To Love A Friend

by Jana David

Darcy

  I had promised my mother I would come visit her on Christmas day. Knowing her, she most likely had prepared a feast for us.

  After my parents' divorce, my mother had moved into a small apartment on the other side of town. It had been a big change for her, and the experience had definitely changed her as a person. At her age, to start over again with next to nothing was a challenge. She'd been a housewife for the past twenty years, but now she had to work again. It hadn't been easy for her to find a job. At fifty, and having been out of work for such a long time, she had struggled. Now she worked some kind of shitty telemarketing job where the pay was bad and the benefits not even worth mentioning.

  I looked forward to seeing my mum, but I also didn't want to leave Al.

  “Do you want to come? My mother would love to see you again. And I'm sure there will be plenty of food.”

  Allie hesitated. “I don't want to intrude. This is family time for you and your mum.”

  “Nonsense. You're not intruding. Besides, my mum loves you.”

  “But I don't have a present or anything to bring”, she went on.

  “Once again, you don't need a present, Allie. Your presence will be present enough as far as my mother is concerned.”

  “Ha, very funny, Mr. Brown.” She rolled her eyes at me, but a smile spread across her lips. “Fine, I'll come. But if your mother asks why I didn't bring a gift, I'm blaming it on you.”

  “You can do that”, I said, “as long as you come along.”

  So, shortly before noon, we arrived at my mum's place.

  “Ma, open up, it's me”, I hollered, pressing the doorbell about a hundred times. My mother hated when I did that.

  She opened the door with a, “Jesus, are you trying to give your old mother a heart attack?” But then she pulled me into a hug anyway. “Happy Christmas, sweetheart.”

  “You, too,ma.” I hugged her just as tightly as she hugged me. “I brought someone along. I hope that's okay.”

  My mother's eyes landed on Allie. Her lips spread into a smile. “Of course. Allie, dear, how are you? It's so nice to see you again. How long has it been now? Five years?”

  “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Brown”, Allie said as my mother pulled her into a hug as well.

  “Oh no, it's Martin now. I went back to my maiden name after... but please, call me Eva. None of that formal business.”

  “Right, of course, Eva.” Allie brushed right past the awkwardness of my mother's rambling. I breathed out a sigh when she did that. The divorce was still a very touchy subject in our family.

  “Come on in. I hope you're hungry.” My mother ushered us inside.

  “I'm starving”, I told her, and that brought the smile back to her face.

  “Of course you are”, she said.

  My mother's flat was small, with just one bedroom, a living room barely big enough to fit a couch, a tiny kitchen and a bathroom the size of a closet. She'd managed to make a home out of it, though, and that was all that mattered.

  I'd wanted her to move in with me after the divorce, but my mother wouldn't have it.

  “I need a place that is truly my own”, she told me. It probably also didn't help that my grandmother's house was the house my father had grown up in. I understood her decision, but sometimes I still felt guilty for living in such a comfortable home while my mother had to make do with this shoebox.

  “So, Allie, tell me all about your life now. How are your parents? How are you getting along at university?

  I had a feeling mum had many more questions like that up her sleeve. The two women disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me to hover in the doorway, because there was no way three people could fit into that narrow space. To be honest, I was happy to take the backseat for a while and let them do all the talking.

  That didn't last long, though, because suddenly I was the topic of conversation.

  “Remind me to have a serious talk with my son later, by the way”, mum told Allie.

  “What did I do now?” I asked.

  My mother turned to me. Her don't-you-dare-talk-back-at-me face was incredibly intimidating to me, even now at almost twenty years of age. “You know exactly what you did”, she said. And from her tone I could pretty much guess what she meant.

  “Did dad call you?” I asked carefully.

  “Oh, he called me alright. And he was not happy, let me tell you. We'd agreed you would make an effort, Darcy.” She sounded disappointed.

  “I'm sorry, ma. I tried. Really”, I added when she didn't look convinced.

  Allie gave me a small, sympathetic smile behind my mum's back.

  There was a moment of silence where my mother simply stared me down like she had done countless times over the years. When I ate all the cookies from the tin but pretended it hadn't been me, for example, or when I tried to hide a failed test at the bottom of my school bag and she found it. It didn't matter that I was now taller than her, living on my own and earning my own money. She was still my mum. And I knew how important it was for her to see me get along with my dad. If she couldn't have a functioning relationship with the man, at least I should.

  “Alright, we don't want to kill all the joy now. Let's eat first, shall we?” My mother gave me one last pointed look, and then handed me a bowl of Brussels sprouts to carry out to the living room. The discussion was over. For now.

  After dinner,mum and I exchanged gifts, while Allie apologised ten times for not bringing anything.

  My mother eventually cut her off, though, and told her not to worry so much all the time. After that, we played a round of Monopoly—a family tradition—and laughed the whole way through. And when the time came for tea, we each ate two slices of the delicious cake my mum had made. By the time we stood up from the table, I could barely walk.

