A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [7]
Bridget smothered a half laugh. “Lindsay, you’re awful.” And then she sighed. “You know what else is awful? I’m glad the kids are gone. They get on my nerves. I don’t know them anymore, I hardly even know how to have a conversation with them, and I’m not . . .” She paused and sipped her whiskey. “Entirely sure I like them.”
The silence from the other two was understanding and nonjudgmental. They sat and drank without talking for a while, comfortable together in the way that is only possible between those who have known all the best and most of the worst of each other.
Their friendship had begun twenty-three years ago, when Cici, who lived on the cul-de-sac at 118 Huntington Lane, had sold Lindsay the house at 115 Huntington Lane, which was next door to Bridget, at 117. Bridget’s dog had promptly bitten Lindsay’s husband, and Cici, in an attempt to try to avoid a lawsuit and preserve her commission, had taken them all out to dinner. As it turned out, Bridget’s husband Jim was held up at work and Lindsay showed up at the restaurant without the person for whom the entire outing was arranged, because, as she announced without hesitation to the other two, her husband was a jerk and didn’t deserve to eat.
Two hours and twelve mai tais later, the three women had shared far too many secrets and laughs to ever be mere neighbors again. Less than a year later, Lindsay had divorced her husband, and even though the offending pooch had gone on to his Great Reward years ago, Lindsay still sent Bridget flowers on the dog’s birthday.
Together they had founded the Huntington Lane Reading Group, the Huntington Lane Neighborhood Watch, the Children’s Food Drive, and the Animal Rescue League. They had taken twenty-eight vacations together, and had spent every Christmas together since the time they met. When Bridget’s son Kevin had chased a ball into the street and been struck by a car, neither Cici nor Lindsay had left the hospital for the three days he was in a coma. Afterwards, quietly and without being asked, they took over the running of Bridget’s household, shopping, cooking meals, picking up Katie from school, until Kevin was home from the hospital and life was back to normal again. When Cici moved her mother into her home to care for her during her last months of life, Lindsay and Bridget had taken turns providing respite care. When Lindsay totaled her car during an ice storm one January, it was Bridget and Cici that the nurse called from the ER at two in the morning.
But those were not the things that made a moment like this possible, as they sat in easy, comforting silence in the cold dusk of loss. Such a moment was the result of a thousand cups of coffee, an endless stream of phone calls, shared diets, bad dates, and ruthless assessments of how the two-piece swimsuit really looked. They had gone from homework hotlines to hot flashes together, and everything in between. When Bridget said she wasn’t sure she liked her children anymore, what she really meant was that the only people she wanted with her right now were the two women at her side. Lindsay and Cici understood that, and that was why they did not have to say anything.
When her glass was almost empty, Bridget sighed, looked around the room, and said, “I can’t stay here. How can I stay here?”
Cici said hesitantly, “Do you mean—do you want me to sell your house?”
Bridget shook her head vehemently. “I love this house! I don’t want to sell my house. But how can I stay here? How can I take care of everything by myself?”
Both Lindsay and Cici, who had been taking care of everything by themselves for years, looked a little confused. “Like what? What things?”
“Oh, you know.” She made a clumsy, wavering gesture with her hand that encompassed the room, and then briefly blotted a tear from one eye with her knuckles. “The gutters. The storm windows. The lawn. Everything.”
“Oh, is that all?” Cici waved it away. “You can learn how to do that stuff. I’ll show you.”
“I don’t want to learn how to do it,” she said, sniffling. “I’m afraid of ladders. I hate