Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (8 page)

Becky felt a rush of air against her cheek, like Judy was waving her comment away. “Beck, do you know how many times I’ve
skipped a step running up the stairs in my house? After all the knocks I’ve taken, I’ve now got shins of iron.
Anyone
could have done that.”

“That’s my point.” Becky quite carefully, quite deliberately, placed her fork down, fingering the linen tablecloth until she
found the spot for it right next to her plate. “Back home I just know these things. I know to walk carefully on the sidewalk
by the old Norway maple halfway to town because the roots of that tree have pushed up the pavement. I also know that the Reeses
never trim that ash tree in front of their house so I have to remember to dip my head not to get a branch in the eye.” Neighborhood
memory, a map she’d sketched in her head. “But here, in strange places, I know none of this detail. Plus it feels like the
whole European world is proportioned differently.”

The risers on the hotel stairs were lower than she expected. The step to get into a taxi was higher. The ratio of the seat
in a pub in relation to the table was different, somehow, so that in London she’d knocked her pint hard against the wood and
sent ale sloshing. Walking on cobblestones made her feel like she was stumbling over a loosely packed ball pit. Amsterdam
swarmed with bicycles, zooming without warning across her path.

 “I’m tripping up so much because everything is new,” she said. “It’s
not
because my eyesight is getting any worse.”

Monique’s voice, flat and straight. “Beck, we don’t think your eyesight is getting any worse.”

“Good. Then you both can stop seizing my elbow every time we approach a curb and warning me of every little obstacle. I have
to figure this out by myself.” Becky patted the table in search of her wine until her fingers came in contact with the round
bottom of the stemmed glass. “As long as the light is good, and the day is bright, then treat me like clumsy Becky Lorenzini,
who’s run whitewater on the Lehigh River, climbed the high ropes in the park, and is currently in charge of a somewhat successful
household. Just like the two of you.”

Monique was doing something with her fork upon her plate, the little tines making scratching noises. “The rules change at
night, though, don’t they?”

Becky suppressed a ripple of helpless frustration. She really didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Hadn’t she already told
them what they needed to know? She didn’t want to tell them about the dark puddle she’d seen on the floor of their hotel room
last night, only realizing afterward that what looked like motor oil was actually Judy’s slick new raincoat.

But Becky knew she wouldn’t win a face-off with Monique, not on this subject. “It’s true that my night vision is not so great,”
she conceded. “I see lights, but I have questionable depth perception. My doctor compared it to looking at the night sky.
You see a flat layer of stars. The truth is, those stars are hundreds of thousands of light years away from one another.”

Monique murmured, “Did you and Marco talk about all this?”

“Of course.”

“All of it? Like you just told Judy and me?”

“Verbatim? No.”

One beat between the words, and in the darkness, that hesitation revealed itself as too obvious a lie.

“You want to talk about that, Beck?” Monique asked. “Because though I’m glad to finally hear some detail about exactly how
this disease is affecting you, I get the sense that there’s something even more serious going on. Something you’ve been hesitant
to share with us, maybe?”

Becky’s insides went liquid. She hoped the chatter from the Germans and the clinking of dishes and the whole ambient noise
of the place covered up the swift hitch of her breath. Becky knew that Monique understood a lot about her disease. Monique
knew the medical jargon that filled those websites. And Monique had friends at the hospital—doctor friends—who could fill
her in on all the terrible details.

One particular detail Becky kept pushing out of her mind. It was unspeakable, inconceivable. It could not be true.

So she swiftly changed the subject. “Marco and I,” she stuttered, “had a very bad parting.”

Despite the Germans chattering just beside them, Becky felt the intensity of Monique’s and Judy’s attention, their magnetic
concentration on her words. Without seeing their faces she didn’t know if they caught on that she’d dodged the real question.

 “I bet he feels like a shit,” Judy said into the pause, “for blaming you for the fender benders and the lost keys and the
misplaced mail—”

 “Judy,” Monie interrupted, “why don’t you let Becky tell us exactly what’s on her mind?”

Becky heard the pat of Monique’s fingers on the table, searching amid the dishes, tugging the tablecloth in search of Becky’s
hand. Becky pulled her hands away and clutched them in her lap. She did not want comfort. She did not want to speak aloud
the unthinkable. Nor did she want to wade too deeply into the sucking, bottomless mess of her relationship with Marco.

