CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FRIEND-DEMENTIA
The moment we three stepped into the cool night air, I heard the dead bolt click into place behind us. The gas station attendant flicked off the hanging neon OPEN light, and the sidewalk went dark. But the shaky effects of my adrenaline rush couldn’t be switched off so easily. I heard the slap of our tennis shoes echo on the pavement.
I’d stood up to somebody. Not just anybody: a giant, sexual-favor-requesting, hostile man. Or, I should say, we did. Sure, the tiny Summer had to rescue Holly and me, but when push came to shove, I didn’t slip into unconsciousness. Au contraire. I aggressed! I always wondered if, in a survival situation, would I be the person who peed and cried, or would I grab a floaty and jump?
It was clear. I was a jumper. We were jumpers!
“You guys! Holy crap!” We were still holding hands.
Summer let out a “Whoop!”
I peered at Holly; she was oddly silent. Was she pissed at me for kissing her? Was she insulted? She let go of our hands first, and I took a deep breath in and held it.
“GAAH!” she shouted into the night air. She dropped her head back, put a hand over her face, and shouted again. She shivered all over like Peanut or Moose would if they’d just come out of the rain.
I waited, unsure how to feel. I knew Fun Holly from college and grown-up Fierce Holly, but Paralyzed Holly and now Screaming Holly? I was at a loss. I needed a prompt.
“Let it out,” Summer said, and she herself let out a loud, prolonged scream.
This time the dogs got involved, letting out short yips from the car as if to say, Absolutely! Yes! Also, what’s happening?
I said, “Go, Team Katie!” But that didn’t do it for me. I tried again. “GO, TEAM KATIE!”
We made eye contact before all three of us shouted, “GO, TEAM KATIE!”
A loud squawk punctuated our voices, and a speaker from the top of the gas pump crackled, and a man’s voice said, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
The three of us laughed so fully and completely that at that moment we felt like one person.
While we’d been inside the gas station, Peanut had moved to the driver’s seat, and Moose to the passenger side. Both dogs sat with humanlike anticipation. When Holly opened the driver’s-side door, one hand steadying Utah, Peanut pivoted and threw his bulk into Holly’s arms. One paw went up to her shoulder and the other navigated the kitten respectfully and landed on her chest.
“Whoa,” she said, just before Peanut washed the length of her face with his tongue. “Peanut!”
I sprinted around the car and slid my fingers under his collar. “Okay, dude. This is not okay.”
“No. Leave him.” Holly, averting her face from Peanut’s slobbering, let him lick her neck while she shielded Utah. “I’ve got him.”
“I think he’s glad you’re okay. He was worried. That’s why I went looking for you.”
“Is that right? Peanut, were you concerned?”
There was no way I was going to ruin this moment by pointing out that she usually called him “the dog.”
“He was. Concerned. We all were.” I gave Summer a quick glance.
Holly scratched the big dog’s ears and then helped him out of the car while wiping her face with the back of her hand.
The dog bumped his head against her thigh as we walked to the back of the Prius. Holly put Utah into the makeshift cat box. Her expression darkened as she watched the little bundle. I could see the victorious Holly humbling again as we all calmed down.
“How am I ever going to be a parent?” she said, her eyes still on Utah. “That man walked right up to me and took Utah. I couldn’t stop him.” She glanced at me, the expression on her face filled with angst. “Rosie is going to have that baby, and they are going to send her home to us.” Her voice went up an octave when she said, “It’s harder to adopt a dog than to take a baby home. We are going to walk out of the hospital with a human and try not to kill her or lose her for eighteen years. There are men like that out there. Just taking whatever they want, and we are having a girl. You had a girl. How did you do it, Samantha?”
“Oh, Holly.” Everything about Holly’s hardness about Peanut, Moose, and even Summer, her difficulty with empathy outside of her tight circle, this was all fear. Fear that she wouldn’t come through for love.
“How did you keep her safe? I can’t protect Utah. I couldn’t protect myself.”
“You could have. You would have. I know you would have.”
“No, Sam. No. I wouldn’t have. I didn’t.”
Summer appeared at Holly’s shoulder and said, “Safety and the idea that you can keep anyone safe is an illusion. But, loving someone is the ultimate safekeeping.”
