Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (25 page)

A
swirling fog obscured the skyline of New York City as the plane approached Newark Airport. With a book open on her lap Monique
rolled her shoulders to shift the kinks out of them. The trip back to the States was a twelve-hour odyssey including a two-hour
layover in London, and now she felt as if sandpaper lined the inner membrane of her eyelids. After rereading the same paragraph
a half dozen times, she finally flipped the book closed.

Over the sound system the pilot mumbled instructions to the stewardesses to prepare for final descent. She buried her chin
in the silk scarf wound about her neck, feeling the urgency of the looming home schedule with every queasy drop. Kiera’s college
applications waited, as did the Monday shift at the NICU. No doubt there’d be groceries to be bought, mail to sort through,
laundry to be done, bills to be paid. All of this drummed in her head while her limbic brain continued to experience the euphoric
moment she’d hurled herself off the Ponte Colossus to free-fall into that Italian gorge.

Becky elbowed her. “Stop pulling at your hair. There’s not going to be a braid left unraveled.”

Monique suddenly realized she was staring at the frizzy end of one of her braids. She dropped her hand and mentally added
a salon appointment to her unwritten list. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll stop tugging my hair if you stop jiggling your leg.
You’re making the whole seat vibrate.”

Becky forcibly stopped. “Did Marco text you yet?”

“The phone is off, Beck.”

“I’m an idiot.” Little white teeth chewed on a lip, swollen and red. “I shouldn’t have told him to bring the kids.”

Monique slipped the book into the daypack at her feet and then pushed the battered thing under the seat, remembering that
Becky had a boatload of issues waiting for her at home, much more serious than hers. “Beck, right now they’re leaping around
outside customs, bursting with excitement to see you.”

“They shouldn’t take a day off from school.”

“Why? They might miss show-and-tell or adventures with the letter E?”

“I wasn’t thinking straight when I spoke to Marco during the layover.” Becky pulled the edges of her cardigan across her chest.
“I could tell—he hesitated to agree. He took my suggestion the wrong way.”

“Beck,” she said tentatively, “don’t you think you might be reading too much into a bit of satellite interference?”

 “He’ll think I want them there as a buffer. You know, like they usually are. Two demanding urchins to focus on so we don’t
have to deal directly with each another.”

Becky no longer jiggled her leg, but a new set of vibrations now shimmered between them. During their last supper in Milan
Becky had confessed the trouble that had been growing between her and Marco, trouble that until that moment she and Judy had
only guessed at. It was a story of deep disagreements and long silences, of ugly compromises and terribly faulty communication.
Despite the painful details Monique was relieved that Becky had finally felt comfortable enough to open up and ask for advice.

Monique could only hope it wasn’t too late for the couple. Inwardly she felt helpless in the face of such marital strife.
She and Lenny had had fifteen years and they’d never really had anything approaching a fight. If something did come up between
them—a disagreement over which couch to buy, or a conflict about whose family they should visit over the holidays, or different
points of view over how they should invest their retirement money—Lenny had the knack of defusing it with humor. Nothing had
ever seemed so grave to unravel the thickly woven rope of their relationship.

Then she let her mind drift down a road she’d never before considered—an act she’d been doing with increasing frequency in
the twenty-odd hours since she’d hurled herself into the Italian abyss. It used to be, when she dreamed of what her life would
have been like had Lenny lived, that she’d imagined a more mature version of their younger bliss. But in the face of Becky’s
troubles Monique conceded that maybe she and Lenny had just been lucky.

Certainly they’d never faced the teen years and the distinctive troubles they bring. Had Lenny seen Kiera in a grass-smeared
dress after the junior prom, the black strap of her bra dangling, smelling of cheap beer as she stumbled out of her date’s
car…well, in the face of Kiera’s confessional apologies, Monique had chosen to be lenient…but Monique knew Lenny would not
have been. His mother was an alcoholic, an ugly truth everyone in his family let simmer in a Southern hush. Monique knew Kiera’s
behavior would have pushed him well past the limits of his good nature, and triggered a swift and likely ill-conceived response.

