From There to Here: Silver and Gold

by Amy L. Hatch

The day my father died, when we finally forced ourselves to leave the hospital, my husband and I went home to our apartment to gather clothes and sundries so we could go stay with my mother while we prepared for the funeral.

Make new friends, but keep the old. Photo by cometstarmoon, Flickr

I sat on the unmade bed and looked around, thinking how familiar and strange that space looked now. Before and After had become two distinct eras. I asked my husband for the telephone.

“I need to call Sandy,” I said.

I met Sandy in third grade. On the first day, in fact, at a school new to me. She walked up to me on the playground that September morning and we’ve been friends ever since. Grade school, junior high, high school and college — our bond even survived the three years I spent in England.

In my basement is a shoebox full of letters — letters! – that she has sent to me over the years. I don’t read them, but I can’t throw them away, either. That box is a snapshot of my life in a time before any of this — husband, career, Chambana, children — ever existed.

It is, like Sandy, as precious as gold.

I called Sandy that sad day because I knew I only needed to say one, hard sentence and she would do the rest. “Sandy,” I said, after she answered. “Sandy, my father died today.”

She started to cry, told me she loved me, and hung up.

Later that night, Sandy and the third corner of our triangle, my dear friend Megan, showed up at the door with flowers, tears and hugs. Megan pressed into my hand a small, purple glass heart, a talisman to hold on to.

Later, at the wake, my friend Jennifer rushed into the back room where I was resting my swollen ankles — I was five months pregnant — and pulled me into her arms, crying with me.

They were there during the hard times, and they have been there during the good times. They knew me when I had a mullet and braces, and when I was slender and elegant on my wedding day. And while we haven’t seen one another in more than a year, I know that when I sit down for dinner with Sandy, Megan and Jen on Sunday night in Rochester, it will be as if  never left.

We’ll catch up on the details, but the story arc will the same as it always was.

***

Monday night found me sitting at a table at Farren’s Pub and Eatery with 11 other women. It was a surprise party for Laura, organized by our friend Jessica. Laura introduced me to Jessica years ago, but it was only when her daughter and mine were in the same pre-school class that we became friends.

Jessica is like a very good book — she is careful to reveal herself only as quickly as the plot requires. I’ve come to have a great deal of affection for her, and so when she swore me to secrecy over Laura’s party, I was so pleased to be included in the friendly deception.

I felt like I belonged.

I felt that wave of belonging again Monday, when Laura walked in and we all yelled “surprise!” Laura leaned in to hug me later, asking me how I managed to keep the secret. I smiled. Over the last two years Laura has given me so much, and waited so patiently for me to trust her.

I owed her that secret.

I didn’t know every woman at the table that evening, but that mattered not a whit. They all shone like silver in the low lights of the tavern.

Female friendship doesn’t come easy to me — I will reject you before you have a chance to reject me. That’s just how I work. But over the last decade I’ve come to realize that I don’t just want companionship and understanding from other women, I need it.

In so many ways, these two sets of friends — silver and gold — make me feel like I’m home when we’re together, no matter where I am.

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