Holly and I looked at Summer, the woman who continued to amaze us with her insights. “She’s right. No matter what happens to us in life, we can always come home to the people who care for us. They are our safe harbor. We are. Holly. We are here for you,” I said. Finally getting to finish a sentence that was started all those years ago when Holly walked out the door.
Curing yourself from avoiding conflict wasn’t just about stepping up to fight. It was also about learning to lean into discomfort. Maybe the process was like washing windows on a sunny day: the big dirt was easy, but the final smear on a filthy windowpane could be the hardest to rub out. With the last bit of bravery juice slowly leaking out of my nervous system, I said, “Do you want to talk about what happened in the gas station? I feel like something else was going on in there?”
Holly lifted Utah and handed the kitty off to me. I took her soft, warm body into my cupped hands and cuddled her to my sternum. “Remember the house party, graduation night?”
“Of course,” I said softly, slowly. “I wanted to kiss Jim Calhoun, so I hung around the pool table the whole night.”
“Upstairs. Yeah.”
“So long ago. But I can smell the stale beer.”
“Ugh. Me too.” She stopped speaking and waited so long I wondered if she was going to keep going. She started up again. “I ran out of wine, so I went down to the keg room. Tucker was down there.”
“Tucker. Yeah. I vaguely remember him. Tall with that scruff on his face. The goalie.”
“That was him. We took all those classes together. Anyway, someone threw a beer can at him. Split open his eyebrow. There was blood everywhere. Tucker pulled me into a room where the light was better, asked me to look at the cut on his head. Wanted to know if he needed stitches.”
“Obviously he didn’t know you.”
“That was before blood made me woozy. I’m pretty sure that’s why I don’t like looking at stuff like that,” Holly said quietly.
I didn’t try to lighten or evade this conversation. Instead, I put myself at the party; I felt the thrumming music and saw the Christmas lights hung everywhere even though it was May. The ruddy painted concrete floor in the basement—sticky, downright wet, even. I hated the basement of that house and rarely went down there.
“I was stupid. Had no experience with boys.” She paused, and I willed myself not to say anything. To just listen. “He’d stopped bleeding, but his wound looked terrible. I thought I could see a bit of bone. Then he shoved me, hard, and I fell onto a bare mattress on the floor. That’s how I got covered in beer. My cup flew out of my hand and spilled all over both of us. It must have surprised him because I had just enough time to raise my knee. I accidentally caught him right in the nuts. His full weight came down, and he rolled off of me. Called me a . . . dyke. You know, there were rumors even then. He spit on me.” The muscles of her jaw flexed.
I heard myself gasp in shock. “Holly. My God, why didn’t you tell me this?” I racked my brain, tried to remember that night more clearly. My disappointment turned to grief.
“I was drunk. So embarrassed to be so stupid. Also, back then, it was just what happened at parties. Date rape and assault, they weren’t things. I thought I shouldn’t be such a baby. Nothing happened.”
She’d come up the stairs looking wild eyed, soaked in beer. She threw up in the corner of the party house. Behind the front door. I tried to remember what she looked like, how I could have missed that she’d almost been raped. Wondered if this is what made her so angry at me. Did she blame me for leaving her alone?
“We got home, and you threw up a bunch more.”
“The hate in his face. Real hate. He pushed me so hard, I had a bruise on my collarbone forever. My head grazed the cement wall. There was nothing playful or sexual about it—it was violent. It changed me.”
An icy feeling in the part in my hair moved down my neck and into my shoulders as I ran through my own memories. “I thought you were emotional about graduation and leaving.” I began to see that I’d missed so much of that night. It was no wonder I hadn’t been able to understand what had happened to us.
“There was that too. I thought he was my friend. I realized you can’t trust people.”
“Then we had that thing about Mike and that disgusting thing he said. You must have felt surrounded by”—I searched for the right word—“traitors?” It felt satisfying to name it, to attach careful words to it. I’d watched an archeologists’ dig on television once, was amazed at the painstaking precision it took to unearth a fragment of the past. This felt like that.
“Who’s Mike? What disgusting thing?” Summer asked, reminding us that we were not alone talking about this very private thing.
I hesitated, giving Holly a chance to answer or protest. When she didn’t, I said, “Mike was a guy Katie was seeing. He made this gross gesture insinuating that Holly and I were having sex in the living room.”
“Were you?”
“No,” I said. “We were very close. We spent all our time together.”
“We did spend all our time together.” She quieted. I could see her remembering.
