever so Dean, he reached for and took the box. “Fran…of course I will.”

“I said something to Annie today as she was having a meltdown, that made me really stop and think about what’s important to me. I know this might seem counter-intuitive, but I told her that there is no forever, only the moment we live in, but it made me think of how much you mean to me and I want to be with you forever. If not as a lover, then as your friend. Life is so fragile, so unpredictable with our loves and friends and family. I cannot not have you in my life. You mean too much to me.”

“Then can we plan to be together on your birthday?”

I hadn’t thought about how that would work, introducing Scott to Dean. “You, me, Marcus and Scott. At least for an hour or so sometime during the day would work for me if that is good for you.”

“Why not here? Let me know what is a good time and we will make it happen.” He rose as I stood up to leave. “But we’ll get together before then. Maybe the three of us could meet for a late lunch or early dinner between our schedules.”

I detoured to the kitchen where I caught Marcus’ attention with a wave. “I’m glad we finally got to meet one another. It’s been a terrific evening. Thanks.”

He wiped his hands down his jeans, which surprised me; it seemed an uncharacteristic thing for him to do. “M’lady,” he took my hand to his lips, “it’s been a pleasure.”

When Dean and I got to my car, I stopped before getting in. “Have you ever heard from Dusty? I thought maybe if anyone would hear from her, it would be you.”

“No,” he shook his head, his face a map of sadness, “not a word. I miss her, too. Sometimes I think ‘I’ll give her a call and tell her something’. It hurts when the realization hits me she isn’t here.”

“Yes, it hurts.” We stood silently sharing our moment of grief. “Look at the beautiful night sky with all those stars. Do you think there are sentient beings out there?”

“Yes, I do. I think they are too intelligent to visit this world.”

“Maybe,” I said, leaning into him, “this is the sandbox where we, like toddlers, learn how to share, and learn social skills.”

“Look, Fran.” He pointed to the night sky at the constellations. “Lyra, Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia. There! Hercules, the fifth largest of today’s constellations; though it was Ptolemy in the second century that found and named it.”

“Is there any subject you don’t know?”

“One or two.”

Then we hugged and I swear I felt a paradigm shift, that my world had righted itself.

I spent several more hours of the week which I dubbed Annie-Planning,with Annie. We also spent time with Dean and Marcus, and I spent time with Dean, and Dean and Marcus. In between, I visited my Grandma in the hospital for mercifully brief visits as she drifted off frequently and for longer periods of time. Although, by the time she was transferred to the rehab center for therapy, she had more lucid minutes each day. My mother finally admitted she felt comfortable going on her trip and leaving me with the responsibilities of tending the roses, yard and Grandma. I told her I would even fill in the holes that Grandma had dug.

During the evenings I had by myself, I thought a lot about my relationships. I asked myself why I felt hesitant to introduce Scott to Dean, to Dean and Marcus. I realized that I had lopped off a whole section of my life from Scott’s, keeping a lot of my past from him; not that I was ashamed of it, I just did not want to share it. I wanted it all to myself. I, in effect, was straddling between real commitment and dilettantism.

Scott and I never had had a fight. We simply discussed the issue and resolved it, until the subject of Dean and Marcus came up over the phone late one night.

“But Scott, one night this week isn’t too much to ask of your time. I want you to meet my friends, Dean and Marcus.”

“Your gay friends? Really?”

“Dean and I have been friends since grade school, Scott. Gay or not, we’re friends with a long history.”

“Well, you know how you don’t like hanging out with my friends? I don’t want you to hang out with your gay friends.”

“Unlike certain friends of yours, Scott, my friends will treat you with respect. I can guarantee that.”

“Geez, Fran, getting hit upon by a guy is a compliment for a woman. But getting hit on by another guy is not what I consider complimentary.”

“I seriously doubt that either Dean or Marcus would find you attractive. They are committed to each other. In fact, I will be standing up for Dean at their wedding.” I tried to relax the strangle hold I had on the phone.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Fran. I won’t be there.”

“Okay, I won’t insist if it makes you uncomfortable. I wish you would reconsider…”

“Fran, did you not hear me? I don’t like the idea you will be there. I don’t want you to be there either!”

“So, we’ll do a trade-off? Two of your objectionable friends for two of mine?” He’d better understand sarcasm.

“You know, it’s different, okay? My friends are normal, red-blooded men. Not…”

“Not what, Scott?” I could imagine what the fill-in-the-blank word would be.

“You know something, Fran? This explains a lot about you. I think maybe you don’t really like real men; you don’t want to be in a man-woman relationship. Maybe you should give some thought to your sexual orientation.”

I did not cut him off abruptly, but whispered, “Good-bye,” and hung up. Nor did I cry knowing it was over. I finally had the answer to the why I did not want to make a commitment to Scott; underneath the facade of his college education, he was a good-ole-boy.

“Do what you will, this world’s a fiction and is made up of contradiction.”
– William Blake

“It’s been a pretty hectic for you, hasn’t it Fran?” My Mom hands me a cup of coffee and sits beside me at the kitchen island. “How is Annie?”

“She’s going to be released tomorrow. She’ll go into a treatment program. It’s going to take time, they say, for her to be well enough to be on her own. It’s like a self-imposed prison.”

“I think the key to understanding her anorexia is that it is a disease. She doesn’t have control of the disease. Not yet. But I understand her mother and father are being very supportive.”

I look over the rim of my cup. “Yeah, isn’t that a twist of a family plot?”

“What about her sister, Elizabeth, or Betty? Is she close to Annie?”

“Bette, as she calls herself nowadays,” I put my cup down, “isn’t close to anyone. I think she moved to Nevada after she dropped out of college. Exotic dancer in Vegas is the rumor.”

“Ah, what a waste of beauty and brains.”

“Or,” I punctuate the air with a finger, “she’s living out her fantasy.”

“Like I said, what a waste.”

“Oh, but really? What if she is the best exotic dancer of the West? Wouldn’t that be fulfilling one’s destiny? Who’s to say that being a biologist, engineer or doctor is better than being the person you have to be?”

“Well, I hope you are not trying to tell me that you have decided on a career as a circus performer.”

I laughed out loud remembering the scene with Dusty in my bedroom when I put on the jester’s hat. “I’m afraid I’d not be very good at it. Maybe a clown with big painted tears and a bulbous nose. Mute.”

“Oh, that would never happen, Fran! You, not saying a word?” She leaned back and laughed.

“I got you to laugh.” I clinked my cup to hers and we drank our coffee.

“How’s Grandma doing?”

My mother fidgets in her seat, then stills. “She’s sleeping a lot lately. And slipping,” she points to her temple, “confusing the past and present. People, places, time.”

“The continuum shift.”

“It’s all very real to her.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “That’s the beauty of it, Mom. It is real to her.”

“It’s not so real for the rest of us.”

Our lively, depressing conversation was interrupted by the burping of the telephone. “We must be the few anywhere that have to still have to have a landline because our cells drop calls. I’ll get it.”

I had expected a salesperson but instead recognized Scott’s voice. “Fran? Hi!”

There is always that awkward moment of panic of what to say next, and inevitably I say something lame like, “Hi, Scott. How are you?”

“Uh, um fine. I couldn’t find your phone number, um, your cell. I took a chance that this would be your home phone. Hey! I was right!”

Well, this convo was lame-er. At least, I reasoned, he’s as nervous as I am, which surprises me as he always came off as overly confident when I was around him at Reed.

“So what’s new with you? Have you boxed any good books lately?”

“Oh, no. I’ve been working with my Dad. He’s got a big construction project in Kent and I’m on the clean-up crew. You might say I’m the supervisor of the clean-up crew.”

“Is it just a one man crew?”

His laugh was deep and long. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Psychic. One of my many talents.” Or basic psychology.

“Listen Fran,” he paused, and I wanted to, but did not, interject that I was listening, “would you like to go see the Impressionist exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum Friday? I could pick you up at 11 and we could have lunch at the café at the museum after we see the exhibit.”

I stifled a quick retort, ‘Or dinner’, as I could spend a lifetime with Monet, Manet, Renoir, and especially Degas and Cézanne. “That sounds really nice. The house with the huge purple rhododendron by the parking strip.”

“It’s date! See you Friday at 11, Fran.”

My mother arched an eyebrow. “Someone new? I could tell by your expressions.”

I shrugged, being used to my mother’s acute observations. “Scott Nicholson. Seattle Art Museum. The Impressionists.” I replaced the phone in its cradle and stood there looking at it like it might jump back into my hand.

My mom swiveled and stood, tapping me on my shoulder. “I suggest you leave the clown outfit for another time.”

My father had come into the kitchen and I saw the wink intended for my mother. “What this? A young man come a-courting?”
“Yes, Dad. Scott Nicholson—-he works for his Dad in construction.”

“Nicholson and Garry. Big outfit from the east side. Gainfully employed.” He nodded and smiled. “I approve.”

I eyeballed him, then my mother. “Sometimes I feel like I’m still in high school.”

Dad got serious. “I was kidding you, Fancy Fran.”

“I know Popsicle, I know.” I left them to themselves, taking my cell phone outside. While I dialed Dean’s number, I noticed Grandma had dug another hole beneath the rose bush. Maybe she was finding a way to China. She had spoken often of traveling in her retirement years.

It was a relief to get Dean’s voicemail and I left a short three sentence message. “Hi, Dean. Sorry something has come up for Friday. I’ll catch you later.”

Later he texted me, asking for another date and time. I didn’t reply.

I almost had myself convinced that I would answer his texts, return his calls, but I didn’t find the time. When he left to move back to Boston to do his internship, I did text him, wishing him all the best.

Horror vacui, nature hates a vacuum. I spent every day of my remaining vacation with Scott after he got off work. We did activities together; hiking, canoeing, long walks around downtown Seattle, ferry rides, and an almost disastrous bike ride along the Burke-Gilman trail. I liked him a lot, and throughout the following school term at Reed, several people would remark that we made a good-looking couple, a perfect twosome someone said. No, I thought at the time, just good enough. But I couldn’t figure out what it was or wasn’t about the relationship that I never felt connected. Not like the way I had felt with Dean.

Several of our friends were getting married the next summer, and we attended weddings and receptions as the ‘next ones’. Only I purposefully avoided catching the bridal bouquet every time it came whizzing right for me. I didn’t spend as much time with Scott, as Annie had gotten out of the eating disorder program and was at home, piecing her life back together one day at a time. She was preparing for her own wedding to Jon. It was not as painful to be around her now that she had gained forty pounds and looked normal again.

“Annie, you seem distracted and worried. Is there something bothering you?” I reached over and took her hand. “You know, you can talk to me.”

“It’s all these details! I don’t think it’s worth it!” She pushed aside the brochures for wedding venues, limos, caterers. “It’s all too much!”

“Annie, come clean with me. We’ve been friends too long, through too much. I know you. What is it?”

Tears streamed down her face. She extracted her hand from mine and burrowed her face into her hands. Her words, muffled and staccato, wrenched my own heart. “I can’t have children. Ever.” She sobbed. “What’s the point of getting married?”

“Does Jon know?” I frantically searched my thoughts for something to say that would make a difference to this unexpected out burst.

She nodded her head vigorously.

“Then if he’s all right with it, isn’t that the best reason to marry a man who loves you and you love him? You love him, don’t you?”

She nodded even harder, mumbling, “Yes, yes, yes! But…”

“Well, that intrusive ‘but’ in my face.”