She reached over to take Becky’s hand, wondering how far she should venture into the thicket of Lorenzini marital woes. “Honestly,
Beck, I think you should just stick to the plan.”

“That plan is too simple.”

Bombs, bombs, buried on every side. “Sometimes the most complicated situations have the simplest solutions.”

“I should have left breadcrumbs.”

“Huh?”

“Before Gina came, Marco and I were good together. I should have left breadcrumbs,” she explained, “to find the road back.”

Words failed her. So Monique did the only thing she could think of: She cradled her friend’s hand all through the descent.
She was still holding it when the plane landed on the tarmac in a gray fog and taxied toward the gate.

Becky released her only to reach across the aisle and nudge Judy, who’d slept through the flight and the jumpy landing.

Judy sputtered awake.
“Où sommes-nous?”

“We’re home,” Becky said, “where we speak English.”

Judy shifted higher in the seat and then squinted out into the gloom, past the young British businessman sitting beside her
in the window seat (Judy, as they boarded, breathed
thank God he’s skinny
). “You know, I dreamed we got rerouted. To Sicily. Or was it Madrid? I can’t remember. Gawd I’m still exhausted. What time
is it?”

Monique flipped her phone up to check the face. “It’s almost one thirty p.m. That’s about seven thirty in the morning, Italian
time.”

“I’m going to sleep for six straight days.” Judy stretched her arms above her head. “At least it’s raining here. Rain means
that I don’t have to mow the lawn.”

The plane finally reached the gate. Travelers began unbuckling their seat belts, standing up, reaching for the overhead bins.
Monique gathered her luggage and wiggled out of her seat behind Becky, then headed down the aisle, over the ramp, and into
the airport. They followed signs to the baggage carousel where they looked for the fine designer suitcase Judy had bought
in Milan to carry all their purchases. The lines for customs were blessedly thin in the middle of the afternoon, and, in spite
of the rather random and thorough inspection of her luggage with its bag full of dirty underwear, they were soon walking out
into a reception area of the international airport.

Bob saw them first. He raised his hand and waved it wide. Judy darted from her side and made a beeline to her husband. The
place was swarming with people so Monique curled her hand around Becky’s elbow to guide her—but then she heard the familiar
shrieks of two young children. Knee-high out of the chaos, Brianna and Brian bulleted toward them, throwing themselves against
their mother. With a grunt Becky dropped to their level, seized them close, and then tried to take in everything they were
saying all at once.

Monique stepped away to give them a little privacy, hoping that she’d get as enthusiastic a greeting from Kiera when she got
home. She doubted it. After the single plaintive text Monique had received in Italy and Monique’s own text reassurance, Kiera’s
communications had reverted to the curt, breezy, yeah-I’ll-see-you-when-you’re-finally-home mode.

Marco wandered over to join them, running his fingers through his thick black hair. Monique watched as Becky raised her head
a moment and caught his eye. Then, just as swiftly, Becky bent over Brian, shielding her expression with the sweep of her
hair, ostensibly to hear something her son was trying to say over his more socially gregarious sister’s monologue. Monique
watched Marco’s smile dim. He flexed his broad shoulders and shoved his hands in his pockets, his chest rising and falling
on a sigh.

Monique frowned. Already Becky wasn’t following the plan. Monique swiftly changed her expression into a welcoming smile as
Marco caught her eye and approached.

He gave her a dry buss on the cheek. “Welcome home, weary traveler.”

“It’s good to be back.”

“Do you believe them?” He tilted his head at Judy and Bob, who were giving the stream of international arrivals a passionate,
live-action lesson in French kissing.

 “I guess that’s what happens after five kids leave home.”

His smile hardened like concrete. “So was it a good trip?”

“Fabulous, but for the last twelve hours. We had a rough patch of turbulence over the Atlantic.”

Judy and Bob were still at it, not kissing anymore, but now hugging and chatting, their mouths inches apart, rocking back
and forth, gazes locked, a couple of fifty-year-old lovebirds. And Becky was still ignoring her husband, using her children
as a buffer.