“I don’t have any memories of college without Holly and Katie in them.”
Holly sighed. “I never drank like that again. I never get drunk.”
“Is that what happened to you two?” You had to hand it to Summer. For a woman with the girth of a Popsicle stick, she never shied away from the fray.
“No!” Holly said. “No,” she said again.
Ugh, I thought. Ugh, there’s more. I felt sick to my stomach. There was more to consider. More to our story.
The ringtone for Rosie jingled from Holly’s phone on the dash. A wash of disappointment flooded through me. I was ready to hear the rest, however terrible it might be. Holly answered the phone and motioned for all of us to get in the car. “Hi, sweetie. Why are you up?” She gestured for me to get in and drive. I heard Summer maneuver around the dogs and slam her door. I pulled out of the gas station parking lot while listening to Holly.
“How close? Is the baby moving?” Holly listened and said, “Remember what they said about 411. Four minutes apart, lasting one minute, for at least one hour. Then hospital.”
I could hear the tinny voice of Rosie on the line, but not what she was saying. I caught Summer’s eye and mouthed the word labor .
“I’m not driving. Sam is. Why? Just tell me.” She paused and said, “What’s going on?”
I plugged one ear, leaned toward her, tried to hear what Rosie was saying.
“You have to go to the hospital!”
My worry ratcheted up with the volume of Holly’s voice. I touched her forearm. Summer had a hand on Holly’s shoulder.
“When your water breaks, there’s a greater chance of infection.” Holly’s voice became high pitched and I accelerated in response.
“No. Not an Uber, honey. Call Luther next door. He knows what to do. It’s not a bother. No, remember. We gave him all that zucchini bread for just this occasion.” In a more forceful voice, she said, “Do not take an Uber—do you hear me?” She sighed. “I’m sorry. Sweetie, I’m sorry for that tone. I just. Okay. We are about four hours away. We’ll be there in three. I love you. I love you more. I love you most of all.”
She hung up the phone and looked at us. “Can I drive?” A typical Holly demand that came out instead as a respectful ask.
“We’re going to get you there, Holly. Tell her, Summer. Read the universe. We’ll get there, right?”
“I mean, there was never any doubt, you guys. Never,” Summer said, leaning forward.
“How many babies get delivered a year, do you think?” Holly asked.
“Like in the world or Wisconsin?” I said, hoping to distract Holly.
“I’ll google it,” Summer said.
“Let’s just do the US.”
“Three point eight million.”
“If you divide that by three hundred sixty-five days in a year, it comes to like”—Holly paused for a breath and said—“ten and a half thousand babies delivered in a day.”
I’d forgotten how good Holly was at math too. All those years of learning about her in college and then all those years forgetting, because she was no longer around to remind me. We had friend-dementia. Moose wheezed his signature sigh as if to say, What a waste .
“How many of those deliveries go badly?” Holly asked but abruptly changed her mind. “Wait, I don’t want to know.”
“Rosie is healthy, and I’m sure has taken great care of herself. She isn’t high risk,” I said.
“How much did it hurt? It looked like it was agony.” For the briefest of seconds, Holly and I made eye contact. I knew what she was asking. She didn’t want facts; she wanted reassurance.
“You don’t have to worry about that. They have epidurals. I didn’t get one because they missed the window with my progress.” Holly was listening. I could see she wanted details. “After my water broke, it still took hours for Maddie to come, but I don’t remember those hours. I remember some pain, a lot of pushing, and the most fabulous release. Then Maddie, on my chest already looking to nurse.”
“I saw you delivering Maddie without Jeff. I had to get out of there. It made me too sad,” Holly said softly.
I let that sit in my brain. She left not because she hated me or didn’t care. It was because she did care, and suddenly I had another layer to add to the memory of Maddie’s birthday. A balm for a rough patch that had always existed in my memory.
“Katie was there. I was in such a fog of pain, but it was so good to get a glimpse of you.” Realizing I’d said pain and reminded her about Rosie, I added, “You really do forget everything once the baby is in your arms.”
“I don’t want her hurting without me.”
“Rosie knows you’re trying your best to get there. She is so lucky to have you.”
“I shouldn’t have left Rosie so close to the end.”
“She’s early, though, right?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Moose sit up. He let out a yip like he was feeling the speed and was as uncomfortable as I was.
Holly glanced at me. “I’m no good in emergencies. Rosie says I’m missing an empathy gene.”