She snorted a laugh, wiping tears from her face. “He’s a good Catholic boy and said from the get-go he wanted a family.”

“So adopt. Any problems with that?”

“Guys, ya know, want their own progeny. I don’t want to wake up one day to see him full of regrets.”

“Well, now there’s an image I can’t quite figure out.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Geez, Annie, there are options. Surrogate mother for one. And really how much do you know about the future? Anything, everything can change with new technology. We’re in the Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment with Technology. You cannot give up hope for your future. You are here, alive, today. You of so little faith.”

She examined me with a critical eye. “Yes, faith, that elusive thing with wings that flutters around my consciousness. I have asked myself, my broken self, how do I have faith when I am living in a fractured world?”

“You know what my Dad said to me the day of Colin’s funeral? For he had no answers to the why and wherefores either, but he has faith and he said, ‘I can be faithful, act like I am full of faith’; I took it to mean that even in moments of despair, there is hope. We don’t know if there is a tomorrow, because we are only conscious today. There is no forever, only the moment we live in, but don’t we, all of mankind, want to believe there is forever? That’s why we marry and have children.”

“Gads, Fran, I don’t know if what you said is a commemoration or condemnation of marriage.”

“Yes.” I smiled and she smiled, throwing herself at me for a long and welcomed hug.

I pulled back and looked at her critically. “Annie, there’s something else bothering you. What is it?”

“Oh, Fran, it’s this whole secrecy about my ‘condition’—-I feel ashamed to have this eating disorder—-I’m not supposed to talk about it—-just to you and my therapist. Otherwise, I’m not really sick, I’m,” she lowered her voice and shifted her eyes, “recovering. We don’t mention the hospital, rehab or treatment. You know, like it’s a secret not to be spoken out loud, no one is to know that I am all pieces glued back together.”

I grabbed her by the shoulders and squared off face to face. “Annie, you have a voice. Use it. Speak up, speak out about this disease and help others understand. You’re good at helping others, you always have been—-so use your experience to help others—-use your voice, so others can hear they are not alone. Don’t hide behind secrecy—-it’ll only make you ashamed and miserable. And you are not that, Annie, you are not a miserable, scared little girl. You are a woman with a strong, beautiful voice and something to say. Say it. Leonard Cohen has a line in Anthem: ‘there’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.’ You’re not broken, Annie, you’re cracked a little like all of us.”

She looked at me with her mouth agape. She nodded, gulped, said in a hoarse whisper, “I applied for admission to the U W. I want to go into social services.” She scooped brochures through her hands. “You said it, you said what I have been trying to articulate. Thank you.”

I reached over and tossed a handful of brochures in the air. “Let’s get these wedding plans organized, girlfriend! Before the day is here!”

We spent the whole day, until suppertime, making plans. Jon came over after work, looking every inch the technical nerd he was, with basic black rimmed glasses, shaggy hair in need of a cut—-no, in need of a style—-khaki pants with bulging pockets stuffed with note papers, offering to take us both to dinner. I declined, as it was my turn to make dinner for my parents and me.
Mom and Dad were sitting at the dining table, two glasses of wine had been poured, but not imbibed. Dad had his hands wrapped around my mother’s hands, and I could see she was shaky.

Dad looked up, meeting my eyes. “Join us, Fran. We have some bad news.”

You ever just want to bolt? Run away to some exotic locale with palm trees swaying in the tropical breeze, ukuleles strumming in the background while you loll on the beach without a care in the world? My luck there would be rogue wave that would wash me out to sea.

I pulled a chair to sit next to my mother. My mother, the strong invincible one, the one who caught a crisis like a professional baseball player, and managed the play. She, who rarely cried, cried now.

“Dad, is it Grandma?”

Mom nodded and Dad sighed. “Yes,” he said, “she fell and broke her hip. She’s out of surgery, and after rehab and therapy, will have to go into an assisted living home.”

“She just kept begging me to take her home, and I had to keep repeating ‘I can’t, I can’t’.” I had never seen my mother sob like this.

I reached over to her and rubbed her back. I have nothing to say.

“We cannot leave now. I just couldn’t leave her.”

Ding! the bell went off inside my head. My parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary in two weeks—-they are going on a cruise to Alaska, with a week’s stay in Victoria, Canada.

“Mom, listen to me. You have to go. I’ll be here and I’ll go see Grandma every day, that’s a promise. Uncle Ryan is here. We’ve got you covered.”

“No”, she shook her head vehemently, “she’s my mother.”

“And my Grandmother. We’re all family, remember?” I immediately felt that I spoken too abruptly, like thumping her upside the head. “Let me do this for you, Mom. Please. In two weeks, Grandma will be where she’s going to be in the home that I’m sure you have researched to find the best one, getting good care. I’ll make sure she gets good care. What sense does it make for you not to go? I’m here, and I’ll take care of the house and Grandma. Don’t cancel your trip. Have some faith in me that I can do this.”

She blinked several times, trying, I suppose, to put me in focus. I waved a tissue at her. “Here, your nose is running.”

She disengaged her hands from my Dad’s hands, took the tissue. Laughter bubbled up from her, then Dad, then me, all of us getting the humor in the switch in the parental role.

My Dad sniffed the air. “What did you put in the crock pot that smells double delicious?”

“Boeuf bourguignon. Sorry about the butchered pronunciation. Annie has tried to teach me the correct way to say these things, but I have not the knack of the nasal.”

“Well, I’m impressed!” Dad placed his hand over his stomach.

“Don’t be, it’s a simple recipe.” I put the dishes out, then got the flatware. “You know me, simplicity is my motto.”

“I’ll do clean-up as my part. Are you going out with Scott later?”

I serve, and it is gratifying to see them both relish the first mouthful, because the beef stew did turn out delectable.
“No, he has plans with friends. He’s twenty-one, you know. Party time.”

I leaned close to my mother. “I’m always the designated driver, and I don’t particularly enjoy all those repetitive, stupefying jokes or his friends. It’s better he have his play dates with friends and I have mine.”

Dad set his mouth in that way of his that meant a word or two of wisdom would be forthcoming. “Most young men go through this phase. Have patience, it’ll pass.”

“You know me, Dad, patience personified.”

My cell chimed for an incoming text. I was mildly surprised it was from Dean; home for the duration. Whatever that means. No matter, he’s home, it’s now and I’ve got some mending to do. “Excuse me, I need to answer this.”

I went out on the waterside deck. It would be a beautiful sunset tonight, with promises of reds and pinks streaking the clouds over the Olympic Peninsula. When my world shifts on its axis and people fall off, the physical world keeps going on from sunrise to sunset. I need to right my world, so that I am not the only one in it.

“‘Yes’ “ I typed, “I would like to meet Marcus. Tonight, 8.”

I go to my room and take the box with the necklace out of the drawer and sit with my phone on the edge of my bed to google the meaning of the stones. I touch each stone as I read about it. Ruby, given as a gift, symbolizes friendship and love. Sapphire is peace, happiness, communication, intuition, and insight. Blue topaz is courage and overcoming fears; it is the stone for writers, scholars, artists and intellectuals. Emerald promotes self-knowledge, peaceful dreams and encourages balance and patience.

Citrine is said to open the mind to new thoughts and balance in one’s life.

And the bale, the fleur-de-lis, the national flower of France. I rub it gently between my fingers. A symbol for the Musketeers; Dean, Fran, Dusty and Annie.

Obviously, Dean designed this with thoughtful intent. That is one of the many things I love about him, how much thought goes into what he intends. 4ever & a Day, the little heart glints.

I shove the box with he necklace into my purse. The necklace that Dean gave me. The one with the broken chain.

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
– Zora Neale Hurston

She just disappeared. She and William were gone. On the third day of her disappearance, Frank filed a missing person’s report. Dean, myself, Dusty’s mother, Dusty’s father and his wife, Sylvia, and Frank were standing in a loose circle at the front desk of the downtown Seattle Police Department.

Hulking Frank stabbed the air with his finger. “You! You were with her! You know where she is! Tell me where she is!” In all his ragged rage, he looked truly bereft. But I still thought he was capable of murder.

“Well, that’s not true,” the officer, athletic and authoritative, said. Flipping through pages on his clipboard, he looked straight at Frank, “She checked out at 11:10 pm, June 19th, from the hospital after signing an order of protection.”

“I was the last one to see her.” Mrs.Connor spoke softly, as though the effort of saying those words cost her an ounce of depleted strength. “She came by taxi. She said she would spend the night, but when I got up the next morning, she and William were not anywhere in the house. I thought maybe she had gone to a motel. She said she would never go back to Frank again. ‘Never’, she said,” she choked back her tears and sputtered, “‘The marriage is over.’”

After an awkward moment of silence while Mrs. Connor composed herself, the police officer said, “We can assume she left of her own volition, but we will make inquiries. I will need statements from all of you.” The officer indicated a waiting area with benches. “Mr. Freeman, please follow me.”

“You,” he sneered at me as he passed, “you know where she is.”

“I don’t.” Leaning into Dean’s shoulder, I closed my eyes and reasserted, “I don’t know where she is.”

Mr. Connor paced, back and forth from one end of the bench to the other. Dusty’s mother sat still, staring vacantly at her hands clasped in her lap. Dean snugged me closer to him, resting his chin on top of my head. The only one who was calm and cool was Sylvia; like she had no interest in what was going on. How did I ever even think she was a caring person?

After twenty-five minutes, Frank barreled out of the interview room, glowering but wordless as he thrust the door open and departed. Our little group, silent up to now, sighed collectively.

Dean and I were the last ones to be interviewed. It was an hour before I sat down with Officer Tanning, and a fifteen minute interview. Dean, after I exited, slipped in through the doorway and took a seat. I stared numbly out the window as clouds scuttled by, much like the thoughts inside my head. I looked around when Dean approached, surprised that everyone else had left.

“Just you and me, kiddo,” he extended his hand to pull me to my feet. “Let’s get something to eat before I take you home. I have evening rounds.”

Before Dean had buckled his seat belt, I exclaimed, “I know, you said people can change. I just don’t think they can. I can’t imagine Frank changing.”

Dean heaved a big sigh. “Frank wasn’t always an angry guy. You know he had to give up his dream of being a professional baseball player when Dusty got pregnant. I wish she had been smarter and on birth control.”

“Like Dusty said, it took two to make a baby. And Frank could have been ‘smarter’.” Annoyed, I twisted the hem of my t-shirt. “And his affairs? Can you justify that? I wonder if he ever gave a thought of getting and giving an STD. Poor, angry Frank, acting out his disappointments. Big man on the playing field, little man in life.” Buildings blurred as we drove.

We went to a nearby pizza parlor. Seated in the nearly empty restaurant at three-thirty in the afternoon, Dean looked intently at me. “How are you doing, Fran?”

I waved my hand, as if I could express myself with one grand gesture. “Funny how you can do something so normal, so casual, like ordering a pizza and Coke, after….after…”

“Gut-wrenching experience,” he stated flatly. “We do have more than our fair share of drama, don’t we?”

“And you always say I am the queen of understatement.” I chewed my lip before going on. “Didn’t you think Sylvia was a whole lot of casual? Like she was totally bored with the whole proceedings. I thought she cared—-she gave me fifteen-hundred dollars to give to Dusty! What is she all about? I feel like throwing the money back in her face.”

Dean grew thoughtful. “I wouldn’t be too harsh, Fran. I think there may be lot more to her than appearances.”

