“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.

Preface

If you have followed Fran, Dusty, Dean and Annie in the Bully Dog Series, you might understand that I am saddened by their departure from my imagination. Fran will always make me smile to think of her as a young girl, bullied at school, who found her voice, and stood up to the bullies; Dusty tugs at my heartstrings, for she will always be torn asunder and reformed by the creative energy of an artist; Dean, the intellectual, always defining and redefining himself and the world, will struggle but ultimately win the wrestling match with his demons; and Annie, the saint and the sinner, is the synthesis of the friendships. These Musketeers, these life-long friends, these characters who embody courage, wit and grit, and faithfulness, have stepped off the written page and into lives of their own.

I will leave them with some last measured thoughts: Fran, if Mother Teresa can have profound doubts about her faith, everyday, and yet act full of faith, essentially becoming the “saint of skeptics”, then so must we be faithful; Dusty, as Lord Byron put it succinctly about Childe Harold, i.e., himself, “…the heart will break, yet brokenly live on…”; Dean, take Ray Bradbury’s advice and “jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down”; to Annie, speak your truth, shout your truth, sing your truth, for as Buddha said, “Three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”

I wish you all a successful journey and hope that each one of you will drop me a line or two—-I do not expect a novel!—-in the ensuing years, just so I know you are doing well as life goes on, through all the highs, lows and the mundane, for each one of us—-you, me and the reader.

Chapter 1

“Life’s like a movie. Write your own ending.”
— Kermit the Frog

I stay cocooned in my quilt reluctant to let go as the dream dissipates into pinpoints of sunshine. I awake to the smell of brewed coffee and the household stirring. I hear my father in the kitchen, dicing and humming. I hope he is making a quiche. I stretch and inhale, breathing out slowly. Ah, to wake up with the whole day to laze; that’s my idea of the first week of my summer vacation. My muscles ache, sore from a full forty-hour week of taking inventory at the Reed College bookstore. My brain cells were squeezed dry from finals and really, it felt good to stay an extra week to do mindless work and get paid for it. It is not like I had to read all those books, just box them up and have Scott stack them.

My room looks the same as when I came home for Christmas, courtesy of my mother, with the Home for the Holidays banner still taped on the newly dusted bookshelf, which is really funny if you think of the two different versions of the same song by J. Cole and Perry Como. Of course, my mother would freak if she even heard J. Cole’s lyrics. I thought about telling her, but reconsidered, keeping it as my private little joke.

She doesn’t find much humor in anything since Grandma came to live with us. ‘Early onset Alzheimer’s’ now defines my once vibrant Grandma who babbles and sighs a lot. I remember in tenth grade is when I stopped calling her Granny because I didn’t like the feel the word on my tongue, and it reminded me of the whole wolf imagery in Little Red Riding Hood, and she became, Grandma. Mom and I once went through a whole list: What kind of dog would Grandma be? and simultaneously cried out, “Poodle!”

I added, “Standard!”

Mom snapped her fingers, and with a sly wink, “Dyed blue!”

I leaned close. “But never rainbow!” I finished with a snort that made my mother chuckle.

My Grandma: feisty, smart, strong-willed and opinionated, the party girl—Democrat that is. Used to be some lively arguments in this Republican household, but not anymore. The only politics discussed is the family kind, the dynamics of family members.
I sigh, asking myself if I sound like my Grandma and wonder if she resents having her vitality ebb day by day. She used to practically prance but now she uses a cane. It doesn’t seem she really knows what is happening to her. I miss talking with her, especially when she would take my side and sway my mother over to my way of thinking. I can’t help but resent the changes she has made in my life because she cannot function alone. My mother couldn’t come with Dad to Parents’ night at college because she could not leave Grandma home alone. Really, couldn’t Mom have made arrangements for a caretaker for just a couple of days?

I don’t have to do anything today on this Saturday in May and I might just stay in bed. I pack pillows behind my back so that I can sit up and look at the new quilt my mother made me for Christmas. It really is an awesome design of Galadriel, played by Cate Blanchett from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Mom has done a remarkable job detailing the sky and mountains in dark shades of blue and purple, the moon and clouds in white and cream and grays as a background to Galadriel in a gauzy, turquoise dress with sparkly white inset, with a shimmering aura over her. Details like the filigree headband and an ethereal gaze somewhere-over-there-in-the-far distance. Truly my mother’s work of placating art. Art not for its own sake, but for mine. I should tell her how much I really love this quilt, but lately words clump inside my throat when I try to say anything nice to her. And, there are times I feel like I have to wave my hand in front of her face and speak slowly, “Hello! It’s me! Are you listening? Can you spare a few minutes?”