So she condensed her fears into something simpler, something pithy, something that nonetheless cut to the bone.

“I used to dream,” she said, “that after Gina left for college, things might get better between Marco and me. You know I always
wanted a home like yours, Judy.”

“Filthy?” Judy chirped. “Broken-down and creaky?”

“Crawling with kids.”

In the awkward pause Monique made a choking sound while Judy drew in a slow, uneven breath.

“For a mother who is soon to go blind,” Becky said, “there can be no more little Lorenzinis.”

A
re we having fun yet?

Monique pulled the hood of her raincoat over her hair as she handed her ticket to the man at the pier in Cologne. It was a
grim, foggy sort of northern German day, not exactly perfect weather for a pleasure cruise down the Rhine River.

Becky, wrapped in a thin windbreaker, followed Monique over the worn pier to the ramp. Judy brought up the rear, grimacing
against the needles of rain and clutching her hood as her luggage bumped behind her. As soon as they ducked into the low-ceilinged
center of the boat, Judy spied the restaurant. “Coffee,” she groaned. Judy scraped her luggage around and planted it beside
Monique. “Check my luggage for me. I’ll save us a table by the window.”

Monique agreed and headed toward baggage check, Becky in tow. They’d had to check out at 8:30 a.m. from their hotel in a rather
grubby part of Cologne before taking a taxi to the pier. She wished she could blame their attitudes on the overcast day, or
the three-hour train ride from Amsterdam last night, or the heavy dinner they’d eaten—thick on the potatoes and the schnitzel.
She’d even like to blame it on the difficulty they’d had sleeping in a room that smelled like vinegary, fermenting sauerkraut.

But this trip shouldn’t feel like drudgery. She was German on her father’s side, through a line of Pennsylvania farmers that
stretched back to the Revolution. She should be soaking this up, even though all that remained of that heritage was a tendency
to enjoy scalloped potatoes and micro-brewed beer. Yesterday she, Becky, and Judy had gaped at the soaring nave of Cologne’s
famous medieval cathedral. Today this pleasure cruise promised a visual feast of castles, ruins, and little postcard-perfect
Rhine towns.

As she checked their luggage and wound her way back to the restaurant, she told herself to be happy. They were firmly on track
with the itinerary. She was checking another item off Lenny’s bucket list. That was, after all, what she’d come to Europe
to do.

They found Judy in the restaurant, nursing a cup of coffee. Two more cups steamed by a plate of pastries.

“Apfel,”
Judy said, pointing to what looked like an apple pastry.
“Schnecken.”
She nudged what looked like a bear claw and then pointed to a donut. “And a
Berliner.
My German language skills are rusty but I remember good pastry.”

 Monique sank into the booth and glanced out the window. On the deck were two rows of tables, one up against the railing and
another closer to the wall. Though some hardy souls were walking the deck, no one sat out in the rain. Even inside she could
smell the iron-tang of it, and feel the seeping cold. She curled her fingers around the coffee cup, wondering what Lenny would
have had to say about this soggy adventure, as the boat wobbled off the pier and chugged into the choppy current of the Rhine.

“So,” Judy said, “last night on the phone I had the pleasure of a stern lecture from Maddy.”

Monique lifted her mug in a vague toast. “Welcome to the teenagers-know-best club. Kiera’s a founding member.”

“Maddy’s no teenager anymore, but she spent her junior year abroad in Mainz. So apparently that means she’s an ‘expert’ in
foreign travel.”

“Oh, boy.” Becky bit into a donut.

“I told her about Amsterdam,” Judy said. “Does she ask me about the herring sandwiches, about the canals, the museums? No.
She screams at me that I’m crazy for walking the red light district. She says I may as well be walking the Patpong Road in
Bangkok.”

“If that’s some Asian red light district,” Monique said, “then I’ll just note that Maddy’s got a point. We did wander through
a pretty dangerous area last night.”

“Come on.” Judy flung out her arms. “Who’s going to sell
this
into sexual slavery?”

Behind the rim of her coffee cup Monique suppressed a smile. If she looked like Judy did in five years, she’d be one happy
woman. Judy was a smidge soft in the middle in the way Monique felt herself getting lately, despite the regular exercise,
but Judy’s light brown hair was thick and shiny. Judy’s best feature was the gathering of lines at the corners of her eyes—proof
that she’d spent a good part of her life laughing.