With elbows on the table, I put my chin in my hands and said with mock sweetness, “I wonder, Dean, if I said black is the new color, would you say purple, lilac, magenta?” I sipped from my glass, purposefully loud, then looked him in the eyes. “You always do that, counter what I say.”

Just then the half pepperoni, half pineapple, Canadian bacon pizza plopped down in front of us.

“Ahh,” Dean scooped a slice of gooey, cheesy, pepperoni, “food for thought.”

“Oww, the pineapple is hot!” I hurriedly sipped my soda. “Maybe a message from God.”

“Or just a reminder that you might have to eat your words.”

To spite him, I took two bites and chewed loudly.

He waggled his eyebrows, always a gesture that indicated he thought he had won a point of argument. We ate in silence until I finished my last bite. I wiped the grease from my fingers and mashed the napkin into the emptied pizza pan. “When,” I leaned across the table, “did you know you were gay?”

He blinked, then tossed his napkin onto the pie pan. “Well, it was not in a pizza joint.” He stood, coming to my side. “Let’s go to the park and talk for a while.”

I thought how ironic it is that the nicest thing about knowing another person for as long as I have known Dean, is the comfort zone of our relationship that allows quiet space, not having to engage in useless chatter. On the drive to Gene Coulon Park by Lake Washington with a view of Mt. Rainier Park in Renton, we were both silent and I absorbed the quiet as a calming balm. Sun filtered through the clouds, but my sweater felt just right as we walked along water’s edge. Dean stopped and pointed to a picnic table.

“Let’s sit. First let me play the devil’s advocate.”

We would do this as an exercise all the time when were in high school, especially for a term paper; one of us would take an opposing view, or just try to find the most outrageous argument that the other would have to refute or support. I remember thinking in my freshman Humanities class that I had learned to weed out the insignificant ideas to get to the root of the idea, and how well it worked to impress my professors that I could present a problem in layers.

“Let’s look at what has happened from another perspective.” I sat across from him, hugged my sweater close. “Dusty could not have gotten an order of protection in twenty minutes; nor could she have ‘disappeared’ without a lot of organization. There are ’underground’ organizations for battered spouses.”

“What?” I barked. “Are you saying she had that already in motion when we were there?” I shook my head. “Pft..don’t think so.”
“No, I don’t think she did. I think someone else did. I’m thinking her mother.”

I sat up straight. “Remember that woman with clipboard?” Dean nodded. “Maybe she wasn’t a social worker.”

“Yeah, maybe not. The hospital staff, the police, and even Mrs. Reed, were just too accepting of Dusty’s disappearance. I know, I know better than anyone there is that code of professionalism, but all this time, it seems strange to me the lack of urgency. Except for Frank. And I really don’t think he could kill her and William, then dispose of the bodies. He’s not that cunning. And he has an alibi.”

“You’ve overlooked his temper, what I think of as ‘murderous rage’.” Although I had to grudgingly admit that I could not conjure a picture of Frank being that cold-blooded. Unless of course he had killed in a spontaneous rage and then had to get rid of all the evidence. But then again, his alibi; he was at the Cowgirls bar downtown, left with a woman, and then closed the Admiral Pub: apparently Frank had gone to her apartment after the bar closed and he had witnesses at both bars and the woman’s roommate. But he had lied about working; he had taken three days vacation from his job at Boeing.

“Now here’s what I want you to think about. We have been so fixated on the monster Frankenstein; let’s examine Frank the man.”

“Oh, no, you are not going to excuse his behavior, are you?”

“Not at all. But Fran, he is person, not a characterization. He’s more complicated than that. And give some credit to Dusty for loving him. He has good qualities. Remember how he treated his brother, Billy? And he didn’t always bully Dusty. Think about it, without prejudice.”

“Well, Dr. Frazier, you might give him CPR, but I’m not so sure I would.” I was irritated by his line of reasoning, until he snagged me.

“Oh, yes, I’m pretty sure you would Fran. It comes down to a question of our humanity, our ethics. and I’m certain that you would do the right thing, in any case. Because you’re a moral person.”

I looked at him steadily, rooting for a rebuttal. I changed the subject. “Do you really think Frank had the talent to be a professional baseball player?”

Several Canada geese were milling about the vast green expanse of lawn. One particularly large one spread his wings, and flapping and honking, chased another goose around in a circle. Dean and I watched for a moment, both us chuckling.
“It’s funny you should bring that up, because I was thinking of that earlier. Well, this is what I was thinking, relating it to myself. All throughout grade school, junior high and college, I was pretty much of a wiz-kid——prestigious awards, scholarships, you know the candy for being smart. When I got into med school, suddenly I’m not the only bright boy around. I had some serious competition. You know what happened?”

I smiled. “You got your first ‘C’?”

“Something like that. I really had to work hard for not only the grades, but the positions—-sort of like doing interviews all the time. It was an eye-opener, too. I think it is too bad Frank never had an opportunity to find out if he is truly good enough to play in the big leagues with other big boys. If he had pursued his career and found out he couldn’t cut it, he might not have resented settling down with a wife, son and a good job.”

“So, he has a reason for using Dusty as a punching bag.”

“It’s a lot easier to blame someone else than admit your own shortcomings. He is, after all, human.”

“And not a very nice one. Although,” I replied sarcastically, ”he did buy her a very expensive espresso maker after he broke her wrist. Such a kind hearted guy—-she didn’t have to go out anymore in the big, bad world to get a latte. And,” I paused dramatically, “he brought four dozen roses this time when kicked her in the stomach. I guess a baby is worth a little less than a coffee maker. Such a guy!”

Dean leaned back on his elbow atop the table. “Well, this could effect some changes in him. We’re all capable of change.”
“I just don’t think in Frank’s case that’ll ever happen. He’s a first class bully and he’s used to always having his way by dint of magnitude, his size, his entitlement.”

“I guess that depends on how bitter he is. He’ll have to change his behavior, or he’ll die a lonely, embittered old man.”
I wondered if Dean meant that for me as well. Could he have guessed that I had been praying that this time together, the intensity of each minute we spent together, that he would realize he wasn’t really gay, but wanted a relationship with me, and we would live happily ever after together?

“Do you really think he might take responsibly for his behavior? He was insistent to the very last minute that we were to blame for Dusty leaving him. I never saw or heard one single thing that would make me believe he would man up and admit she left him because of the way he treated her.”

“He’s going to have lots of time to think about it. He’ll go through the stages of grief, anger and denial. He could get stuck in any one of those stages, or he could work through them and mature into a better man.” Dean looked down into his hands. “I’m pretty sure Dusty is not coming back to him. It must have been the most heart wrenching decision for her to leave. Everyone and everything she’s ever loved is here; her Mother, her friends, her life.”

“She didn’t even leave a note for her Mom. I think that’s scary, that’s why I’m afraid….”

Dean took my cold hand and warmed it by sandwiching between his two. “What could she say? Think about it. What could she say?”

It was at that moment that I looked at Dean’s left hand, at the wedding band and knew that we weren’t in a fairy tale, and real life stories did not always have happy endings. I pressed our hands to my cheek, held them tight, and wept.

“Oh, Fran, Fran,” he soothed. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you. I wish I had a good story to tell you to make it sensible, to make you understand about me.” He wiped my tears with both of our hands. “I cannot pinpoint a time and place when I knew I was gay. A situation, maybe. Marcus is my age, met him my senior year when we scouted the prospective colleges. We hit it off because we are very much alike—-at least superficially. Both young, smart, not into sports, not quite fitting in any place or group. I guess at one time when I had been talking a lot about you, he just hit me with ‘choose, buddy’ and it put it all out there.”

I fluttered my hand, “I’m so flattered to have been the deciding factor!”

“Stop it, Fran. It was not that easy for me.”

I got as close as I could to his face. “We did everything but…do you think it’s that easy for me?”

He got closer. “What do you want me to do? I cannot hit an undo button, I cannot change what is, Fran. Some things are just the way they are, and will be. What is it you want from me? I am not going to apologize for being who I am.”

No. Yes. Emotions upside down, all around. I swallowed hard and looked away, then glanced at my watch. “Time to go, Cinderfella.”

Dean reached for and gently held my wrist. “I’d like you to meet Marcus. He’ll be home Thursday. Please come by, Friday?”

The warmth of his hand, the salty smell of his breath, the closeness of him. I slid my hand from his. “I don’t know. I’ll call you.”

It was chit-chat on the way home. Both us, I think, realized we were at a crossroads, with all the signs awry, leaving us directionless. Nothing was quite resolved, and to make it all the worse, I still wanted him, still wanted him to be my lover.

“The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.”
– William Blake

The weather shifted from a balmy to a rainy morning. Mom and I had gone to the Home Depot and gotten Early Girl and Sweet One Hundred tomato plants, along with pansies and verbena to put with them in the prepared soil. We had a long discussion where the perennials would go, as accents along the borders of the vegetable or in pots on the deck. As the rain pelted us, we decided to line them up on the deck in their green pots and finish the project under more auspicious skies.

I had just finished texting Annie for the fourth time since I had awakened at 7:30 am, sending her another funny e-card, this one with a little girl in tutu, upside down on the barre, obviously entangled as all the other girls were doing it right. The caption read “Get me outta here!” It was a running joke with us when were young girls in ballet class that I had exceptional talent for getting it backwards and Annie, ever graceful and focused, was the prima ballerina.

“CU afternoon. Bye.”

I had just sent the text off when my cell rang. “Dusty! Is everything all right?”

“Fran,” her voice was soft and scratchy, “I need to talk to you.”

I was standing by the boot box and I popped one shoe off with my foot, then the other. “Sure, want me to come over?”

“No, Fran, come to the hospital. Swedish. Room 1119, South wing.”

“What happened?” My hands were shaking I was so frightened.

“I lost the baby. Frank…he beat me up, Fran. Kicked me in the stomach.” Her tiny voice became emboldened. “Did you mean it when you said you would help me leave him?”

“Yes, yes. I’ll call Dean and tell him. We’ll figure something out. Where is William?”

“My Mom has him. The doctor is here. Bye.”

My Mom laid a hand on my arm. “What?”

“Dusty is in the hospital. She miscarried.”

“I’ll drive you. It would do no one any good for you to be in an accident because you are distracted.”

“Oh, mother, you can’t leave Grandma. I’m fine. Really.” Her hand lay warm on my arm. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thanks, anyway. I’ll be extra careful, I promise.”

I called Dean, told him that we had to get Dusty somewhere safe.

“She and William can stay with me. I’m alone for the week. But she’ll need some money, Fran, to live on. I can help some, but honestly, I don’t have much.”

I pondered that for a moment. “My folks would, but then I’d have to tell the whole story. I’ll ask her father to help out. I’ll go by his place and ask him before I go to the hospital.”

I sat in the car in front of the house where Dusty’s father, his wife Sylvia and their eight-year-old daughter lived, running my hands over, up and down the steering wheel for what seemed an hour before I screwed enough courage into my backbone to get out of the car and go to the front door and knock.

Sylvia answered. “Fran! This is a surprise! Come in, please.”

I know Dusty disliked this woman, but my! she was gorgeous, impeccable in dress and make-up, and giving out nice vibes as she led me to the living room.

“Can I get you coffee or tea?”

“Actually, I need to talk to Mr. Connor. It’s really important.” My hands were sweaty and I could feel droplets running down my back. Dusty would disown me for sure if she found out I had come here.

