A Child's Wish

“About as long as I’ve known you, and you can be falling apart inside but I won’t know it until it actually shows on the outside.”

The knife slipped from Meredith’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be!” Susan’s talented, steady fingers closed over Meredith’s, drawing her gaze downward first and then to Susan’s eyes. “I need you, Mer. I rely on you to understand me when I can’t see myself—to find me in the muck and pull me out.”

“I’m not a magician. Nor am I always right.”

“Of course not. You aren’t always tuned in, either. I love you for all kinds of different things, but this gift you have…I want you to know that I realize how important it is. I believe with all my heart that it’s as real as you are.”

Meredith’s eyes rimmed with tears she didn’t even try to hide. It’d been a long few days filled with far too much emotion, leaving little time for the familiar routines of life. Everyday events she needed in order to keep everything in perspective.

“So tell me what’s going on with you,” she said a moment later. “Is there a problem with Mark?”

“No.” Susan sounded sure, but her eyes were clouded. “He’s a great guy,” she continued. “Warm, considerate, patient, funny. Sexy as hell….”

Meredith reached for the butter knife again, twirling the little handle back and forth between her fingers. It wasn’t that she was prudish, but she didn’t need to hear about Mark and Susan doing…it. Didn’t need to think about Mark in that way.

Because it was too easy to picture?

Please, no, don’t let it be that.

“So what’s the problem?” she asked, pulling her mind firmly back to the conversation. “He’s sexy, but you aren’t turned on by him?”

Why the hell had she said that?

“Oh, no, I am!” Susan grinned. “Every single time he kisses me I want to go to bed with him.”

Now, Meredith desperately wanted to change the subject. And if that was odd, considering that she and Susan had been best friends when they’d lost their virginity and had always spoken openly with each other about intimate topics, she wasn’t about to ask herself why.

She had too many other things to worry over at the moment.

“The problem is the rest of the time,” Susan said, her voice dropping. “I look forward to seeing Mark and I want to spend as much time with him as I can, but I don’t feel…I don’t know…like I’ve arrived yet. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.” Meredith wished she could take that lost look from Susan’s eyes, the feeling from her heart. “You aren’t trusting in a future.”

Susan’s eyes were moist as she glanced up—wet and fearful. “What if I never do, Mer? I mean, how can I? I know firsthand that there are no guarantees, that nothing lasts forever. That you can get up one morning, shower and have breakfast as you always do, go to work, looking forward to the day, the evening ahead, the weekend to come, and by afternoon, with one phone call, all hope of a future is wiped away.”

“Bud’s future is gone, but yours isn’t. It’s just changed. And as long as you’re alive, that future is a guarantee. When you’re dead, it’s gone—but then so are you.”

Trite words, maybe. But Meredith felt the truth of them clear to her core. “It’s up to you to put the promise back in your future, Susan. Or not to, in which case you’re right and you’ll never have it again.”

“I mentioned Bud the other night, when I was with Mark.”

“And?”

“I started to cry.”

“And Mark was good to you, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Susan’s gaze lightened as she smiled softly. “He was.”

“TOMMY BARNETT transferred schools today.”

“Shit.”

The two women were still sitting at the table, nursing their wine. It had been weeks since they’d spent this much time together. Meredith hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it. Susan was one of the few people with whom she felt completely safe—with whom she didn’t have to hide or filter her natural reactions, her thoughts.

“Mark threatened to fire me if there are any more ‘episodes.’” She said the word as if it were nasty and needed to be hidden.

“He’s blind as a bat on this one, but he has a good heart.”

“I know.” Meredith nodded. “Otherwise I’d never have trusted him with you.”

Susan sat back, wineglass in hand, slowly sipping. “I just wish I got along better with Kelsey.”

Meredith did, too. She was missing something there. They all were. In her spare time, when she thought about it, it was driving her crazy. “She’ll come around,” was the best she could manage to offer.

“Do you really think so?”

Oh, no. Susan was giving her that look: she wanted complete truth.

“I think it’s possible,” Meredith said slowly, trying her best to differentiate between what she thought and what she felt—to separate it all from the depression that had been threatening to descend ever since she’d been summoned to Mark’s office the previous Friday.

Susan nodded. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Because Mark meant that much to her. Which was exactly what Meredith wanted for her.

So why did the thought make her melancholy when it should have brought her joy? Was her own situation pulling her that far down?

If so, she was going to have to do something to change that. Immediately.

“You want to go for ice cream?”

“A banana pie creamie?”

The first time they’d shared that concoction from a local ice cream carry-out chain, they’d been in college.

“We could take one to Mark.” If she came bearing a delight to feed his ice-cream fetish, maybe he wouldn’t dislike her so much.

“Kelsey loves cookie dough,” Susan said.

“There you go! You’re already learning how to please her.” Meredith began to clear the table, and with Susan’s help they made short work of the dishes. “All it takes is paying attention to the little things and Kelsey’ll come around,” Meredith assured her friend as they drove across town in Susan’s silver BMW. She hoped she was right and that it would really be that easy. “Kelsey’s like anyone else,” she added. “She just needs to know that she matters.”

“Did Mark tell you she refused to go see her best friend from across town today? He’d made arrangements with the girl’s mother and had to call and cancel that, too.”

“Mark and I weren’t exactly on speaking terms today,” Meredith said slowly, thinking about Kelsey. “Did she and Lucy have a fight?”

“Apparently not.”