Oh, well, let it go—my mantra lately. I feel so many changes in the people I love. Loved. Grandma with her addled brains. Dusty, my best friend, is married with a baby and husband and no time for anyone else in her life. Annie, my childhood friend, has been hospitalized with bulimia and anorexia. My long-time friend, Carol moved to the Midwest. And Dean—always a river of sadness washes over my heart when I think of him not in my life—oh, well, let him go.

I scan the bookshelves. Should I choose a paperback? Or perhaps select a book on my reader? I have culled my mother’s library for some surprising gems: Dorothy Parker, Doris Lessing, Virginia Woolf, and Margaret Atwood. On my e-reader, I have Zadie Smith, Dorothy Allison, Kelly Link, Jennifer Egan, Colette and a few light weight sci-fi. But finally I decide from the stack of paperbacks next to my bed, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

It’s a complicated story, a lot about communism and political strife in Prague Spring, that period of Czechoslovak history in 1968. The plot line with the four major characters is intriguing and like a jigsaw puzzle coming together, keeps my interest. Inside my head, I have done a little revision with the characters: Franz, an idealistic professor and lover of books, of course is me; Tereza, who sees herself and her body as disgusting and shameful is Annie; and for Dusty and Dean, I cannot make up my mind. Dusty is quirky like the dog, Karenin, not liking much change and Dean has many attributes of Sabina, especially his ‘lightness of being’, but like Karenin, is a little confused about his identify. I go back and forth on who resembles which character the most, as they both have betrayed me.

There is a soft rap at the bedroom door and my father’s voice. “Fran? Are you awake?” He pushes the door open and pokes just his head inside. Reminds me of the joke about a camel asking his master to please let him just put his head inside the tent to get out of the sandstorm, and eventually worries his whole body inside the tent forcing his master out.

“Hey! Popsicle, wassup?” I slide a bookmark into the book and close it. I can tell that he is about to make a snide remark about my messy room, looking from my open suitcase still unpacked, clothing streaming out on all sides and stacks of books next to shoes and a shirt and jeans, to me; but he surprises me and doesn’t.

“Popsicle is it? Now I’m a Franism?”

“Oh, no, no!” I wag a finger him playfully. “There are no ‘isms’ for a Reedie—it’s in the founding father’s mission statement.”
“I still don’t know how I feel about that motto, young lady. ‘Communism, atheism, and free love’.” He points to my gray t-shirt, with the blue logo: a large circle, the Seal of Reed College, with a three point shield, a rose in each of the three corners, inside with the words in the border, “atheism”, on top, right side, “ communism” and the left side, “ free love”. And inside the shield in the middle, is the school symbol, the Griffin.

“You know, it was meant to be a slur upon the college because of the Red Scare after WWI. I think it was a brilliant coup—making it positive and all. It sure beats Foster’s ‘“Comrades of the Quest”’. Sounds like we’re supposed to be knights-errant on a medieval journey in some mythological story. Believe me, I have yet to meet a hero in armor on campus. The only ‘knights’ I’ve encountered have been the long hours after midnight studying.”

“Well, I guess the only ‘knights’ you’ll have here at home are long hours reading. You stayed up rather late last night—I assume reading.”

I give him my I’m your daughter smile, because he, too, will inevitably have to finish a chapter before he puts his book down for the night. I have tried to convince him to get an electronic reader, but he says that he likes the heft of a good book. Now my mother, she reads e-books and goes to the library and second-hand book store, constantly exchanging her worn, sometimes yellowed-page books. Her favorites she buys in hard back. I have jested several times that every one she owns will be a collector’s item that she can sell on e-bay because there is no future for the printed version. She usually negates me with a shake of her head, like the thought of it is too painful to consider.