“He’s out of town, Fran. He won’t be home until a week from Thursday.” She eyed me like I might have drugs on me. “What is it, Fran? Talk to me. You’re obviously upset and worried by the tension in your face and your fluttering hands. Is it Elizabeth?”

“Yes!” I fairly screeched. “She’s in the hospital.” How was I going to make my case unless I told the truth? “She miscarried because Frank kicked her. Dean and I are going to take her and William to a safe place, but she’ll need money to live on and we just don’t have it. Do you think her father will give her some support?”

Sylvia, stunned, opened her mouth to say something, shut her mouth, looked at me for moment before she said, “We didn’t know Elizabeth was pregnant. Where’s William?”

I took a deep breath and shook off my panic. “With Dusty’s Mom. I promised I’d get to the hospital right away to see Dusty.” I glanced at my watch, more out of nervousness and to break the intensity of eye contact with Sylvia, because I really did not see the time.

“Wait here a minute. I’ll be right back.”

I caught a glimpse of Sophia through the opened door of her pink bedroom, sitting on her bed with a fluffy pink and blue cover. I saw a beautiful child who would likely be a beautiful woman.

Sylvia came back into the room with an envelope that she handed to me. “It’s all I have for now, Fran. It’ll tide Elizabeth over until her father gets home and we can figure out what is to be done.”

“Oh, gosh, oh, thank you.” It was at least a thousand dollars, if not more. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Tell Elizabeth it is from her father, not from me. We’re not exactly buds.”

She walked me to the door. “Drive safely, Fran. Please no texting or using your phone.”

Do all mothers come with some sort of manual with stock cautionary lines for each appropriate occasion?

“I won’t, I promise.” I felt about twelve years old, but strangely did not resent Sylvia’s motherly advice because she seemed so genuinely caring.

I got to the hospital fine, even though the traffic was slow, it moved along, and I found a parking space on the third floor, called my mother to let her know I was safely there as I got into the elevator. However, I got lost and wound my way through corridor after corridor before I found the skybridge and a sign that indicated the south wing.

I came through the door, stopped and waited for the nurse to finish adjusting the bed. If it had not been for the setting, Dusty might have been a model posing for a shoot. Her beautiful long red hair with copper highlights spread over her shoulders and framed her face artfully; her lips were slightly parted, and if she had not looked so pale, had not an IV in her arm and a sensor on her finger for the monitor, I would have taken a picture of her. I would regret that one day, that I had not taken the picture of the last time I would see her.

I inched over to the chair beside her bed and sat, and waited. The nurse left with a smile and nod at me. Dusty did not look at me right away, but twisted a lock of her hair, then wet her lips. I could see the other side of her face had turned purple and green, and she had a black eye.

“I lost the baby. A girl.”

She was so calm, matter of fact that it took a minute for me to respond. I swallowed, but the words just stuck in my throat. “I’m sorry,” I croaked.

“Fran, you said you would help me leave Frank.” She turned and looked me straight in the eyes, still calm, matter of fact. “Will you?”

I straightened up, reached for hand and held it. “Yes, I will. Dean will, too. I’ll call him and we’ll get a plan. You won’t leave the hospital with Frank; you’ll leave with us.”

“William, too.”

“Of course. the both of you—-we’ll find you some place safe and make plans. Don’t worry, by tomorrow, Dean and I will have a game plan. Have you called Dean?”

“No, just you.”

“Don’t say anything to Frank about this! Anything! No matter how tempted you might be to tell him don’t. Okay?”

“Yes, of course.”

I was furiously texting Dean and trying to line my thoughts in some sort of order. “Where’s William?” I remembered asking her this already, but needed to say something other than blurt out that I had gone over to see her father, who is on a trip. Does Dusty know that? Then she would know that Sylvia had given me money for her sake.

“My mother’s. He’s safe.”

“What happened?” I whispered, though I do not know why I was being secretive; my battered friend’s face told me what happened.

“He started yelling at me for not having dinner ready, then taunting me about being pregnant. William was crying and Frank smacked him, told him to shut up. I snapped, slapped Frank as hard as I could. He’s bigger and stronger than I am. I lost.”

We sat wrapped in the silence of our friendship, just being there with one another, until footsteps snagged our attention. Frank came into the room with a bouquet of at least four dozen white, pink, yellow and red roses.

The warmth drained out the room and the silence was awkward. Frank looked at me and nodded to the door, indicating I should leave. I sat and stared at him.

“Fran,” he exaggerated his words, “if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to talk to Elizabeth. My wife. Alone.”

“No.” Though I had thought of saying it, Dusty said it first. “She is going to stay right there until she wants to leave.”

He shrugged, approached her, offering her the roses. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Really, I am. About everything. Everything.”

She looked up at him but did not reach for the vase of flowers. “The baby was a girl.”

Frank turned away and cleared a spot for the vase on a countertop close to the door, then came to stand beside the bed, the profile side of Dusty that did not show the bruise and black eye.

“Look, you know how you always say God has a purpose, sometimes we just don’t know what it is?”

“Stop it, Frank! Don’t you dare go there! You,” Dusty snarled at him “have no right!”

Frank put out his hands in a self-defensive gesture. “Calm down! Calm down. They’ll come in here and sedate you if you get hysterical. Look, all I’m saying is maybe this happened for a reason. With your mother’s help and my step-mom, they can babysit William and you can go to college, just like you’ve always wanted. You know, to be like her.” He gestured to me with a wave of his hand. “You’ll have something to talk about other than dirty diapers.”

“Go away, Frank. Get lost.” Dusty smoothed her blanket.

“Come on, honey, I’m kidding you. I want you to smile.”

“I can’t Frank, it hurts to smile.”

The soft slap slap of Dean’s loafers interrupted their conversation. Frank looked over his shoulder and scowled at Dean. “Why don’t you take Fran for a cup of coffee? Come back in twenty minutes, okay?”

The look Dusty gave Frank could have melted an iceberg. “You don’t give the orders here.”

Dean folded his arms and leaned ever so casually against the wall and did not reply.

Frank shook his head, as if we were the imposition, then studiously ignored us, turning his back to me and Dean so that Dusty could only see him. “I have to work overtime tomorrow. Be there an hour early and leave an hour later. I’ll come by after work. William is staying with your mother tonight and tomorrow. He’s fine, really. Don’t worry about us okay?” He bent down close enough to kiss her, but Dusty blocked him with an upraised hand.

“Go home. Go wherever. Just go.”

Frank turned at the door before leaving with a parting shot. “You’ll get over this and everything will be fine. You’ll see.”
It was minutes before any sound came out of her, the wracking sobs. Both Dean and I embraced her, none of us saying anything. Dean stroked her hair and I handed her a box of tissues.

“Thank you, thank you both. You sure you can do this for me? Help me leave? You’re not afraid of Frank?”

“No,” Dean snorted, “it’s three against one. It always has been, always will be the three of us.”

Dean can say something like that and it sounds like the right thing to say, the right thing to believe.

“We are going to see Annie. If you need us, we’ll be in the building and you can text either one of us.” Dean tugged the blanket and tucked it around Dusty’s legs. “Try to get some rest. Okay?”

Dusty nodded. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be here early tomorrow. We’ll have a game plan and you’ll be all right. You will be all right.”

“Okay.” She blew her nose and nodded vigorously. “Yes, I will be all right.”

As Dean and I left her, we truly believed that tomorrow we would engineer Dusty’s escape from an abusive marriage and set the world right again.

As were leaving, an older, matronly woman dressed in a grey pantsuit, white shirt and sensible black walking shoes, clipboard hugged to her chest, bustled into Dusty’s room.

Dean lifted an eyebrow and said in a low voice, “Social worker.”

Dean and I did not speak to each other as we walked side by side down the busy hospital corridor to Annie’s room. Just before entering, Dean paused and turned to me. “Let’s go to my place from here where we can talk this thing out. I’m all by myself for the next week, so I’m thinking Dusty and William can stay with me.” He waved me into the room. “That’s our first move tomorrow.”

I smiled to see Annie propped up by pillows in bed, in spite of all the tubes snaking on her arms, sensors on her chest and fingers, looking regal, holding court with her parents. The difference was palpable, the tension gone from Annie’s whole body. For the first time I’d had seen her here, I felt hopeful that she could get well. Dean felt it, too, as he visibly relaxed as he shook hands with Annie’s father.

We talked openly about the treatment center Annie would be going to as an outpatient. Dean stated again that it was a good choice and Annie had an excellent chance of a complete recovery. On a that note we said our goodbyes and left to go to the lobby.

“Look outside,” I said to Dean as we neared the parking payment box in the lobby. It was still early afternoon and the sky had gone back to severe blue and cloudless. “Typical Seattle June weather: sun, rain, sun. I hope it doesn’t snow tonight.”

Before Dean could say anything, I blurted out, “Do you think Annie’s going to make it? She looks so emaciated. How did that happen? Didn’t Jon, her parents, for the love of all that is sacred, see what was happening to her?”

“We didn’t.” He put a flat palm out up to silence me. “I know, I know, we only saw her once in a while, but you know she moved to Spokane to go to Gonzaga. She didn’t come home that often. Her mother told me Annie hadn’t been home for four months. I imagine she hid out in her apartment and pretty much stayed away from people.” He leaned on the wall. “Her father was the one who went to the university, brought her back home and committed her to the hospital.”

This was us, like we had been, sharing our concerns for our friends. “The irony of it is, her father smacked her and her sister and her mother around. I didn’t think he cared whether Annie existed. I remember Dusty felt abandoned by her father after her parents’ divorce and his remarriage to Sylvia. There is a pattern here; fathers who don’t care enough about their daughters.”
“Maybe it’s more like fathers who don’t know how to care for their daughters.”

“I cannot even imagine my father hitting me; he hardly ever raised his voice. My mother either.” I picture my parents sitting at the dinner table, chatting about their day’s events over a glass of wine. “I guess I lead a pretty sheltered life.”

I flashed back to a day in ninth grade when Dean came to school with a blackened eye. “Did your Dad ever hit you?”

Dean shook his head. “No, no. Never hit me. I had a few run-ins at school. Brian.”

“Porker? Not surprised, I guess.” I look away, then back to him. “And you made nice with him at Colin’s funeral.”

“He’s not a bad guy, Fran. Really.” Dean snatched the parking ticket from me and paid for both his and mine. It turned out we had parked on the same floor, so it made it easy to follow him to his house. It was a small, brick house in the University district, on a crowded, narrow street, but luckily both cars fit in his driveway.

“Do you want something to drink?” Dean opened the refrigerator door and pointed to an array of cartons of orange juice, apple juice, and a variety of cranberry blends. “Wine, too.” He jerked his thumb to indicate a well- stocked wine cabinet.

“Water will be fine, thanks.”

He swooshed the door shut. “Cheap date.”

I looked at him hard as he handed me a bottle of water. He is so prissy, I thought. He poured himself a glass of orange juice. “All right, step around the elephant and let’s talk about it in the living room.”

There is always that moment when silence, like a rubber band, stretches through the memories and emotions. At first, there is so much to say, so much to convey, that it seems too much to even begin. Then the rubber band snaps.

Dean began by handing me a pillow from the couch he sat upon, the end closest to the chair I had chosen. I took the pillow and wiggled and adjusted until I felt comfortable.

“Fran…”
 I cut him off. “You know my problems seem so petty compared to what Annie and Dusty are going through. You, you’re such a good friend and always there to help. I know you and Dusty have been friends forever, and I don’t want to taint that friendship. Dusty and I have put this argument behind us. We’re good, we’re friends again. We had a blow out, but now that seems so insignificant. I just didn’t know.”

