Chapter 9
Of course I started a diary. As Ness suggested, I wrote about my thoughts and my feelings and my imaginations—whatever came to my mind.
It felt strange. I’d been raised in a house where feelings were something you folded up and put away, like winter jumpers in the spring.
But with a pencil in hand, I found I could make sense of my feelings.
It was like cracking open a secret room in my own brain.
Oftentimes I found myself writing about Cess and Ness’s friendship.
It seemed to me that there was something magical about it.
Part of it was that it was unusual. Most women their age spent most of their time with their husbands and children, or occasionally with their husbands’ friends’ wives.
It was uncommon to see two unmarried women attending Mass together, doing their grocery shopping, visiting the theater.
Because of this Cess and Ness were often the subject of whispers about town.
Perhaps this was the reason Ness spent a lot of time at our house, away from gossip and prying eyes.
Cess and Ness loved to talk. I remember marveling that after so many years of friendship, they still had so much to talk about.
Eavesdropping was among my favorite pastimes when Cess and Ness were talking.
They always had the most salacious gossip—about our local priest, about the neighbors, about the fathers of kids I knew who had become a little too friendly with one of them at the parish ball.
The only thing better than listening to their gossip was listening to the wonderful, baffling way they knew what the other was saying, without needing to use full sentences.
“Cess?” Ness would say. “Do you—”
“Yes, okay, but let me just—”
“Of course, I’ll help you.”
And then they’d walk as one to the laundry, take baskets of wet clothes outside, and hang them out on the clothesline.
When I asked how they always seemed to know what the other was about to say, they looked just as puzzled as I was.
“A feeling?” Ness ventured.
“Experience,” Cess said, more confidently. “When you’ve been friends as long as we have, you start to notice the patterns. I always know what Ness is thinking.”
Ness chuckled. “Usually even before I do.”
“You’re bosom friends,” I said once. “Like Anne Shirley and Diana.”
They exchanged a glance, then a smile.
I don’t know exactly what it was about that moment—but it made my chest ache. I felt happy watching them, and at the same time, like I might cry. I wanted what they had—badly.
It was like spotting a beautiful car you knew you’d never be able to afford. You were glad it existed. But sad it would never be yours.