Dad steps inside. He always looks nice, whether he is going to the office downtown or staying home. He has on khaki pants and a red plaid short-sleeved shirt. He jangles my car keys, then puts them on my dresser, on top of a stack of paperbacks. “I took your Camry in for an oil change this morning. Put some windshield fluid in and checked the antifreeze. Your tires look good.” He leans on his elbow on the dresser, pushing aside a stack of books. “You’ve put some miles on it since Christmas.”

“I’m a busy girl, Dad. I try to walk most places, only if I have the time. Freshman Humanities is grueling and labor intensive. And, no, I don’t read while I am driving, nor do I listen to audio books. I took to heart all those lectures you gave me when I first learned to drive.” That made him smile; I knew it would.

“Got some coffee brewing and an egg soufflé hot out of the oven. If you are hungry, come have some, umm, brunch.”

“Will do! Be there in a few!” I kick the covers off and stretch my legs over the bedside as my Dad exits with a long look at the suitcase and a shake of his head.

I twist my arms and rotate my shoulders, glancing out window at Puget Sound. Sunlight dapples on the calm, blue water. Then I see Grandma kneeling beside the George Best rose in her nightgown that gaps at the armholes, exposing her wrinkled, pendulous breast. I jump to my feet and fling open my bedroom door and holler. “Mom! Grandma’s in the garden naked! Again!”

This is like the third time Grandma’s done this strange thing of taking a parcel of food and burying it outside. It’s not so bad if she’s in the front yard because the fence hides her from the neighbor’s prying eyes, but she is exposed in more ways than one on the water side.

At the slam of the sliding door, I retrace my steps to the window. My Mom is racing towards Grandma with a robe streaming behind her like a maroon flag. The mothership comes in for a landing to recapture the errant podship, wrapping Grandma in the robe and her arms, lifting her to her feet. I can see her leaning close and talking to Grandma, but can’t tell if she is scolding her or what. They walk slowly, entwined together, into the house.

I pluck a pair of jeans from the pile of clothes and shake out a crinkled blue t-shirt, and pad barefoot out to the kitchen. “Smells good, Daddo.” He hands me a plate and I snatch and munch on one the four pieces of bacon, crispy and salty, a complement to the richness of the soufflé. I get my own coffee and offer to refill his cup.

He puts down the spatula encrusted with cheese and eggs beside the skillet on the stove. He waves his hand. “No, enough for me today. Cutting back on the caffeine.” He sighs. “Getting older is not for sissies.”

I scoot out chair and sit at the island in the middle of the kitchen. “You once told me you were never going to get old.” I pointed my fork at him as I chewed a mouthful. “‘Forever Young’ you sang all the time.”

He places his hand over his heart. “Here, I am forever young!”

We smile at each other, both of us shaking our heads, which makes us burst out with snorty laughs.

Just then, my mother and Grandma come into the kitchen. Mom’s expression is determined, yet she says softly, kindly, as she coaxes Grandma to sit down and have some breakfast, “Please, mother.” She slides a plate with a small heaping of soufflé and one piece of bacon. “Eat something. You’ve not had breakfast yet.”

“Oh, my!” Grandma, enrobed in fluffy maroon chenille, leans back into the chair and claps her hands, “I think that all I do is eat!” She leans over to me and pats my arm. “I’ll lose my girlish figure if I keep stuffing myself like a turkey and have to wear those awful, paisley caftans old ladies always putz around in!”

“Oh, Grandma!” I arch an eyebrow at her. “You’ll never lose your style!”

“No.” she sighs, smoothing her napkin on her lap. “Just my mind.” She looks up at my mother with a little, sad smile.

It is at this moment my heart pinches at the thought that someday I may have to take care of my mother. My father, too, will grow old, but it is odd that I cannot imagine myself aging, or rather changing from being anything other than myself now at twenty. I haven’t changed so much in my ideology as say, Dusty; now married with a baby, she is no longer the Dusty that I knew in school. She has no time for the friends she had, no time but for the baby and Frank. And I am clueless about Annie, how she got to be bulimic. I miss her. I miss Dean. It just seemed that we would all be friends forever and that would be the one constant in all of our lives. Now those summer days when we all worked together tending our neighbors’ lawns was in some else’s story.

I want to erase this moment, brush it gone from us, much like Grandma’s motion of repeatedly wiping her hands down her napkin. Maybe she too, would like to iron out the wrinkles of her mind. I grab her hand and hold it still. A thousand banal words scroll across my tongue, but finally I manage to say, “Dad made our brunch. It’s quite delicious.”

