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I stared down at the prone figure before me, splayed out on the sheets with pillows damp from tears.  Emily was a good person, eccentric, fun, and intelligent, but when I stared down at the person in bed, I didn’t see any of that.  All I saw was a shell of a woman; someone who had completely shut herself off to the world.

“How long has she been like this?” I asked, my eyes shifting away from Emily only for a moment to look at Jodi, one of my closest childhood friends.  I could see she was just as concerned as I was.  Emily was our sister, our rock, seeing her like this was disturbing.

“Since I found her,” Jodi responded quietly from the arm chair she was sitting in.  Her husband must have dragged it in for her so she could sit with Emily.  As far as I knew, she hadn’t left Emily’s side since Em had come home from the hospital.  “I told you it was bad.”

“Has she spoken at all?” I asked.  Before I’d left for the airport the answer had been no.  Emily had refused to speak to anyone. 

“Um, some sleep talking I guess.  Well, sleep crying.  But that was yesterday.  Today there’s been nothing.  It’s freaking me out.  I keep checking to make sure she’s breathing.  I tried to get her to eat something but she wouldn’t even look at me. “

“Do we know what happened?”  I sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping with my weight.  Emily didn’t stir. 

“Alex is gone.  That’s all I know.”

Alex was Emily’s boyfriend for lack of a better term.  They’d never married, but they’d lived with each other for years and Alex was the father of Emily’s son, Bronson, who had just turned six the month before. 

“I tried calling him from the airport.  No answer,” I offered.  I’d wanted to know what happened, but he had been avoiding my calls relentlessly.  Emily, Jodi and I were fiercely protective of each other.  He must have realized why I was calling him and was too much of a wimp to answer for what he had done.   

“I still can’t believe that dick,” Jodi muttered under her breath.  Those words didn’t exactly cover the full range of emotion I was feeling for Alex at the moment, but they would suffice. 

“Dick indeed.”

“Charlotte, I want to take Bronson home with me for now,” Jodi said, rising from the arm chair.  “He shouldn’t be seeing his mom like this.  I’ve been afraid to leave, or I would have taken him sooner.  I just didn’t want to leave her alone when she was like this.”

I nodded.  It had been hard seeing his mom like this.  He was a smart kid and had realized quickly that something was up with mom.  He’d even called Jodi because he thought she was sick and needed soup, but wasn’t allowed to touch the stove.  What was worse was he didn’t understand where his dad was.  This was all very confusing and Jodi was probably right.  He needed to get out of the house for a little bit.

“Yeah okay, you take him, I’ll stay with her,” I agreed.

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Jodi grabbed the bag she’d packed for Bronson and led him outside.

“You excited to play with Annie?” she asked as they headed for the car.  Annie was Jodi’s ten year old daughter.  She and Bronson got along like peanut butter and jelly.  They were totally opposite, but it was like they were made for each other.  The age difference had never bothered Annie either.  Bronson was like her kid cousin, the two were inseparable.

“Yeah!” Bronson cheered as he climbed in.  Jodi helped buckle him in, gave me a quick hug, and then took off.  She had a family to take care of.  It was my turn to look after Emily.

I watched them go, feeling my heart clench a little.  Bronson didn’t really know me.  Every time I flew out to visit Emily would reintroduce us and after awhile he’d warm up to me and then I’d have to leave and eventually the memory would fade away for him. 

But Jodi he knew.  He saw her at least once a week.  He got to play in her backyard and call her Aunt Jodi.  It didn’t seem fair sometimes that she got to be such a big part of his life while I didn’t, but that was my cross to bear.  I was the one who’d moved 3000 miles away.

“Char?”

I turned, surprised to hear my name being called, and from inside the house no less.  I recognized the voice immediate.  It was Emily—she was up.  I headed inside.

“Charlotte?” she called again.

“I’m here.”

Charlotte.  That was me.  Girl who’d moved as far away from her childhood home as she could without getting out of the country.  Emily DeWitt’s best friend since ninth grade Physical Science class.  Jodi Black-Caldecott’s kindergarten playmate.    If anyone would ask me to describe myself I was say I was just your average person with unrealized dreams and very little unique talent.  But to these women, I was everything, as they were to me.  We were family by everything but blood and right now my family needed me.

“Em?” I called, jogging back into the house and heading up the stairs.  Emily was there, seated on the stop step, her face buried in her hands.  She was crying.  It always broke my heart to see her cry.

“Jodi has Bronson. It’s just you and me,” I said as I approached.

Emily looked up at me, her eyes red and puffy.  She sniffled and began to cry harder.  “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted, her voice hoarse with disuse.  I carefully ascended the stairs and took a seat beside her.  I’d never really been good at this part, the comforting.  Emily was the type of girl who got hurt a lot in relationships and I had married the first boy I’d ever seriously dated.  She had a lifetime of experiences I didn’t know how to relate to.  So I did what I could.  I rubbed her back with my hand and quietly told her everything was going to be alright. 