“I think that makes you good at emergencies.” Moose let out two sharp barks and a growl. I turned, and the usually almost coma-quiet Moose stood on his hind legs, his front paws leaning on the back of the front seat. His buggy eyes reflected the lights on the dash.
In slow motion, my brain went from This is unlike Moose to Why is he doing this? to What does Peanut think of this? to Peanut sure is quiet to Oh no.
I pitched forward so abruptly, the seat belt, afraid for my life, clutched me tightly.
Summer started. “What’s happening now?”
“Peanut!” I reached back, felt his warm fur. “Peanut!” The dog didn’t move. Moose barked again. I looked at the time. He hadn’t eaten for a while. “Peanut’s blood sugar might be low.”
“Summer. What’s going on with Peanut?”
“His eyes are open, but he looks super tired. Peanut, sit up. Come on, boy.” I could hear her moving around in the back. “He’s acting like he’s asleep, but he’s looking at me.”
“Get Peanut’s insulin kit out of the glove compartment, Holly.”
She hit the button, and tucked neatly into the tight space was the small case Griffin had given us. Inside, I knew, were insulin, syringes, blood-testing materials, and a container with a sugar solution in case of low-blood-sugar emergencies.
“Holly, you have to test Peanut’s blood sugar.”
“Here. You do it.” Holly shoved the black nylon case toward Summer, who put up her arms.
“Holly. I’ll hold Utah and Moose. I will assist you. But, you know as well as I do that you have to do this.”
“I can’t do it! Pull over, Samantha. I’ll drive. You do it.”
I leveled my gaze at Holly. “Summer’s right. Rosie needs us ASAP. There’s no exit. It’s quicker if I talk you through it.”
At that, Holly unzipped the bag filled with lifesaving supplies. “Yuck. It’s sticky. There’s goop all over the equipment.” I hit the switch for the overhead light. The glucose solution must have broken open.
“Let’s get his blood tested,” I said calmly. “See where we are at. That thing there.” I pointed to the pen that held the blade. “It’s loaded. Hold it on his paw. Hit the button. It will stab him for you.”
Holly unclipped and got on her knees. Summer pulled Utah from Holly’s shoulder.
“You have to have the test strip ready to drop the blood onto it,” I said. “It’s not hard. Can you see?”
“You stab him, Holly, and I’ll collect the blood. I’ve done this with my grandma, and honestly she was almost as hairy as Peanut.” I saw Summer reach for the strips, heard the top pop as she opened the canister.
“You guys.” Holly coughed. “I feel dizzy. I can’t.”
“You’re fine. I’ll keep the car steady.”
Holly hung her upper body between the seats. “Hold up his paw.”
“Get the needle in place,” I said.
“Seriously. Don’t say needle,” said Holly.
“Open your eyes, Holly,” said Summer.
I heard the click, and Holly shouted, “Did I do it? Did I get it? Summer, is it working?”
“Yes. There’s blood. I’m getting it,” Summer said excitedly. Happily.
“I do feel dizzy.”
“Don’t think about it,” I said immediately, soothingly. “Think about statutes and torts. Or contracts. Contracts make you feel steady, right? Stick the thing into the slot on the reader.”
Almost to herself she said, “Contracts don’t bleed.” There was a silence, and then: “Do you think Rosie is going through this right now? They’re probably taking her blood.”
The car hit a divot and wobbled. “Holly, concentrate on what we’re doing. Can you read the display?”
Holly, heroically holding it together, held the monitor up to the dome light and read, “It says, 2.98 mmol slash L.”
“His blood sugar is low. We need to give him something sweet.”
“There are cookies in my purse. I have cookies,” said Summer.
“He can’t eat a cookie,” I said. “He’s not totally awake. He might choke. We have to give him some syrup. Something to smear on his gums.”
“The squirt bottle in this kit is empty,” Holly said, sounding frantic.
“I have maple syrup!” Summer shouted suddenly. “It’s under your seat, Holly.”
Holly flipped around, and I heard her rummaging. “Got it! Thank God you’re a slob, Summer.”
“I am frugal,” she said primly.
Back on her knees, Holly peeled back the foil on the tub of faux pancake syrup. “Summer, can you open his mouth?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
It was quiet while Holly, I presumed, aimed cheap maple syrup into Peanut’s mouth.