Grandma’s hands are shaky as she brings a forkful of eggs to her mouth. Tiny bits of egg dribble onto the lapel of her robe. My mother has turned her back to us as she pours coffee into two mugs, twisting sideways to refill my father’s cup that he accepts without complaint, and then to face us as she quietly places a mug beside Grandma’s plate. For several minutes we are silent, and it feels strangely comforting to be here with my mother, father and grandmother. The rustle of movement as Dad walks down the hall to his office breaks the spell; my mother sips her coffee loudly, then steps away from the island to begin loading dishes into the dishwasher. Grandma sighs, making a face at her plate. I swallow the last of my breakfast and get up to rinse my dishes, butt bumping my mother and she reaches behind her to swat me playfully.

It’s like we are an old favorite jacket with its zipper come undone a bit; I’ll just reach down and pull it up. It’s all right, at least for now. All of us. At least for now.

My feet make a soft slap-slap on the hardwood floors as I walk into the den. I sit down on a padded folding chair at the card table where I am working on a puzzle, a Christmas present from Dean, of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. I had been putting ornaments on the six-foot Christmas tree and heard a car pull into the driveway, so I peeked out the living room window to see Dean stretch across the front seat of his red Nissan Versa to snag a box wrapped in sparkling reds and greens with a huge glittery bow. My mother had looked quizzically at me as I left the room with a terse, “I’m not here.”

I could hear them talking from the kitchen where I stood beside the refrigerator. Dean’s last words to her, “Please give Fran this from me. Tell her I’ll call later,” as the door swooshed open and his “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Reed!” echoed throughout the house. I had not explained to her, or anyone else, what had torn us apart. How do you tell someone your heart has been shredded?

She had stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Fran, I won’t ask for the details but, obviously, something has happened between the two of you. I suspect I know what it may have been.” She sighed heavily, quietly asking, “If I’m right, he told you he is gay?”
“Did everyone know but me?” I snapped, then embarrassed by my outburst, I softened, “Yes, he did.” I took a step away from her side, but still with her hand attached to my arm, not letting me quite go. “I just don’t want to have to deal with him.”

She arched an eyebrow, speaking with her velvet hammer voice. “You’re a writer, Fran. How do you want your story with Dean to be? Are the characters over-idealized like in a fairy tale? Or just human, a little less than noble? Compassion, love, friendship all have a flip side. And we’re all capable of being being lovable and detestable, sometimes in the same instant.” She squeezed my arm before letting go with a parting remark, “You might consider his character development as a plot device that leads you to an alternative conclusion of what a relationship really is.” She handed me the gift and left me alone with my thoughts.
What an ironic gift, the symbol of a kiss. I recall vividly the first time Dean kissed me, my first kiss. How his eye lashes tickled my cheek and the soft imprint of his lips on mine, how clean he smelled, while my heart fluttered with elation. How right and true the moment was and I just knew we were meant to be together. You can know these things, even when you’re only thirteen. Of course, you may not know these things at nineteen or eighty.

I slip the last of the puzzle pieces into place and just stare at the picture of a man cradling his lover’s upturned face in their entwined hands as he kisses her cheek. Her face is oddly static with her eyes closed and her unsmiling lips, almost as if she were asleep, except for her left hand clasping his, and her shoulder pressed into his; her right hand is cinched claw-like over his shoulder and resting on his back. Her hands are more the focal point of the picture. Maybe on the one hand she wants his passion, on the other she doesn’t.

I mosey over to the newly purchased roll-top oak desk that my mother found in an antique store and refinished. It gleams from the recently applied varnish, with a sprinkling of dust on the edge. I swipe it clean with my index finger, wipe the dust on the leg of my jeans and extract a black marker from a pigeon hole. I hover over the puzzle, then uncap the marker. The smell of ink is sharp as I make tiny tears seeping out the woman’s eyes, dripping down the man’s hand. The picture now is a symbol of my first and last kiss by my once-upon-a-time-boyfriend.

It feels good to crumple the pieces apart and herd them into the large cardboard box, smacking the lid as it shut all those thousands of pieces away in their dark container. Maybe the box is bigger to hold the pieces and all the symbolism. I wish I could put my life back to together again as easily as I did the puzzle. I have been so intent on this inner dialogue that I have not heard the tip-tapping of my Grandmother’s cane as she came into the room.