“Your emotions are just as valid as anyone else’s. You couldn’t know how bad things were because Dusty didn’t tell anyone. Not even me.” Dean can sound so doctor-ish, so patent sometimes. I noticed he no longer stuttered. “But Fran, us. I never meant to hurt you. I really did not mean…”

“No, no I’m sure you didn’t mean to hurt me. You did though, you did, and so cowardly. Like I’m there at Dusty’s wedding thinking one thing and you both knew it wasn’t ever going to be that.”

“Cowardly? How did you get there?” The glass in his hand hovered near his lips.

“Oh, I’m in a crowd of people and so happy. If I had known otherwise, what you truly meant, do you think I would have been so bubbly? Not before the wedding, because that may have spoiled the occasion, but to give me that necklace at the wedding and then spring it on me you’re gay like you did was cruel. Just plain cruel. And that look between you and Dusty——I saw her look at you quizzically. And why might I feel like a fool?”

Dean put down his glass without sipping any juice. “You’re right. You are so right. I didn’t think that through.” He wiped his brow with his hand. “By the way, Dusty and I were going to come down to Reed during the Renn Fayre. We had it planned and everything until she broke her wrist ice skating.”

“Frank broke it during a fight. She threw a dirty diaper at him when he came home from spending the night with one of his girlfriends. Did you know on their wedding day, he was in the changing room with the girlfriend of his best man?”
No, by the look on his face, he did not know. Sometimes it feels good to have the last piece of the puzzle that makes the picture complete.

But it hit me that Dusty had really wanted to come to Reed for the weekend, and probably her planning to come with Dean had precipitated the fight with Frank. For all the control and violence, Frank still could not completely dominate Dusty; it cost her big time each rebellion, but the spark, that inner force of being so strong and creative, was still there inside her.

There might not be an elephant sitting in the middle of the room, but there was a tiger, hungry enough to eat us both.

Dean twisted a ring on his left ring finger. A wedding band.

“You’re married?” I sipped from my bottle of water, relishing the coolness of liquid down my throat.

“Not formally. But we will be.” He leaned closer to me. “Fran, I think you’ll like Marcus.”

I doubt it I thought to myself.

He raised his glass in a toast. “To referendum 74! To equality!”

“Yeah,” I put my bottle back onto a coaster. “There’s so little of it.”

He drank some juice, then deliberately worked his glass onto a coaster, obviously buying some time; it was an old habit of his. “So, Fran, what about us? Can we be friends?”

I leaned back into the back of the chair and eyed him steadily. I could never really hate him, and now I felt an urge of desire to be with him; but I would not let him walk this one out the door. “What you are really asking me if I can trust you. No, not yet. Maybe with time, we’ll have something, another level of friendship. But it will never be the same.” A bone to the tiger.

He smiled his impervious little smile. “Never say never. It could be better than imagined.” He threw a sirloin steak.

“Oh, shoot, I have so little imagination. Just ask my profs.”

“Tell me about Reed. I want to know everything about your courses and professors and friends. Tell me all about that fantastic play you wrote and directed, Angry Chickens.” He saluted me with his glass of juice. “I hear it is still quite the sensation on ‘off-Reedway’—-playing at the town hall is it?”

I said, he said; we got caught up on our year we had not talked to one another. We shared memories, mending our ripped friendship back together like pieces of fabric that make a patchwork quilt.

“Do you remember the Washington State fair?”

“Oh, yes, the last time we went. When Frank wouldn’t let Dusty go on the rides with us.”

“Yes, I thought it was so odd, with you waiting in the car for us, that she ran back upstairs to put on those stupid dangling earrings Frank had given her. We were going on the Hammer and Twirl-a-Whirl and the swings, for heaven’s sake! And she wouldn’t pull her hair into a ponytail because ,” I mimicked how Dusty would say, “Frank doesn’t like that.”

“Remember when Annie got busted for shoplifting? How she changed from bad girl to saint?”

“Remember how we would line up our lawn jobs so that we could go by Annie’s house when she was on restriction and wave to her?”

“That was the year Colin died when the punk hit him with his skateboard. The same day you and Dusty gave that awesome presentation at the UW.”

“And you tried to save Colin’s life with CPR.”

“That was the year we were the Musketeers!”

“Let’s see. You,” I tapped the air with my pointing finger at him, “were Athos, man of seemingly no romance in his soul; Aramis, the religious one, Dusty; the rash one, D’Artagnan, Annie.” I leaned over closer to him, “Remember how Annie could pronounce ‘dar-tan youn’ so beautifully with a French accent?” I sat straight back and placing my finger delicately over my neck dimple, “I, the clothes conscious Porthos. There is some irony in all that, you know.”

“Oh, Fran, of the understatement.”

We laughed and we talked late into the evening, and bit by bit, a tenuous bond began to form. The tiger padded out the room with the elephant close behind.

Dean walked me to my car, holding the door open until I had buckled my seat belt, then leaned into the opened window. “Tomorrow, then agreed, you come here by nine?” He rapped the door with his knuckles. “Armor up, Musketeer.”

“Yes, we’ll spring the prisoner, whisk the princess and prince away from the Evil One.” I turned over the engine and backed down the driveway, confident that we had a working plan. But you cannot rescue someone who isn’t there.

“Tomorrow is only found in the calendar of fools.”
– Og Mandino

Next time I see Dusty, I am home again for the summer. Dusty has come over to see me and she looks more haggard than last time, so I do what I do best and put her down for a nap while my mother and I play with the no-longer-baby-but-toddler William. He laughs every time I hide his stuffed panda bear behind my back and then whip it out and jiggle it in his face. “Pop goes the panda!”

He snatches it from me and runs, well toddles, over to my mother and, bottle clamped in his teeth, mumbles gibberish to her until she takes the panda, tosses it back to me. It seems we have been doing this routine for hours, but he has only been up from his nap for forty minutes. I am so thankful my mother does not mind changing diapers of this not-quite-potty-trained urchin and has so much patience with this dynamo.

“Mama!” he screeches, dropping his bottle and scoots over to her, demanding to be picked up. Dusty swoops him into her arms and covers his face with loud smacking kisses, making him giggle until he hiccups.

For a moment she looks radiant when she smiles and twirls with William in her outstretched arms. “Oh, Mommy had such a nice nap!! And look at you having so much fun with Auntie Fran and Mrs. Reed. But we have to get home. Daddy will be wondering where we are.” She has shifted her boy to one hip as she collects and stuffs his belongings back into the diaper bag.
I hand her an empty bottle. “You look great. I’m glad you got some rest.” I wish I could convey to her how I worry about her, how I am afraid that sooner or later Frank will win and pull Dusty over to his side, the dark side.

She leans over and hugs me with one arm. “You were right about that magical quilt,” she whispers, letting me go. “Mrs. Reed, I wish I would have told you last time, but I think your quilt is a masterpiece. Absolutely beautiful.”

“Thank you, Elizabeth.” She embraces Dusty and snuggles William. “Maybe William could call me Auntie T? He will will have too hard of a time with Mrs. Reed. And I do wish you would call me Teresa.”

Both Dusty and I burst out with a laugh, having the same thought, the same time, like when we were younger. “Mother Teresa!”

“Hey, Dust…Elizabeth,” I sigh with smile and she smiles back, “Annie had a relapse and is back in the hospital. I’m going to see her Friday. She called and said she can have visitors. I could pick you guys up and we could go together.”

“Yes!” She pauses and looks steadily at me. “My mother wants to babysit tomorrow—let’s have lunch, just the two of us. I’m sure she’ll watch William Friday as well.”

“Oh, that would be great!” I am surprised by this but unscramble my brains and remember a new place I wanted to try. “There is a deli up by your end of town. We could walk from your house.”

“Okay. Billy leaves for summer camp for two weeks week. Perfect!”

She hesitated for a second, and I could tell she wanted to ask me a favor; her eyes crinkle with her little smile when she is asking for a favor. “If we could go Friday in the morning, early like ten?”

“Works for me.”

Dusty switched gears abruptly. “I’ve got to go. It’s later than I thought.”

“See you tomorrow.” I am more worried for her than I was last year, as she can no longer hide the evidence of abuse that her bruises reveal.

But the conversation is not about her when we sit across from one another at lunch the next day. She pulls out a handbill and waves it at me. “Sign this! For posterity.” She flicks a pen open and hands it to me. “I thought I would go into convolutions I laughed so hard! THIS is the best you’ve ever written! You are absolutely brilliant!”

That makes me blush. I scribble my name beneath the title. “Thanks. It really is a successful play. You wouldn’t believe it—-everyone of the actors came to me and basically said ‘I am the one who must have this role!’; and amazingly, everything about this play fell together sooo easily. You should have seen Leo Santos—-Chulo?—-he even had a mohawk that he dyed in colors of a Bantam rooster. Oh, could he strut, too!! There was a lot of ad libbing that went on. Talk about a stage full of egos!! I called them my basket of ego eggs.” We chorused in laughter. When I could talk again without gasping, I went on. “Opening night was fantastic. Mom and Dad actually came. I got a bouquet of yellow and red roses—-can you imagine three dozen?—-from an anonymous admirer, which I gave out to the cast and crew and everyone I knew.” I leaned back against the booth. “Oh, how I wish you could have been there, Elizabeth!”

She met my gaze. “I was, sort of. Dean was there. He sent me pictures from his iPhone.” She paused to watch my reaction as it dawned on me who had sent the roses.

“Oh, of course. Yellow for friendship and red for love. How thoughtful of Dean.” I picked at the salad on my plate. Dean would have flown from the east coast to be at Reed for the play that night.

Dusty does an exaggerated and dramatic delivery with wide eyes and a big smile. “He is thoughtful, isn’t he? Always has been, from the time we’ve known him in elementary school. A long, long time.”

I sigh from the depths of my gut. “He sends me a box of Lucky Charms during finals week. No note, nothing but a small box of cereal.”

She drops the playfulness in her voice and points a fork with a spinach leaf dangling off a tine at me. “How long, Fran, do you think he’ll try to reach you? Right now you have it both ways; his attention and his desperate need to atone for hurting you—-but he is human and he will get tired of chasing you.” She put down the fork. “I know how hurt you were and that you felt betrayed, but can’t you see beyond that?” She put her hand out to stop my reply. “I am not going to get on your case every time I see you, but I wish you would reconsider how you treat him. If you can’t be friends, then let him go.”

“I know, I know!” I twist my napkin to shreds. “I still care about him. You cannot appreciate how much I worry about him, especially with all the awful things that happen in nightclubs and to the LGBT community.”

Dusty folds her hands and leans over. “My grandmother used to quote the Bible verse from Matthew 6:34: ‘Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.’ What good does all your worrying do if you won’t speak to him?” She looked pointedly at me. “I don’t think Dean goes to nightclubs. He stays very busy with all his extra credit classes and labs and internships; you know, that stuff that allows him to graduate sooner.”