“It’s getting in!” Summer said.
“Now massage his throat to help him swallow,” I instructed.
“His lips are floppy,” said Summer.
“Does it matter how much I give him? It’s kind of everywhere back here,” said Holly.
“That’s what diabetes is. They have to have some sugar but not too much,” I said.
“Peanutty, how you doing, big guy?” Holly crooned.
“Awww, Moose is licking him,” said Summer.
The cooing in the car was like a symphony of caring. Holly’s and Summer’s voices were high, calling encouragement of all kinds:
“Come on, buddy.”
“Katie loves you, big guy.”
“Moose, here, you missed a spot.”
“Come on, dude.”
Then Holly cried, “His eyes are open. He’s licking his lips!” She rotated on her knees and looked at me with triumph.
Summer put her hands up, and Holly slapped her ten. “Disaster averted!” Summer said.
“I’m going to let Peanut lick my fingers.” Holly’s voice trembled, but my heart swelled at her words. “But if you guys don’t mind, I might barf out the window again.”
“No, you won’t, Holly,” I said, my throat thick, my eyes wet. “You did it! You saved Peanut.”
“We saved Peanut,” she said. “We did it.”
She grabbed Summer’s and my hands with her sticky fingers, and my inner deer spirit animal whispered, Good job, ladies. Nicely done.
After Holly let go of my hand, I must have touched my eye because my left lid felt gummy and slow to respond when I blinked. Holly grabbed the water bottle from the cup holder and squirted it into the McDonald’s paper bag. She wiped her hands and gestured for mine.
I felt cool water in my palm and Holly’s warm hand cupping mine.
“Nice job back there. Med school isn’t far behind.”
“I haven’t had a flu shot without a Valium in years.”
“I was squeamish too. But, your college barfing, later working in the hospital, and being a mom takes the squeee out of the mish. If you know what I mean.”
“I’m never a fan of the mish, as you know.” She gestured for my other hand, and I reached across the steering wheel. “Maybe I’ll be more help to Rosie now.”
With Holly holding my hand, I had the courage to say, “When you love someone, you can handle all their wetness. Blood, poop, barf, all of it. It’s not enjoyable, but it’s an honor. This is why it was so easy for me to take care of you in college.” I flicked my gaze into the rearview mirror and saw Summer winking and gesturing to her headphones. Slipping them on, she covered her ears, gave me one of her magical thumbs-up, providing Holly and me the privacy to talk. “I need to know what happened to us, Holly. Can you finish what we started? Please tell me.”
Holly stopped rubbing and held my hand. I saw she was just as ready to put the past in order as I was. “You never read my letter, did you?”
My heart beat steadily, and my hands were calm on the steering wheel. “What letter?” I said.
“I realized it on this trip. You didn’t see it. Didn’t read it. That’s why I never heard from you.”
“Back up. What letter?”
“Before I left that morning. After graduation. I put a letter in that junky backpack we razzed you about. Your favorite thing in the world.”
“You wrote me a letter?”
Holly nodded.
I wanted to stop time, find that letter. “A pen exploded, everything was covered in blue ink. I dumped the backpack, didn’t even go through it. I threw it away.”
“There was a letter in the side pocket.” I heard Holly’s voice catch. “Oh, Samantha. I should have known that. I should have figured that out.”
The road sounds retreated; my head felt light. “This is what happened to us. Isn’t it?”
Holly’s face, filled with pain and loss. She shook her head as if wishing this all away.
“What did it say?” Strung between us was a heavy tension wire, a current of history and sadness passing back and forth and through the years. I saw the apartment again, two floors, like a town house, dated green Formica countertops in the kitchen around the corner from the main bedroom.
“It was a love letter.”
The breath went out of me. “Oh.” I touched my sternum. “A love letter. I see now. I get it. Holly. I didn’t understand.”
I thought about that night. I’d braided her short hair to keep it out of her face. Rubbed her back. Holly’s pajamas white with tiny horses. Helping her wash her face, throwing her jeans in the laundry. I reframed this memory with this new information. Lovers? Friends? What was the difference?
She brushed her hair away from her face, and I saw how hard this was for her. “I wrote it all in a letter. My phone and address where you could reach me. I was trying to figure it all out.”
I let myself feel the crushing loss of us, the abject misery of unrequited love, but it was visualizing Young Holly waiting for me to respond that made me groan with pain.
