Chapter 27 Another Life #4
Nev pointed to her watch. It was midnight.
“You have school tomorrow,” Ronnie said. “I have to let you go.”
“Awww…”
“Call me any time. If I don’t answer, call back. Goodnight, babe.”
“Tell Nev I say goodnight.”
She turned to Nev. “Rainbow says goodnight.”
“Tell her I say tootle-oo.”
“Nev says tootle-oo.”
“Love you, mum.”
“Love you.”
Ronnie felt lighter after she tossed her phone on the duvet. Rainbow had named the embryo Riley of all things. The ectopic was a distraction, but it had reminded her how precious this relationship with her daughter was. Rainbow was the ball and the goal.
Time to move past the lost years, let go of what had been stolen from her, and focus on making the most of the years they had left. Rainbow wouldn’t be a child much longer. Puberty was a critical time in a girl’s life. She would be there for her daughter in a way her own mother hadn’t been.
“You look like you figured something out,” Nev said.
“She’s so great. I love her so much.”
“She’s a keeper,” Nev agreed.
“So are you.” A vision of the future she wanted, shifting into focus.
“You’re my person. You’re not a substitute or a placeholder.
If I was dating someone, I’d still be here with you right now.
You’re my bezzie. This is where I want to be.
I don’t care if it’s childish to have a best friend.
I don’t ever want to stop doing this. There’s things I share with you that I wouldn’t share with a girl I was dating.
We’re past that. We’re approaching family territory. ”
“Wow. Okay.”
“Now you say something.”
Nev looked at her, then licked her lips.
“You think I’ll disappear as soon as I start dating again?”
“That’s generally how this goes.”
Damn… Objective fact stated without judgement: a masterclass in maturity. Nev continued. “I’m supportive of you. I don’t have an opinion. I’m not allowed to have an opinion.”
“What do you mean?”
Silence.
“Am I way off base here?” Ronnie asked.
Nev shook her head.
“Is it cringey when I call you my best mate?”
Nev shook her head. “I wouldn’t use those words, but I don’t mind if you do. You’re so young. I don’t want to rub off on you.”
“You think because we keep this on the DL that there’s something wrong with it, something icky?”
“We haven’t done anything, Dain’y. Not embarrassed. Not a secret.”
“I’m not embarrassed either. I don’t think we need to put a label on this.”
“Don’t overthink it, Dain’y. I love having you in my life—but this isn’t a relationship. Besides, talking about feelings kills them.”
“It is a relationship. You don’t actually believe that.”
“I guess not. I guess I’m full of shite.”
“We have a tree baby,” Ronnie said. There. She had said it.
Nev blushed and rubbed the side of her nose.
Ronnie laughed. “We’re tree parents.”
“It sounds ridiculous.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“There’s an element of magical thinking involved,” Nev said.
“Not really. This relationship has value and deserves to take up space. I factor you into my long-term plans. If we ever start to hate each other, we’ll go to counseling together.”
“Wow, okay. You’re doing some unhealthy codependent thing.
Let’s not micromanage this to death. It needs to breathe.
Friendships evolve. They’re organic. Friends go through seasons of intimacy and distance.
That’s healthy. It doesn’t have to be prescriptive.
There might be years when we don’t see each other. ”
“When? The only time we don’t hang out is when you’re in Rwanda. Are you planning to move away?”
“No. That was hypothetical.”
“Why would we not see each other?”
“Relax. Your hormones are all over the place. Your body thinks you gave birth. Your estrogen is up and your testosterone is down.”
Ronnie sighed in frustration. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I still have valid thoughts when I’m hormonal. You’re on the same roller coaster I am.”
“I didn’t have major surgery on my reproductive system. You’re more hormonal that I am.”
“Stop talking about it, please.”
Nev looked like she hadn’t been sleeping well. Ronnie knew her friend had been staying up late drinking and waking earlier than usual, burning the candle at both ends.
“Lie down,” Ronnie said. The older woman’s shoulders and upper back were full of knots. Nev’s fingers were work-scabbed on the forefinger knuckles, rough from a quarter century of farming without work gloves.
Nev turned out the light. “I have to work in the morning.”
Ronnie closed her eyes, exhaled. She felt old, but not in a bad way. Had to protect Nev from Nev’s demons; working too hard and being too generous. It sounded like a beauty pageant answer.
“Old lady,” Ronnie muttered.
Nev’s breathing changed. Stopped. Resumed. Ronnie’s hand came to rest on Nev’s arm. After a while she touched the back of Nev’s head, scratched her scalp where columns of muscle from her neck met her skull. She fell asleep with her hand on the back of Nev’s head.
She woke up in the dark to the smell of sweat.
Nev sniffled, congested, an allergy sound. Nev didn’t have allergies.
Ronnie let her breath slow and deepen, let her chest expand with each inhale. Nev’s sadness would pass. Ronnie felt tenderness for her friend, the sort you feel for a past or future version of yourself.
When Rainbow cried, her pain was chaotic, urgent, coupled with fear and helplessness.
Her daughter’s tears physically hurt some muscle in her chest. Child pain was sharper than adult pain.
Adult pain was always secretly about something else, something that happened before, some secret hurt from ten, twenty, thirty years prior.
Distance dulled it. Adult pain could be stopped and started.
It came when one was alone. It stopped when someone else appeared, put back into the box.
The taxidermized barn owl observed from her perch in the corner.
Maybe Nev missed her parents. Had Nev been with them both at the end? Ronnie realized she didn’t know. What else had happened during the lost years, the two years they never talked about?
From now on Ronnie wouldn’t date anyone who didn’t want kids.
How would Nev fit into that? Would Ronnie tell her future partner that Nev was like a sister to her? That Nev needed her? That she needed the older woman more?
Would she still work for Nev a decade from now?
She was outgrowing the farm labor around Upsend, aging out of mucking the horse stalls and filling water buckets when there were teenagers for that.
She could become a barn manager or a mechanic, make a higher hourly rate somewhere else.
Nev had been trying to promote her, but accepting a raise was a commitment to stay.
She couldn’t stay here at Upsend Downs forever, much as she would like to.
Moving into Nev’s screen house down by the creek might have been a possibility before she fell off the roof, but had become dramatically less appealing.
“We’re okay.” She rubbed Nev’s warm back, hoping it was true.