I lean over my plate and whisper fiercely. “I think about him all the time, really I do. I just don’t know how to let go of my resentment. What do I do? Pretend that we are friends?”
 “Well, you could start by answering his texts. You don’t have to ‘pretend’ to be friends, you two always were.” She sighs and washes her eyes with her hands. “Do you remember when I felt abandoned by my father, unloved and discarded for his new wife Sylvia? Did I ever tell you about the surreal dream I had about being in another reality and saving the life of a misbegotten foundling called Yugo, and others like him, who were left to die in the desert? A life saved by something as insignificant as a penny. I didn’t want to leave the baby Monosapien that I cared so much for; but his mother loved him and got him back because I had a large part in making things happen for the better. But I had to choose to let him go.” She clasped my hand. “It was so hard to leave.” She swallowed a sob. “Before I left their world of black, white and grey, the sky turned into specular colors of the rainbow. I remember my Mom asking me what is the color of love. I could tell her it is the colors of the rainbow.”

“The rainbow? Really?” I smiled at her as she caught the inference. “Actually the rainbow has been a symbol throughout the ages; rainbow flags date from the 16th century Germany, even appearing in heraldry. Of course modern day, there is Apple’s logo, post-apartheid South Africa, the rainbow nation, the Rainbow coalitions, besides the LGBT and gay pride.” I stopped, acknowledging the meaning in her unblinking stare, that I can obfuscate when I want to avoid an emotional truth. “Okay, I get what you’re trying to tell me. There are a thousands ways to express and represent love.”

“Geez, Fran, you can overstate, can’t you?” She stood. “Let’s walk back to my house the long way and I’ll show you some awesome sculpture at a gallery nearby.”

We walked and talked of modern art. There was glass sculptures of people that looked so real I felt we were being watched and listened to by those we passed. And in some ways, these unreal people were less fragile than we are. As we left the gallery I turned to her, indicating the building with a dip of my hand. “One day I will come here to see your exhibits.”

“Maybe when I am eighty-two. If I don’t have twenty kids living at home!” She stopped short of her car, her hand hovering on the door handle. “You might see Dean Friday at the hospital.” She leaned close and lowered her voice, although no one else was around. “Don’t throw away what you’ve had with Dean. Friendships are too valuable to let go.” She waved to me, and I waved back, as she headed to her mother’s house to pick William up. I left and drove slowly home, wrapped in my thoughts. I didn’t talk a lot with my folks throughout our dinner and went to bed early.

There was no magic in the quilt for me that night. I had disturbing dreams, mixed images of wingless birds caught in the thorns of a rosebush and I fought desperately to wake, only to fall into another dreamscape where I was lost in a muddy corridor, then along a sandy shore with waves chasing me as I ran for safety. I got up at six-thirty, showered and dressed in time to say good-bye to my Dad as he left for work.

“You were restless last night.” My mother handed me a latte she had just made, probably for herself.

“Yeah. A bit anxious, I guess, about what to say to Annie.”

She kissed me on the cheek as I went out the front door to my car, her voice like a benediction. “Tell her I send all my love and prayers for her.”

Dusty was coming out the door as I drove up. She popped into the seat and slammed the car door shut, snagging her seat belt and exclaiming, “Let’s go!”

“Did you get the jewels and the money, too?” I hunched over the steering wheel and shifted my eyes back and forth, as I accelerated. “The coppers will be here any minute!”

She burst out laughing, relaxing into the back of the car seat. “What a morning! I won’t go into details, but suffice to say, I’m glad to get away.”

I told her about my dreams.

“Kind of a double-whammy, today? I mean, Annie and Dean. It must be anxiety time for you—how’s it all going to play out?” We wound around the narrow lanes of the underground garage of Swedish hospital. She pointed at an empty parking stall.
Oh, yes, Dusty, yes, you are so right. Those layers and liars of emotions. I wanted it to be all right, a time for us when we were all all right. All of us friends like we were. I wanted Annie not to be broken, physically and psychologically; I wanted to be with Dean before he had given me the necklace. I wanted, wanted and wanted.

“Everything go okay last night with Frank?” I turned to her as I shut off the engine. “You weren’t that late. You left at four.”
She swept away my concern with a brush of her hand as she got out of the car. “Yes, everything is fine. No big deal.”

But her eyes, looking past me, lied. “Eleventh floor, room 221.” She scurried to the elevators and smacked the ‘up’ button, then held the door for me to catch up to her. We walked quietly down the hall.

I did not see Dean coming out of Annie’s room; Dusty grabbed my arm and pulled me to stop. “I’ll go in and spend a minute with Annie while you talk with Dean.” She slipped away into the room leaving me face to face with Dean.

I had forgotten how handsome he is—-tall, lean, casual-professional in dark pants, light blue shirt and shimmery tie of gold and blue, beautiful straight teeth complemented by his disarming smile. “Hi,” he tilted his head a bit, “how are you?”

Really, was it that simple? Just let it go and let it come back together again?

I wanted to say “Missing you”, but I managed without choking up to reply, “Fine. I’m fine. I wish I didn’t have to be here.” Then realized how that sounded. “I mean Annie.” I could feel the heat crawl along my neck, creep into my ears, and into my cheeks.
Dean reached over and took my hand, and without saying anything, let me know everything was all right between us.

“Be prepared for a shock. Annie is eighty-eight pounds.” He left a space of silence. “You probably wouldn’t recognize her if you saw her anywhere else.”

He let my hand go and I felt the loss as we walked side by side into the room.

“Annie!” I gasped, frozen mid-step, I could not move forward. Propped by seven or more pillows, little Annie looked like a living mummy; her shoulder blades jutted out, sheathed by a thin layer of skin, her hair hung in brittle, thin strings. Thin. She is so thin, and bony. I remember seeing mummies, Sylvester and Sylvia at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on the waterfront that had the same emaciated look. Her eyes, dark and lashless, were huge in her carved out, fuzzy face. Was it a minute or an hour before I had my arms around her?

“Annie, Annie,” I crooned, willing her back to life. The touch of her was awful, but I held her for ever so long until I felt her shrink from my embrace.

“I look terrible, huh?” I sat beside her on the bed. “Funny thing is, I still feel fat.” She sneezed a small laugh. “You’d think it would be absolutely delightful to be told to eat.”

I took her child-like hand in mine and, careful of the IV tubes and sensor cords, stroked from her wrist to fingertips. “You can beat this, Annie, I know you. I know you can. We’re all here for you. My mother is praying for you, too. And she sends her love.” I wished I had a cannon to lob prayer after prayer at her disease, make it disappear before she did.

Dusty was seated on the other side of the bed. She stood up, leaned over and touched Annie’s protruding left shoulder blade. “Angel wings.”

I was stunned. How could she? How dare she?

Annie began to cry, whimper at first, then full on sobbing. “I don’t want to die. I don’t!”

Dean, the professional, the doctor, moved to the head of her bed. “No, you won’t die, Annie. You’ll get help, from some very good therapists and doctors. Your parents are going to get you into a treatment center and when you are strong enough to leave the hospital, you can be an outpatient there—-I’ve done the research and the place and staff are fantastic. You will recover from this disease, Annie. And we’ll be there all the way for you.”

She swiped at her tears and nodded, without saying anything.

I wanted to ask her about her fiancé, but was afraid to trigger any bad memories. Like she had read my thoughts, she blurted, “Jon says he won’t marry me until I can wear a size ten. Oh, gads, I’ve never been larger than a size six!”

Annie, even in her bad-girl-wild-day, never did swear.

“Annie,” I faked a jocular tone, “we’ll all put on weight helping you get there—-McD’s, pizza and think—-chocolate!!” She loved chocolate, especially dark truffles from Fran’s.

A nurse, crisp and perky, bounded into the room with a tray of food. Red Jello wiggled in a white cup and a chocolate chip cookie on a plate the size of Texas begged to be eaten. By the look on her face, Annie was clearly repulsed. Once, she might have been cute; now she was just plain ugly as she pushed away the tray.

“I’m tired. Thank you guys for coming to see me. Really.”

“Annie,” I solicited, “just a bite, a tiny bite of cookie. And one spoonful of Jello. That’s all. then we’ll go and come back. Every day. Twice a day. But we’re not going to let you go.”

She looked at, really looked at me until she saw me as her friend, someone who loved her. She looked at Dean and Dusty. Then she reached out her skeletal hand and broke a corner of the cookie off, brought it to her mouth, hesitated, and slid it between her teeth.

“Eat it, Annie,” Dusty commanded in her best motherly voice.

And Annie did. Then took a spoonful of Jello and sucked it down.

Dusty flung herself back into her chair, with a dramatic, “Do I have to do this everyday?”

Annie nodded. I added, “Maybe twice a day.” Gesturing with my thumb pointing to Dean, I asked gravely, “What does the doctor say?”

“I think,” he leaned close enough to kiss Annie on the forehead, “that the patient will make a complete recovery.”

“Yes!” Annie cried out with a laugh. “Yes! I will!”

So, in a way, I got my wish to turn back the cover of time and have us all the way were for just a brief moment, like a snapshot in a photo album. It felt so good, like when in the dream we all had been sitting together, but I forgot the darker dream, the one about the thorns in the rosebush.

Dusty, Dean and I linked arms and skipped down the hall to the elevators. Just like the old days when we went to the Pullypup Fair when we would do the chorus line kick and sing “Do the Pullypup!”. But even that changed when we last went; the Pullypup Fair was renamed the Washington State Fair.

And actually, it was the last year that the three of us would ever be together as friends before Frank joined us. Nothing was ever the same again with me and Dusty, or for that matter, me, Dusty and Dean. All the little things that happen are just one thing here, one thing there, but when you look at the larger picture, those onesies add up to the ‘should have seen it coming’.

“Why don’t we all go out to lunch?” I poked Dean on my left and Dusty on my right with an elbow. Dean looked at his watch. “Or brunch, if you must be so picky.”

Dean made a comical sad face. “I can’t, I’m due at the lab. But I’ll call you. Later?”

“All right, I’ll answer my phone, even. Just for you.” I snagged his shirt sleeve. “And thanks for the roses opening night. I gave them away to the cast and crew, so you actually got a twofer.”

“If you saved the petals, you could have made potpourri. Then it would have been a threefer.” As we got into the elevator, Dean punched the 4th floor button.

Dusty pursed her lips and shook her head. “You two are something else.” She uncrossed her arms as the elevator doors slid closed. “But I’m game.”

Dean held the door for our exit then pointed down the hall. “The Market Cafe—awesome and cheap. Go for it.” He waved as the doors closed.

We sat at a small table. Dusty went bonkers over the salad bar and fresh vegetables and I loved the grilled hamburger—we split a chocolate cake that was simply heavenly, all the while chatting about anything and everything but issues like her marriage, Annie’s disease or my relationship with Dean.

“Is there anyone in your life—-man-kind, Fran?”

“Oh, yes, no, not really.” I shrugged, smiling. “Scott Nicolson, the Baster in Angry Chickens. I work with him at the bookshop.”
“Is he attractive?”

“Yeah, he is. Little taller than I am, seriously blue eyes, and blondish hair, surfer boy cut. Dresses neatly. He has asked me out for coffee. But you know, not like a date.” I shrug again, maybe to get the idea of a boyfriend off my shoulders. “Not really that interested.”

“You or him?” She leans on her elbows and looks at me pointedly. “A little trust issue maybe?”

“Maybe.” I hurry on, to avoid the subject. “You think Annie’s going to be all right? She looks…she looks like she’s…”

“Nearly dead.” Dusty straightens herself. “Really. I don’t know. I guess all we can do is what we can do. Be her support and pray for her.”

“Well, I know I can support her through friendship, but I don’t know if my prayers make a difference.”

“Fran, that’s when you have to have faith. You have to believe that it matters, it all means something, even if you don’t know.”
“Trust issues, I have trust issues. Don’t you?”