Becky wiped the crumbs from her mouth. “I’m surprised at you. You should have told Maddy you were just trying to find a reputable
smart shop to buy some weed.”

“But you had trouble,” Monique added, “and decided to opt for mushrooms.”

Judy shook her head. “It wouldn’t work.”

“Why not?” Monique reached for the strudel. “Are you telling me Maddy doesn’t know about your sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll
past?”

“Absolutely not. She thinks I’m completely naive. If I’d had my wits about me, I would have told her I was stocking up on
sex toys for myself and her father.”

Becky nearly spit her coffee across the table. Monique thrust a fresh napkin at her before she stained her shirt.

“Now you’ve heard my tale of woe,” Judy said, “so spill, Monique. How did Kiera correct
you
last night?”

Monique didn’t answer right away. She pulled another napkin and soaked a few drops of coffee off the battered tabletop. She
had called home late last night while standing in the dim hotel corridor, near an interior window so her service could roam
and find a signal. There’d been particularly long, awkward pauses between her intentionally upbeat questions and Kiera’s curt
responses. She couldn’t even blame the disconnect between them on the delay or the terrible static. It had been a relief when
the call finally dropped.

“As expected, Kiera still hasn’t forgiven me,” she said, tucking the wadded napkin aside, “for the unspeakable act of abandoning
her in the middle of her senior year.”

“Drama queen.” Judy raised her palm in humble defense. “And I mean that in the fondest of ways.”

“She is milking it. Like a true director, she has decided to cast me in the role of the Bad Mommy.”

Becky said, “You know she’ll come around.”

“Maybe after my mother has softened her up with fried cod and shark and bake and
katchouri
.”

“Ohhhh.” Becky gave herself a little shake. “I love those vegetable fritters. You think there’ll be leftovers?”

“See? I’m doomed. My mother’s got sweet hands and I don’t. When I get back, Kiera will move in with her.”

“You know this is emotional blackmail.” Judy stretched her arm across the back of the booth. “Kiera’s reacting in that knee-jerk,
thoughtlessly hurtful way teenagers do. You can’t allow her to do that.”

In a cold-blooded intellectual way Monique understood what Judy was saying. But she was emotionally attached to her daughter
by deep hooks. After Lenny’s death Monique had dug them even deeper, mooring Kiera even closer to her, so the grief of her
father’s death wouldn’t sweep the sensitive young girl away. “I’m here, aren’t I?” Still feeling guilty as sin. “No law says
I can’t feel bad about making that decision.”

“Wow.” Becky picked at her apple strudel. “I guess I ought to be grateful I didn’t get international calling on my cell phone.”

 “That is ironic, because of the three of us,” Judy said, tapping the table in front of Becky, “you should definitely call.
Your kids are young and malleable. They won’t lecture you or chide you or make you feel guilty. They’ll slather you with love
and transatlantic air kisses on demand.”

“You’re welcome to use my phone.” Monie nudged the daypack she’d hung on the spindle of the chair. “Just say the word.”

Becky turned her dark blue gaze to the window, to some fixed but indeterminate spot. In the stretching silence, Monique noticed
a muscle twitch at the corner of Becky’s eye and the sudden tightness of her jaw. Monique couldn’t help but remember the whole
difficult conversation they’d had the other night in Amsterdam. Becky was holding back secrets upon secrets. Monique wondered
how long it would be before the woman finally broke down.

So Monique unzipped her hoodie and deliberately changed the subject. “Ugly river, isn’t it? I can’t see a darn thing out there.”

“You know what? I need some air.” Becky shot up, knocking the chair back. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

Monique sat with Judy for as long as she could, worrying over their mutual friend, while a distracted Judy tried to parse
out the slangy conversation of the young Germans at the next table. Finally, swinging her leg onto Becky’s chair in order
to massage her knee, Judy ordered Monie to stop squirming and just chase Becky down. Monique leapt up, pulled on her damp
raincoat, tugged the hood over her head, and set off to search the boat.

She caught up with Becky twenty minutes later, doing brisk-walking laps on the mostly empty upper deck.

Monique fell into step beside her. “Old habits die hard, huh?”

“That Wiener schnitzel is still expanding in my stomach.”

“It’s already taking up residence on my hips. I’ll join you. It’ll feel good to work off some of those calories.”

“I’d be happy to work off the damn black cloud hanging over me. The one that I’ve thrown over this whole vacation.”