“Hey, Marco,” Monique said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence, “do you think I could hitch a ride home in your minivan?
I don’t think Judy and Bob are going to make it out of the parking garage with their clothes on.”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

Becky finally rose from her crouch. Her hands were lost in her children’s hair and her blue gaze was uncertain. Marco caught
that gaze. Without pulling his hands from his pockets, he stretched forward to offer what Monique expected would be a publically
acceptable, perfectly perfunctory kiss. But Becky at the last minute lowered her head to whisper something to Brianna which
made the little girl laugh and spin away on the slippery sole of one shoe. Becky then petted Brian’s head and the boy took
a pouting step away. Just as Marco took one step closer, Becky took a step toward him. The result was the dull thunk of Becky’s
head against Marco’s stiff and stubbly jaw.

Marco stepped back, off-balance, clutching his jaw as Becky winced. After a moment Becky’s lips twitched, and then Marco’s
did too. Monique squinted, thinking maybe something had just passed between the couple, a little stuttered spark, a moment
of awareness. With more hesitation Marco and Becky attempted to cross the distance that separated them, and then they sealed
it with a kiss.

Monique felt a little shimmer watching that kiss—short, but certainly not perfunctory—and her own heart went fluttery.
That
was most definitely in the plan. Fairy tales always ended with a kiss.

She stood patiently while Becky and Marco talked to one another while ignoring the kids tugging at their pants. Their voices
were polite, and their words most carefully chosen, but at least they were communicating. Judy and Bob still clasped hands
and chatted. Monique waited, taking in the airy space of the international airport, searching for someplace for her gaze to
land.

No one waited for Monique Franke-Reed.

The thought didn’t hurt as much as it could have. Her leap of faith off an Italian bridge had changed her. This hollow in
her chest didn’t really feel empty. Already the imprint was filling with a new sense of warmth and fullness, like the welcome
burden of a swaddled newborn, clasped close against her breast.

Monique pushed the door open and walked into the house. She dropped her daypack to the floor and jerked her rolling luggage
to a stop. She called out her mother’s name, but there was no response. Kiera had already texted her that she wouldn’t be
home from school for another hour, but Monique had expected her mother to be waiting. She glanced at the dining room table
and saw a note pinned by a coffee mug next to a teetering pile of mail and a separate pile of flyers from colleges.

Monique picked up the note. Her mother wrote that she hoped to be home before Monique arrived, but first she had to make a
quick trip to the Caribbean market in Irvington to pick up dasheen leaves.

Monique smiled, put the note back on the table, and glanced around her empty house. She’d only been away for two weeks, but
her body still suffered that sense of stretching dislocation she always felt when she traveled. She took a deep breath and
tried to pull her spirit back into this place. The scent of curry tickled her sinuses. A pile of Kiera’s discarded shoes lay
heaped just behind the door. Her gaze caught on her mother’s knitting splayed over the arm of a chair in the living room,
a chair that had been moved so that it sat in a pool of afternoon sunlight.

The breathing emptiness in her home was a palpable thing, like a drop in pressure, like the thinness of alpine air. Lenny
didn’t live here anymore. She knew this already. But she supposed Becky was right. There was a world of difference between
knowing and acknowledging.

Monique slogged up the stairs to her bedroom, hefting her luggage up one step at a time, every knock of the wheels against
the stairs reverberating through her bones. She slipped her purse through a patina of dust on her bureau. Mentally she added
another item to her list: Give the house a good attic-to-basement cleaning before she went back to work on Monday. She paused
to caress the frame of a photo of Lenny and Kiera.

How young he was.

She turned away and hauled her luggage onto her bed. As she unzipped the top bulged open, dislodging a few pairs of underwear
onto the comforter. She pulled the laundry basket out of the closet—already half full with Kiera’s clothes—and by handfuls
she added the contents of her daypack atop a dirty crew uniform and muddy sweatpants.

She was halfway done when she heard the front door swing open.

Kiera’s excited, high-pitched voice called, “Mom?!”

“I’m up here, hon.”

Kiera took the stairs so fast that Monique hadn’t yet rounded the end of the bed before the teenager tore through the hall
and into her room.