She looked at me hard, then leaned closer and lowered her voice, yet her fragmented words were vehement. “You don’t think I know what Frank is doing? To me? Isolating me from my friends and family? All his with threats and physical violence? I have no one I can trust. I cannot even confide in my own mother, for fear of Frankenstein. The endless arguments…always about something I have done that makes him mad. A wrong word or gesture can set Frank off in a tirade…or worse. I’m afraid of him. Afraid that he will do more than break my wrist, leave bruises. I’m afraid he will hurt my son. Or even kill me. He blames me for ruining his chance at having a career as a professional baseball player. Like I am the only one that conceived a baby?” She sat upright, as if to change her life with the right attitude, the right words, a different tone of voice. “My that sounds so dramatic! I still have a spark of hope that he will change. William adores him, what little he sees of him; I placate him as much as I can, hope he will realize that a loving family is worth more than his affairs.”

Before I can say anything, she adds wistfully, “I envy you, Fran, envy your life, your independence, your education, and your future. But I have my faith.”

She looks me over and shakes her head, veering into another topic. “I met Marcus, Dean’s partner.”

“What did you think of him? You have that funny look where you scrunch up your lip and nose when you don’t like something.”

“Oh, I like Marcus. I don’t like the way Dean treats him sometimes. Dean can be pretty self-centered and demanding to get his way.”

I was surprised to hear her criticize Dean, for she always maintained that he was one of the “good guys”. Then I realized that she did not love or like him any less for his flaws. “Do you see them staying together?” With a pang I thought maybe she could tell me that Dean really wanted to go straight.

“Oh, like any relationship, they will have to work through their differences.” She shagged an eyebrow. “Like we all do.”

No! I wanted to shout, you cannot work through ‘differences’ when there is abuse.

Dusty went into her abrupt change mode. “Time to go. My Mom has an appointment.”

I think that’s a lie but I don’t challenge her. My thoughts whir in a thousand directions, but I know she has to leave Frank and I must try to convince her.

Her house is quiet, almost too quiet when we enter through the front door. Mrs. Conner greets us with a pulsing finger to her mouth. “Shh, he’s finally asleep. How’s Annie,” she whispers.

Dusty waves us into the kitchen. “She doesn’t look good, but Dean thinks she’ll be okay. She ate two,” Dusty flips a vee sign, “two bites—-an itsy bit of cookie and a spoonful of Jello—-and Dean just about broke out the champagne. But we can at least have hope.”

Dusty gestures with splayed hands pumping to the espresso maker. “Can I make us all a latte on the Saeco Vienna Plus super-auto espresso machine, a present from my loving husband?”

I cannot say for sure that Mrs. Conner’s expression hardened, or that she visibly tensed when Dusty said ‘loving husband’, but there was definitely a change in her demeanor; almost like she recoiled at what the espresso maker symbolized.

“Oh, not for me. I’ll leave you two girls to yourselves. I’m quite confident you can find trouble without me.”

“Mom, thanks for today. I appreciate that.”

“No, honey, I appreciate you letting me have time with my grandson. He’s so adorable. I love him almost as much as I love you.” She kissed Dusty resoundingly on the cheek and gave my arm a quick pat as she let herself out the back door.

Dusty yawned, wiping her hands across her eyes. “A latte for me. You?”

“Are you sure you want coffee and not a nap?”

“Frank will be home soon. I’ll go to bed early. Let’s have a latte!”

There was no conversation during the whirring of the beans and steaming the milk. Finally, in the lull when Dusty handed me my cup, I asked her. “You, Elizabeth, how are you? I am, quite frankly worried for you and about you.”

“Well, quite frankly, it’s not so good.” She sipped her coffee, put the cup down and added two teaspoons of sugar. “His affairs don’t bother me so much as his temper. He threatens to take William away if I leave him. And he’s got the money to get a lawyer to do it, too. Believe me.”

I would like to believe that I was surprised by her candid admission, but it all added up. “You’ll have to leave. You can’t live like this—afraid to be, afraid from one day to the next. I’ll help you. And you know Dean will.”

She stirred her coffee, longer than necessary. Tapped the spoon on the side of the cup, rinsed it under the faucet, put it in the dish rack. “It would be a consideration, if I weren’t pregnant.”

Well, stun gun.

“And just when were you going to tell me?” bellowed Frank looming large and angry at the doorway.

“Frank, please!” Dusty at once supplicated with her upturned hands and scowled.

William woke screaming, impelling Dusty to go to him leaving me and Frank alone in a stand-off.

“Oh, hello, Frank,” I said in my best I’m-being-polite-and-you-are-not-voice.

He took a step inside the kitchen. “Don’t you have a Communist Manifesto to read or a meeting at the Rainbow Club?”

“You make it a point to be pointless, don’t you, Frank?”

Dusty flew in between us, patting screeching owl-William on the back as she turned first to Frank, “”Why don’t you grab a beer and go chill for a minute,” then to me, “and I’ll walk you to your car.”

I started to protest, but she silenced me with a look. We were outside when I turned and petitioned her, “Go with me, now. I’ll take you to your mother’s, my place, a motel. But don’t stay here with him. You’re not safe with him, especially like he is. Come on, get in the car.”

“No, Fran listen to me. I can’t leave yet. Not right now, I’ll be okay—-Frank’s fine. He’ll calm down after he has a beer and we’ll talk things out. I’ll call you. Tomorrow.”

“No! Go with me…”

“I’m fine, Fran, go on home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

She turned and walked back into the house.

Like they say, tomorrow never comes.

“The language of friendship is not words but meanings.”
– Henry David Thoreau

My cell sang Pink’s “Just Give me a Reason”.

“Hello, Dusty! I’m so glad you called!”

Dusty’s muffled voice is obscured by the whimpering of her baby boy in the background. “Just a sec,” and I wait as she does whatever she has to do to quiet William.

“Can we get together? I could come to your house.” She hesitates a fraction too long, letting me know that she does not want me at her house. “Or come on over here!”

I really was happy to hear her voice, but at the same time had some trepidation about getting together. “Great! I’ll see you and the little guy in an hour!”

I looked around at the room as she might see it, but decided that one way or the other, it did not matter if it was a mess. If we were still friends, then she wouldn’t be bothered by it; if after we talked things over, we weren’t friends, it wouldn’t matter what she thought of me or my room. I run into my mother in the hallway with a basket of freshly laundered clothes and followed her into her bedroom.

“Hey, Mom,” I grab the laundry basket from her, dump the clothes onto her bed and start folding and assorting. “Dusty and her kid are on their way over.”

“Oh, that’s great. The baby, William?” she picks up a stack of Grandma’s underwear, “Isn’t he about fourteen months?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. March last year to May this year.”

She stops at the doorway. “He’s probably walking and babbling words. Eating solid foods, and exploring his environment. Don’t be surprised if he’s a handful. Toddlers can be very demanding.”

I stand tall, holding out my index finger, like a professor might if addressing a classroom. “’What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, and three feet in the evening?’” I had to read Sophocles, Oedipus the King for Humanities and do a paper on the riddle of the Sphinx.

Mom turns around and faces me, whispering, “Man.”

But I know that we are both thinking of Grandma.

I take my stack of t-shirts and undies into my room, actually putting them away in a dresser drawer. As I push and arrange, a small box peeks out that is beneath an old sweatshirt. I know what is inside, and I know if open the box, it will mean a flood of painful memories. I scoop it up, tear off the brown wrapping, dropping the shipping carton onto the floor as I hold the blue velvet jewelry case in the palm of my hand, running my thumb over the softness of the fabric. The same color blue as the gown I wore for Dusty’s wedding. The happiest moment of my life when Dean gave me the necklace he had designed just for me. I finally open the box to look at the golden heart with a silver hand on the left side offering a bouquet of flowers inset with five gem stones and a silver dove coming to roost on the upper right side. The charm clasp is a small heart inscribed with the words, “4ever (a diamond embedded in the ‘&’) a da.” I just now noticed the bale is a gold fleur-de-lis. The ruby, sapphire, blue topaz, emerald and citrine embedded in the flowers sparkle in the sunshine that streams in through my window. The broken chain snakes out of the bale and slips through my fingers, ticking against my hand ever so softly.

It was such a beautiful day, June 15th when Dusty and Frank got married. The blue of a cloudless Seattle sky can be so intense that it obliterates the memory of rainy, grey days. Everything about that day started perfectly, with gorgeous sunshine that blessed the outdoor wedding ensemble at the South Seattle Community College Arboretum. Dusty was breath-taking in her bridal gown, not yet showing a baby bump. Frank is over six feet tall and I must say he was stunning in a white tuxedo. Dusty planned her wedding down to the most amazing details; Dean released the doves and I took care of the purple irises and mini calla lilies with sprigs of baby’s breath for the bride’s bouquet, the attendants, groomsmen, and the center pieces for the wedding tables. Dean and Fran; flowers and doves. Dean and I were standing alone in the Coenosium rock garden, and I had tilted my head to one side and said, “I think we might be the second nicest looking couple here.”

Dean reached into the pocket of his tuxedo, took out the blue velvet box, and presented it, opened, to me. All I could do was repeat, “Oh, my gosh! Oh, what a beautiful necklace!”

Dean had taken it out of the box and stepped behind me to fasten the clasp, then he had kissed the nape of my neck and in a low voice next to my ear had said the words that made me wish we could freeze the moment for eternity. “Fran, we are soul mates. Friends forever. I will love you forever and a day.”

I would have turned around and put a lip lock on him right then and there, but the photographer appeared and waved for us to follow him for the bridal photo shoot in the Helen Sutton rose garden. Talk about a whirlwind of activity! I couldn’t catch a moment with Dusty alone until the reception. But how odd it was: I was so excited to show her the necklace—“Look! Maybe we’ll be the next ones to be married!”’ but her reaction when she looked over to Dean with a silent quizzical expression silenced me and I had a flash of irritation with their friendship—as if they had a private conversation going on that excluded me. Before I could confront either of them about what that meant, Dusty’s father interrupted with, “The father of the bride requests this dance with his lovely daughter,” extending his arm to escort her to the dance floor while Stevie Wonder crooned “Isn’t She Lovely”. Then the bride and groom were dancing to the Righteous Brothers, “Unchained Melody”, Frank’s choice, and the second song, Dusty’s choice, Counting Crows, “Accidentally in Love”. Typical Dusty humor.

Finally, after the bride and groom left and the guests dispersed, and we had said our good-byes to Annie, clearly enraptured with Jon, her fiancé, Dean and I walked hand in hand to his car. As we were driving, I took a deep breath and proposed to him. “We wouldn’t have to get married right away, maybe after I graduate from Reed and you’re done with your internship at the UW.” I, so happy that I felt inflated with helium, did not notice how quiet Dean was, quiet to the point it finally occurred to me he did not seem very happy. I touched his arm, asking him if everything was all right. He pulled into Rotary Viewpoint Park and we sat there in silence for several minutes—I knew him so well, knew something was wrong, something he was trying to say without his bothersome stutter. My joy seeped away every silent minute. He clasped my hand so hard that I shook our hands until his grip lightened up.

“Fran, you know I love you, and always will. You know that, don’t you?”

It was then that I was not sure I knew much about anything. All sorts of bad scenarios ran through my mind: he had found someone else, he had a terminal disease, he was moving to Australia’s outback, had enlisted in the military and was going to Iraq, or going to somewhere far away to finish his medical studies.