I didn’t know if it would be.  She’d survive physically sure enough, but Emily had been broken too many times.  I often wondered what the final straw would be.  When would she give up and just throw in the towel.  It had taken so much convincing on my part that love was real and out there for her, this was a big blow to my defense.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, when her crying had calmed down.  I wasn’t sure if she did.  She hadn’t talked to Jodi yet, but perhaps Emily had been waiting for me.  We had a bond that was hard to express.  While the three of us were friends and very close friends at that, I knew that Emily was my soul mate.  I loved my husband dearly, but Emily was a part of me in ways that I couldn’t ever really describe. She was the other side of the coin for me and she always would be.

“Why do I keep doing this to myself?” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Keep putting your heart out there?” I asked quietly. 

“He was cheating on me.”

I nodded.  Cheating was something that was a bad thing for everyone; for Emily though, this was like the Murder One of all crimes.  It had just happened too many times with too many guys for her to be able to brush off and not take personally. I braced myself for what I knew was to come.

“How come I can’t ever be good enough?” she whispered, her voice breaking again as an onslaught of tears forced their way forward.

“Em, this isn’t about you.  It never has been,” I tried to make her understand.  I was fighting an uphill battle.  I loved my friend, but her opinion of herself had always been low.  I never understood it either because Emily had always been beautiful.  Where I had always been the chubby best friend, she had always been exotically attractive.  Her mixed ethnicity, dark brown hair, and piercing eyes that often changed colors with her moods, were among some of her most striking features.  She also had a beautiful body thanks to years of tennis and softball.  She wasn’t perfect, none of us are, but she had been gifted in the looks department, even if she didn’t believe it.  . 

“If it’s not about me, then why has every guy I’ve ever been with cheated on me in some way?” she asked, sniffling.

I didn’t have an answer for that.  Not every guy Emily had dated cheated on her, but it happened with more frequency than most and even when it didn’t happen, there had usually been at least some suspicion on her part.  I wasn’t around for a lot of her dating though, so it was hard for me to analyze what had went wrong and why these guys did what they did.  If one could even analyst that. 

“They’re stupid jerks, that’s why,” I finally answered.  Not exactly articulate, but it expressed the sentiment I needed.  She wasn’t at fault.  I would need to drive that one home while I was here.

“Bronson was in the next room,” Emily said.

“What?” 

“When I caught Alex.  He’d brought her here.  I got off my shift at the hospital early and decided to come home and surprise Alex.  Maybe we could take Bronson to Chuck E Cheese or something.  I came home and I heard them.  They were doing it in my fucking bed, with Bronson in the next room watching TV.”

“Bastard,” I mumbled, shaking my head.  I’d had a bad feeling about him for awhile.  It was hard to gauge really since I didn’t know Alex all that well.  I’d met him a few times when I’d flown out to California to visit, but the meetings had been lackluster.  With such brief encounters, I couldn’t say one way or another if he was good or bad for Emily.  She’d seemed happy with him though, so I’d let it go. 

When she got pregnant, we were all surprised, but he’d stuck around and they’d made a family together.  As the years went on though and Alex hadn’t proposed, I started to get worried.  I knew Emily wanted to get married one day.  It wasn’t so much that she was into all the girly, frilly stuff, quite the opposite in fact, but I knew she wanted her day.  She wanted her friends and family to look at her and see how beautiful she was, and to cry because they were so happy to see her happy.  She had wanted it, and he had never given it to her.  It never sat right with me, but what could I say?  Anthony and I had been together for more than six years before we tied the knot.  These kinds of things can’t be rushed.  Now I was glad they hadn’t married. 

“Did Bronson know what was going on?” I asked, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and hugging her to me.

“No.  I sent him outback to play before I confronted him.  There was an argument, a lot was said.  He left with that stupid whore and I kind of lost it,” she said with a shrug.  “Next thing I know Jodi is here, trying to get me to talk and I just… couldn’t.”

“You scared the crap out of her.”

“I could sneeze and scare the crap out of Jodi,” Emily laughed, her eyes still glittering with tears.  We loved our friend, but she was very much a mother hen and often overreacted to things.  Like hurricanes in New England, when I was 150 miles inland.  I smiled, remembering her worry over such a storm that never even made landfall.  That was just Jodi’s way.  She worried and sometimes it was nice to know someone was worried about you.

“Let’s get some food in you,” I suggested.

“I’m not really hungry,” Emily replied, making a face. 

Of course she wasn’t.  “Toast then at least.”

“How about toast and some Jack Daniel’s?” she asked, her filled with false hope.  I punched her in the shoulder for that comment.  We weren’t even going to discuss alcohol while she was upset.  That road never led anywhere good.

“Toast for now.” 

We both stood up and made our way downstairs to the kitchen.  We had a lot to catch up on.