“Oh! Grandma! You startled me!” I snipped and instantly regretted it. “Well, don’t you look nice in that pantsuit!” She is wearing her going-out pantsuit, straight-legged pants, the jacket, with large black buttons and intricate scrolls along the cuffs. And a multi-colored, patterned scarf, artfully knotted. She begins the process of settling down onto the cushion, gripping her cane with both hands as she swivels in a semi-circle before she lowers herself. She puts her cane on the arm of couch, where it promptly clatters to the floor. I bend down, pick it up and prop it against the wall before I sit beside her on the couch. “Teal is definitely your color. It brings out the green in your blue eyes.”

She squints at me, “If you say so. Your mother is washing my robe.”

Yes, I want to add, Mother does a lot of laundry these days. Without fail, Grandma spills some part of her meal, inevitably onto herself.

In her sassy way Grandma sings, “You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”

I point to a photo album on her lap. “Show and tell?”

“Yes, that puzzle of yours made me think of a time long ago.” She opened the book to a page with black and white photos and tapped a picture of a beautiful young woman, with long, flowing hair in a gingham dress, sitting on a blanket with a good looking guy on her left and a woven picnic basket beside her on the right. “I was a pretty thing in my day, you better believe it!” She laughed and edged out a picture from behind the one of her. “I remember George.” She held out the picture for me to inspect. “Oh, he could kiss!”

George was not my grandfather’s name. “What happened to George, Grandma?” I lean over to get a close-up of the handsome gent. “He certainly is good looking.” Now this was getting interesting.

“Oh, he went off to war.” She slid the picture back into its place behind the one of her.

“Did you ever see him again?” I was a little alarmed to see a wet streak down her cheek.

“Yes, I did. Your mother was just a babe in my arms when I ran into him coming out of Woolworth’s. He had moved to the east coast, upper New York, I think. He said he had married and had children of his own. But funny thing, I thought at the time, he didn’t wear a wedding band.” She snapped the cover close.

Grandma didn’t say anything for a brief moment, then she snagged me with a direct look into my eyes. “What happened to your young man, Dean?”
I leaned back into the couch with a shrug. “You know, the same old story. He found someone else, I guess.”

“Really? He calls here, drops by, and I believe,” she leveled me with a fierce stare, “he has written to you. Probably does that thing with the phone, too.” She wiggled her fingers in a comic imitation of typing.

“Texts.” I squirm a bit under her scrutiny. “Yes, he does that, too.”

“Then who jilted whom?”

“Grandma, I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet. It’s like my heart is torn, like a piece of fabric.” I work my fingers up and down my legs, relishing the roughness of my jeans. “I’ll get over it, I guess.”

Grandma slipped my hand into hers. “Sweetheart, tears can be dried,” she reached over with her free hand and touched my cheek, “tears can be mended. He is not your intended.” She clapped our hands together hands and guffawed. “I’m a poet and didn’t know it!”

I laugh out loud, and take her hand, wiggling it as I used to do as a kid when I wanted her attention. “Grandma, get your needle and thread and sew the pieces of my heart back together again.”

She patted my hand and said brusquely, “A broken heart heals with forgiveness.” She brought our hands to her lips and planted a kiss on mine. “There are other true loves. You have to be open for the one that knows your name.”

I don’t reply and as I watch her, I can see she is drifting again with that dreamy look that signals my Grandma has stepped away from this reality. She begins a low, soft mumbling of names that I do not recognize, and I think she mistakes me for my mother when she tells me to wear the navy dress with lace inset when I get ready for my date.

I lean over and kiss her cheek. “Yes,” I whisper, “it will make my eyes seem darker and more mysterious.”

But she has not heard me or chooses not to answer as her eye lids flag and she slips into sleep. I disentangle my hand from hers and grab the blanket behind me. Carefully, I tuck it around her and push another pillow beneath her arm to that she doesn’t fall over.

I recalled the picture of her lost love, George. The good-looking one that went away. I wondered if perhaps he had lied to her, too. Maybe, just maybe, he had been gay. “They don’t always tell you the truth, Grandma,” I whispered. “The ones that leave you.”