“Just tell me what the problem is,” I stared at him like I could absorb him into my being. Dust motes danced in the sunshine streaming through the windshield.

“I’m gay.” He said it without stuttering, looking directly into my eyes.

“Oh,” was all I could reply. Then I wrenched my hand from his; how deep the pain was, all through my body, like the part of you that has no body but is the whole of you had shattered. “Oh.”

All my hopes had been visualized in a jeweled dove, a future with the one I loved. The chain suddenly felt like it was burning into my skin and I reached for it and snapped it off, dropping it on the floor of the car, as the molten tears streamed down my face, dripping mascara onto the bodice of my formal. Dean had tried to talk to me, imploring me to look at him, but my last words to him were, “Take me home.”

The next Monday a small package from Dean arrived by UPS. I had stuffed it in this drawer without opening it. I had forgotten how truly beautiful the necklace is. The jewels twinkle, hard and transparent, like the absence of love; the ruby glitters, blood red, the color of anger.

Voices from the living room jar me out of my thoughts. I hastily put the necklace back into the box and stuff it underneath the sweatshirt I used to wear when Dean, Dusty, Annie and I did lawn work for our summertime jobs.

As I scurry into the living room, I stop myself from rushing over to Dusty and embracing her. We stare, sizing each other up in the seconds of the silence. Dusty looks drawn, much older than her twenty years, but still she is so beautiful with her long, curly auburn hair framing her face that makes her green eyes luminous. She looks thinner in her skinny jeans and faded green tunic than when I last saw her, but I know her well, and I see the tension in her smile and shoulders, how she is both tired and edgy with nervous energy. The baby is fidgety and tugs at her hair. Dusty reaches up to dislodge his hand, and I glimpse a purpled mark on her neck.

“Stoppit!” she snaps, shifting him from her shoulder to her hip.

I hold out my hands, inviting William into my arms. I take him and snuggle. He grabs my earlobe and tugs painfully. I clasp his pudgy fingers in mine and admonish him.“Ohh, no! Bad boy!”

Dusty snatches him from my arms and soothes him. “It’s okay, little man. Auntie Fran didn’t mean to make you cry. All better, now? Yes, you’ll be just fine. Auntie Fran is sorry, isn’t she?”

Well, no. I’m not sorry at all. But I smile and tickle him, which seems to be the right thing to do. I’m thinking he not only looks like Frank, but exhibits similar behavior. My Mom pops up beside me, all smiles and nurturing hands as she takes William the brat from Dusty.

“You girls go away and let me have this little guy to myself for a while.”

Dusty has a silly seraphic smile. “Just for a few minutes, okay William? You be a good boy for Mrs. Reed. Mommy will be right here in the other room talking with Fran, okay?” She off loads the strap of the diaper bag, placing the overstuffed polka dot canvas bag on the couch. “There’s his nap time bottle, some Cheerios in a baggy, a sippy cup, if he wants a drink, give him water, diapers, wipes and a couple of changes of clothes.” She shakes out a matching polka dot changing pad. “He gets fussy if he’s wet. He’s cruising, so beware!” Dusty looks as if she cannot be separated from her darling for more than a nanosecond. “Just let me know if you need me.”

Did I just see my Mom roll her eyes?

She waves us away. “Go on. Have some girl time.”

“Come on,” I pull on Dusty’s arm. “Let’s go to my room. Outta sight, outta mind.”

She’s reluctant to go, but finally gives in to my insistent nodding toward one room away from her precious. I lead her into my room and close the door. We stand facing one another in the middle of the room.

“I never see you anymore.”

“Fran, I have so much to do with the baby, housework, Billy. My Mom babysits all the time it seems. I just don’t want to ask her for one more favor.”

Should I point out that she hasn’t invited me over to her house? Really, couldn’t we sit and chat between diaper changes?

“It seems like light years since I’ve seen you, Dusty! I’ve seen you four times since we graduated from high school—and three were events. Your wedding, your baby shower, the family baby viewing and now. The only time I recognize you is on Facebook or when you text me. Your emails read like a Mommy-blog.”

“That’s what I am, Fran. I’m a Mommy.” She gives me a withering look. “Please, Fran, could you stop calling me Dusty?” She smiled tucking her head into her shoulder. “You guys are the only ones that call me Dusty. Frank thinks Elizabeth is a prettier name and now that I am no longer a child, I should give that up—you know be more womanly.” She does her deprecating laugh, which annoys the stuffing out of me, because I’ve seen her affect that pose around Frank. Of course, Frank would change that about her, too. Frank is turning out to be a lot like Dusty’s father.

“What about Slinky? Do you ever see her? Did she marry that rat-tailed moron?”

“She went to Bryn Mawr. I talked to her on Spring break. She’s really turned into the feminist. She doesn’t want children. Not that interested in getting married.” Dusty breaks eye contact and shrugs. “I call her the man-slayer.” Dusty twists the loose end of a tendril of her auburn hair, always a sign of anxiety. “I hope that she doesn’t turn into a lesbian—Frank would go ballistic if I had anything to do with her then.” Dusty shrugs again, and twists her hair tighter. “What could be more feminine than motherhood? Frank never liked her much, so it’s hard to hang out with her without irritating Frank.”

This not-so-familiar Dusty speak is irritating me.

“Are you and Dean still best friends?”

“We email and text. I haven’t seen him since William was born. Frank doesn’t want William to be around Dean. I just don’t have time to see anyone anymore.”

“Dean’s gay, not contagious.” I give her a withering look.

We are in an eye lock-down. I want to break through to her, to the girl that I knew all through grade school and high school.
“No doubt about it, Dusty, you’re fluent in baby speak, but what about you? You need something of your own, some area in your life that isn’t Frank or William or household—you don’t see your friends anymore. Have you been to see any plays, the symphony, the opera? You used to thrive on the theater arts. Your photography? Art work? Music? Have you left that part of yourself behind, too?”

“Well, aren’t you the,” she scribes the air with her fingers doing quotes,‘all knowing, omniscient, college freshman who judges all with clarity.’ Really, Fran, sometimes it isn’t all about you.”

“Maybe I should be more like you,” I make quote marks, “’the secret keeper’. Only your secrets are visible.”

She flinched, touching her neck, turning away from eye contact with me.

“Dusty, sorry, Elizabeth, you’ve lost all your color—you once sparkled, but now you’re grey. How much are you going to let Frank take away from you?”

Her head snapped back and we were face to face. “Don’t make me choose between you and Frank, please Fran.”

This argument has shredded our friendship. Tattered and torn, the thin, tenuous threads that bind us thrum in the silence.
She fiddles with her hair, sweeping the long curly mane away from her face. I snag a coated elastic hair tie off the dresser.
“Here,” I handed her an elastic band. “Get your hair out of the little man’s grasp.”

The bruise on her neck is not completely covered by make-up.

“Nice bruise on your neck.”

Dusty swipes her hand across the offending blotch. “William did that.”

“Awfully strong for a toddler.” She knows that I know it was Frank. “Can’t you see how Frank is isolating you from family and friends? Your friends, especially me, know who Dusty is—-did you not have a blowout with your Dad about him calling you Elizabeth because his new wife said Dusty was a childish name for a teenager and he thought you should drop it?” We are literally in each other’s face. “Are you going to stop seeing your friends because Frank doesn’t like us?”

“Can you not get the picture, Fran? I have responsibilities. I have a child. I have a husband. I have a household to maintain. I am a married wife and mother. I am not a college student who has the luxury of thinking about every little action that has a reaction, that all men and women should be intellectual equals, yada-yada-yada!”

“Frank is erasing you.”

“Fran, the psychologist.”

She sighs. “You know, he let me name my son Dustin!”

“It’s his middle name, Dusty. Throwing you a bone?” As there is a bone of contention between us to gnaw. “Can I call him Dusty?”

“No,” she levels me with a look. “He is William. William is named after Frank’s little brother. You know Billy and Frank are close. Frank wanted a namesake for Billy when he was in chemo for leukemia.”

Suddenly, I am leveled by my pettiness. “Oh, Dusty, how is he?”

“He’s in remission.” She looks away from me, almost like she is addressing someone far away. “He comes over after school and stays until his father picks him after work. I seem to spend a lot of my days tending to the boys. That’s why I don’t get out and about very much.”

“Couldn’t we get together some evening and let Frank babysit?”

Dusty looks at me like I’ve just proposed a trip to the moon.

I take her hand, lead her to the bed and pull her down beside me. I shake our hands at the quilt and change the subject. “Look at this quilt isn’t it awesome?”

Dusty pets it, clearly impressed. “Yes, it’s more beautiful than the pictures you sent me.”

“Oh, yeah. At Christmas time. I thought we were supposed to get together.”

She shook loose of me. “I was overwhelmed this year with all the family. I had Christmas Eve dinner and brunch Christmas morning. Frank’s aunt and uncle stayed with us. I couldn’t get away.”

“Not even for a couple of hours?”

She sighed. “Fran, you’ve been at me constantly about this and that. Like a shark attack.”

I pop up on my feet and face her. “You knew. You knew at your wedding that Dean had come out—he had told you he was gay. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t!” She put her hands out to me as if begging me to understand. “I promised I wouldn’t. He wanted to talk it over with you.”

“It seems I was the only one that didn’t know. I felt like a fool.” I went over to my suitcase and pulled out a gaudy velvet jester’s hat. “I wore this for the Renn Fayre,” I look pointedly at her, “which I invited you to come to in April, because,” I jerked the hat onto my head, “that’s what I am. A fool.”

“I couldn’t come, I told you, Frank had to work overtime. I was breast-feeding William and Frank didn’t want me to take William that far from home.” She looked imploringly at me. “Have you talked to Dean?”

“He texts and emails me. I don’t answer.” I sit beside her, the bells on the hat jingling in the silence. There is an ugly monster of betrayal between us, my friend and me.

“Oh, Fran, Fran. He loves you. Just not that way.”

“Well. Maybe you can take a picture and send it to him. I’ll smile.” I flash her a cheesy, toothy grin, which I hope is grotesque.
“Fran, take off that goofy hat.” Dusty snatches the hat off my head and throws it back into the suitcase.

She is clearly mad and ready to bolt. I feel that I am pushing her out of my life and the thought sends a surge of panic all through me. “I’ve taken this too far, haven’t I?”

She softens a bit and nods, but doesn’t say anything. I feel I should extend a peace offering.

“I did a paper on Kenneth Burke, who argues that not only does man use symbols, but man makes and,” I pause dramatically with a contrite look at her, “misuses symbols. I compared his work Language as Symbolic Action, with a short story by Joyce Carol Oates, A Brutal Murder in a Public Place. It was considered very good. “

“I bet it was. You were always good at writing.” She blinks and stifles a yawn.

I can see she is exhausted. I stand, motion her to do the same as I pull back the quilt. “Lie down, Elizabeth. Mom and I will play with William while you take a nap.”

“Oh, no I couldn’t,” but she is eyeing the pillow longingly.

I brush aside her objection. “Take your shoes off and relax. Seriously, there is something magical about this quilt and you must experience it.” I really want to tell her that I hope we are still friends, and she is right about how everything does not revolve around my feelings or perceptions.

She slips off one shoe then the other and curls up as I cover her. She murmurs, but I cannot understand all of her words. I think she says “It’s not secrets I keep, Fran, it’s silence.”

But when I turn around at the door, to ask her what she said, she is already asleep.