She stopped, sighed, started again. “I was terrified of my feelings for you. Of rejection. Of losing our friendship. Part of me didn’t want to talk about it, but even then I knew I couldn’t let it go. So when I didn’t hear from you, I was relieved and furious. I pretended it was all your fault. For years.” She washed her hand over her face and groaned. “What a stupid, stupid waste.”
My arms were so heavy on the steering wheel, my throat so dry. I glanced in the mirror, saw Summer’s sympathetic eyebrows, her wet eyes. I realized she was listening in, providing support from the back seat. “I’m . . .” I searched for the perfect words, wanting to get it right after so many empty years without Holly. “I am so sorry.” I looked at Holly, reached to cup her face with my hand. “I’m so filled with sorrow for you and me. And I’m . . . angry. But not at you. I’m angry at young me. And young you.” I took my foot off the gas, steered the car to the shoulder, heard the car crunch onto the gravel. I put the car in park. I took my seat belt off and turned with my arms out. Holly unbuckled her belt and leaned into me. I hadn’t hugged this woman in years and years, and yet she smelled like college and cake, like vanilla and best friend. Her long arms wrapped around me. My muscles remembered, and my heart beat like the wagging of a dog’s tail. I know this woman, it said. She’s home!
“Don’t apologize. That’s not right,” she said into my hair, her breath warming my temple.
“I’m not saying I’m sorry to you. I’m saying I feel deeply sorrowful.”
“Yeah. I owe you the apology.” She pulled back, looked me in the eye. She wanted to clear the air, but I saw something else. She wanted forgiveness and to be my friend.
“Homophobic,” I said, finally understanding.
“I wanted to stay righteous,” Holly said. “My anger was really rejection, and this was more important than our friendship. Rosie tried to tell me. She tried to make me see that maybe I didn’t understand everything. I wouldn’t listen.” She removed my hand from her cheek but didn’t let it go. “Coming out doesn’t mean you have everything figured out. The phrase says it all. Coming out is a process. It’s an opening door. There should be a term for post–coming out. Maybe arrived ? Like after you have your sexuality figured out in the context of this binary world. But nobody needs that phrase. Nobody has arrived. We’re all just moving through doorways with every person we meet. It’s a specific thing. Not a general thing.”
I thought of one of the many conversations Katie and I’d had over the years. We didn’t care that Holly was gay. We cared that she hadn’t told us. “Maybe it’s enough for her to come out—like is she required to send out announcements?” Katie said when we learned that Rosie and she were moving home together. Like together together. “For example, I knew I liked men, but I didn’t announce it. Why do we require people to announce the category of where their love sits if it’s not a man and woman?” Katie smiled. “I love assholes. Should I send a card to my Christmas list? Happy Holidays, everyone! I found a new jerk to date!” We’d laughed. Then I’d thought, I’m not on Holly’s Christmas list, which I knew was too whiny to say out loud.
“Katie and I speculated about what happened a lot. Neither of us had the answer because none of us had all the information.”
She let go of my hands and covered her face. “I’m so ashamed, Samantha.”
“Oh, Holly.” I felt her distress. “Don’t be. We were so young. I don’t think we should blame our younger selves for not being our older, more experienced selves.”
“I didn’t understand this back then, but I do now. Loving me like that wasn’t even in the realm of possibility for you. It never occurred to you. While with me, it was who I was. How could I have expected you to understand when I had my own troubles coming to terms with being gay. On top of that, I thought you’d read the letter and didn’t bother to respond.”
My throat closed, and I tried to clear it. I ached for the newly graduated Holly who’d left her best friend a love letter and that friend never responded. For all our lost years.
“I didn’t trust you.”
“I should have tried harder to find you. I should have fought for us. Maybe my dad was right. You get what you fight for, so you’d better learn to fight.” I rubbed her shoulder and said, “And, boy, do we know how to fight now.”
With her headphones around her neck Summer sat forward and joined our loose embrace. It was awkward, the three of us, the back of the front seat between us. We were all tearful and looking for something to say, to put this all behind us.
Summer, with a little twinkle, said, “I knew it was something like that, you guys; I just knew it.”
I dropped my head back with a laugh at the same time as Holly’s phone trilled and lit up with a FaceTime call from Rosie. Holly hit the green accept circle, and the phone screen illuminated her love, anxiety, and devotion meant only for Rosie.