Huh, Monique thought, so she wasn’t alone in that feeling. “I’m holding up my end of the wet blanket too.”

“Why did Lenny want to do this, anyway? You told me he hated boats.”

“That’s true. My uncle in Trinidad once took him trolling for bait fish in Las Cuevas Bay, and Lenny spent the whole time
vomiting off the side of the dinghy.” Monique remembered how Lenny looked that night as he stumbled in, his skin as gray as
a dead fish. “He called it ‘chumming the waters.’”

 “I guess this is a big, lumbering engine-driven boat,” Becky conceded, “and on a river rather than the open ocean…but still.
It seems so un-Lenny.”

“Lenny’s list was a collection of dreams. In dreams no one gets seasickness.”

“Ah.”

“Besides he was lured by the promise of German beer.” Monique glanced toward a cluster of Germans at the bow, seemingly oblivious
to the needles of rain, raising steins as they belted out a drinking song.

“Didn’t Lenny know he could get German beer onshore?”

“The Rhine cruise he’d read about involved stopping at various cities and touring breweries. I told him while he hit the breweries
I’d do the churches and castles.”

She remembered him sitting with a hospital blanket over his lap giving her a full-cheeked grin and a rumble of approving laughter
as he’d murmured,
that’s why I married you.

“Well, this is one butt-ugly industrial stretch of river.” Becky nodded to the enormous smokestack-like structures looming
up on the bank.

“I believe that’s a nuclear power plant.”

“I hope it’s reactive. Mutate away, oh nuclear power plant.” Becky found interest in the gray froth of the boat's wake. “Maybe
I should drink this river water. It’s not like I’m going to breed anymore.”

Monique didn’t look at Becky. Instead she tugged her hood farther over her hair as the drizzle persisted. Becky must have
been that kind of teenager—the kind that only really talked about serious things in the dark, or while power-walking, or riding
in the car, eyes facing forward. Kiera wasn’t like that at all—she was the oversharing kind—so Monique’s experience was limited.
But Judy once confessed that all three of her boys had been uncommunicative. Judy would abandon dinner while it was frying
in the pan, just so she was available for any drop off or pick up, in order to seize an opportunity for ten minutes of real
conversation.

And so Monique waited in stillness, her breath coming in little cold puffs. Her professors never taught this while she was
studying nursing in school. It was a technique she’d learned over years of coping with grieving patients and devastated families
in the ER. Hard news sometimes took weeks or even months to fully sink in. There was simply no substitute for time. So Monique
did what she’d been doing since the day she found out about her friend’s diagnosis. She gave Becky all the time and space
and silence the woman might need to gather her courage. And she made sure Becky knew by her constant presence that she was
available whenever Becky was ready to talk.

It took one circuit of the boat deck.

“Monie,” Becky said. “Why didn’t you and Lenny have more children?”

Monique kept walking briskly but her mind had come to a complete stop. So, apparently, had her breathing, because halfway
across the deck she found herself choking in deep gulps of air that smelled of damp ink and moldering paper, rising up from
the discarded newspapers on the scattered tables.

 Her mind hurled back to her first date with Lenny, casual over coffee in the hospital cafeteria. It had been raining then
too, fat droplets hitting the glass window by their seat. He’d talked about what he aimed on doing with his life.

She’d expected him to say what the young doctors always chattered about: Choosing their specialty, how many more years of
training they had, how little they slept, how they couldn’t wait until they made a real salary. But the first thing out of
Lenny’s mouth, Louisiana-slow in that rumbling baritone of his, was his insistence on having a sane life. He didn’t want to
get torn away from his wife in the middle of the night to deliver babies. He didn’t want to travel the world teaching one
special, specific surgical technique. He was happily bumping from one department to another right now, he’d told her, doing
six-week rotations to see what’s what, but he already knew he was going into radiology. He wanted to stay married, buy a decent
house, work in a solid practice, and coach his kids in soccer.

She’d all but melted into the molded plastic seat.

“You don’t have to answer, Monie.” Becky reached out to trail her cold-pinked fingers along the boat railing. “It’s none of
my business. It’s just that a year after he died, you were training for the NICU. We all wondered why the change. Why
that
change.”

This question had an easier answer than the first. Monique grasped it so she wouldn’t have to respond to the earlier one.
“The ER is a crazy place to work, Beck. When I came back after taking family leave, I’d forgotten how frenetic it could be.”