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“When are you coming home?” Anthony asked, his voice just slightly annoyed on the other end.  He hadn’t been happy I’d picked up everything so quickly and flew to California.  It wasn’t that he didn’t like Emily, he did.  And it wasn’t that he didn’t understand the situation, he did.  But airline tickets weren’t cheap, and they certainly hadn’t been in our budget.  It was lucky I was summer and I was a fourth grade teacher.  But even the money wasn’t that big of a deal.  Ultimately, Anthony missed me.  He never did well without me there.  It was especially hard for him to sleep.  After all these years, it was hard for me to sleep without him too.

“I’m not sure yet.  She’s talking at least,” I said, leaning against the bathroom door.  Emily was upstairs sleeping and I had slipped away to make a phone call home.

“What happened?”

I hesitated for a moment, never feeling comfortable divulging someone else’s secrets, but finally determining he’d find out one way or another.  “She caught Alex in bed with another woman.”

“Ouch.”

“I know,” I whispered sadly.  “She’s pretty broken up about it.  Jodi took Bronson back to stay with her.  They’re coming by in a few, but I’m not sure Emily will be up to playing mommy right now.”

“She doesn’t really have a choice in that,” Anthony replied, “I mean, she’s a mom.  You can’t stop being a mom.”

“I know it’s just… if she has friends who can give her a break, then she should take it.”

“I guess.  So did you tell them?”

I hesitated.  “Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“It just doesn’t seem like the right time.  I don’t know, I’ll tell her sometime.  Just not right now.”

“Whatever you need to do, baby.”

The doorbell rang and I pushed off the doorframe.  “Thanks.  Jodi is here.”

“Tell Emily I’ll kick Alex’s ass if she wants me to,” Anthony offered.

“Will do.  I love you.”

“Love you too.”

I hung up the phone and headed for the front door.  I pulled it open to find Jodi, Annie & Bronson.  “Come in you guys.”

“MOMMY!” Bronson shouted, running inside and upstairs.  I watched him go in awe.  He had quite the lungs on him.  Kind of like his mom.  Emily didn’t really have an inside voice either.

“Bronson sweetie!” Jodi called after him, her mom voice in full affect.  Bronson paused near the top of the stairs.  “Your mom is asleep, why don’t you and Annie play in the living room for now?”  It wasn’t a question.  Bronson huffed and headed back down the stairs. 

“He’s been asking about her all day.  ‘When do I get to see mommy?’ ‘Is mommy okay?’ ‘What’s mommy doing right now?’  I think he’s really worried about her,” Jodi said, dropping his bag in the entry way. 

“I don’t blame him,” I said, shutting the front door.  “Hi, Annie, do you remember me?”

“You’re Aunt Charlotte,” she said with a bravado of ease.  It had been more than a year since she had seen me.  I knew Jodi must have briefed her on the way over.

“You’re absolutely right.  Come give me a hug.”  I put my arms out and she quickly embraced me.  The hug was, selfishly, for me.  I only got to see her every so often.  She may not always remember me, but I always remembered her. 

Annie pulled back and went to go play Bronson.  I looked at Jodi and let out a long breath.  “She’s talking,” I said.

Jodi nodded.  I’d explained as much on the phone. 

“Why don’t we have a family dinner?” Jodi said after a moment.  Always the mother.  “Just the three of us and the kids.  We can make a nice meal, get some real comfort food.”

“I can make cookies,” I offered with a shrug.  I wasn’t a bad cook, just not a good one either.  Anthony did most of the cooking.  Baking, however, was much more my thing.

“Yeah, and we won’t talk about boys, except for Bronson, and we’ll just have a girls night.  I’ll even get Mark to come down here and pick up Annie and Bronson and we can have a Three Musketeers night.”

“Ice cream, cookie dough and popcorn.  Sounds good,” I agreed.  No chick flicks though, Emily didn’t do chick flicks and this night was for her. 

“Let me call Mark and make sure he’s okay with this,” Jodi said, pulling her cell phone out.

“I’ll go check on this kids,” I offered, leaving Jodi to speak to her husband in private.

I rounded the corner to see Annie peeking covertly around the corner into the living room.  I waited for a moment, watching what was happening.  Suddenly Annie jumped out from behind the wall.  “Gotcha!” she shouted. 

Bronson came squealing from his hiding spot behind the couch, running as fast as his small legs would take him.  Annie was bigger and faster though and caught him quickly.  They both tumbled to the ground, laughing and red faced from the exertion.

“Okay!  You find me now,” Annie announced, the first to recover.  She jumped to her feet and helped Bronson up as well.

“Inside voices you guys,” I said with a quick smile.  “Aunt Emily is still asleep.”

Bronson frowned for a moment, but Annie pushed him gently towards the corner to count and he obeyed, closing his eyes and counting back from ten. 

I left them to play.  Emily’s house was pretty kid proof, and Jodi was right down the hall.  I wanted to check on Emily, see what she was up to before we made final plans. 


TBC...