  “I'm just going to put this in the fridge”, mum said and took the remainder of the cake to the kitchen, leaving Allie and me alone for a moment.

  “Thanks for bringing me along”, Allie said. “Today has been amazing.”

  “Any time”, I said. “Mum would surely like to see you come back.”

  “You know”, she said, “your mum seems a lot happier, now that she left your father.”

  “Yeah, well, no surprise there”, I said.

  I was going to say something more, but a buzzing sound interrupted us. It came from Allie's coat. She got up and went digging through her pockets until she found her phone.

  “Hey”, she answered it.

  I knew immediately who it was. Her voice held this distinct, soft quality women always adopted when they were talking to a guy they liked. Whether they did it consciously or not, it drove men wild.

  What drove me mad at that moment, was the fact that it wasn't me she was talking to in that way.

  Allie walked across the room towards the window, occasionally offering short one-word responses to Ian. The last thing I wanted was to leave, but I decided to give her some privacy. I could tell my presence in the room was making her uncomfortable.

  Walking into the kitchen, I caught my mother already getting started on the dishes. “Ma, I said I was going to do that. Please, you already stood in the kitchen and cooked all morning.” I went over to the sink and took the dinner plate she was holding from her soapy hands. She protested, at first, but eventually allowed me to take over.

  “You sit”, I told her, gesturing towards one of the chairs. To my surprise, she did without further resistance.

  “Where's Allie?” she asked me while I cleaned more plates.

  “On the phone”, I told her.

  We were silent for a moment.

  “So you are spending Christmas together?” It was less of a question and more of a statement.

  “Yeah...It's a long story”, I mumbled. I really didn't want to have to explain all the details to my mother.

  “You know, I think it's nice that the two of you are becoming friends again. You were so close back then. I always thought it was a shame you were torn apart so suddenly.”
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br />   I didn't know what to say, so I quietly continued washing the dishes.

  “But things aren't the same as they were back then, are they?” she quietly went on.

  Sometimes I really hated that my mother was such a wise, perceptive person. There was no hiding anything from her.

  “Obviously not”, I said, trying to keep my tone light.

  “She is dating Ian?”

  I didn't like the direction in which this conversation was heading.

  “Yes, mum, why are you asking me this?”

  “I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into. You and Ian have been friends for such a long time. Your whole life, really. And friendship is one of the most sacred things in a person's life. Romance comes and goes. It is far more fragile and easily broken, but friendship can get you through even the toughest, darkest times.”

  “Nice advice, ma, but Allie and I are friends as well. Good friends, but just friends.”, I added.

  My mother just looked at me, and then her gaze shifted past me, towards the tiny window. “Are you, though? Are you really just friends?”

  “What are you trying to say?” I was getting defensive. “Al and Ian are together, yes, and I'm their friend. That's it. I'm not going to get caught up in some crazy love-triangle, if that's what you think. I've seen enough movies to know that never ends well. Can we change the subject now?” I hated talking to my mum about relationships. It always got awkward.

  “You know”, my mother said, obviously ignoring my wish to change the subject, “Gabriela and I used to make bets as to which one of you boys would fall for Allie first. I always thought it would be you.”

  I closed my eyes and bit my lip.

  The irony was that it had been me. I'd fallen for her the moment I laid eyes on her. But my mother didn't need to know that. She would just make some wise comment about how, at that age, you don't even know what love is yet. And she might have been right, but I certainly knew what love was now.

  Before I could say anything, Allie walked into the kitchen.

  “Hey, I said I was going to do the dishes!” She nudged me to the side and took the sponge out of my hand. “Move over. You can do the drying, I'll do the cleaning.”

  “Bossy much?” I said, but moved over to make room for her.

  “Shut up and get a towel.”

  I heard my mother try to suppress a laugh. “I'll be in the living room. You guys can manage here, right?”

  “Sure, Eva, your son and I will be fine. You go and relax some”, Allie said, waving her out the door.

  We fell into an easy routine, Al handing me the cleaned plates, and me drying them.

  “So, what did Ian say?” I finally asked, even though I'd told myself I didn't want to know.

  Allie turned to me, a slow smile spreading on her lips. “Why? Are you jealous he called me and not you?” she joked.

  I huffed. “Never mind. I don't really want to know, anyway.”

  “Hey, I was just joking.” Allie elbowed me in the side. “He asked about how things were going. It felt kind of weird to lie to him, to be honest. Now I feel guilty for not telling him when I had the chance.”

  So she still hadn't told him that she was spending Christmas with me. For some reason, this little piece of knowledge filled me with an odd sense of satisfaction.

  “Hey, it's not like you're doing something forbidden”, I said.

  “No”, she answered, but she didn't sound too convinced.

  I took a washed pan from her. “Why didn't you tell him?” I asked. “I still don't quite understand.”

  Allie sighed, dropping the sponge into the soapy water. She turned to me. “Do you ever get that feeling that everybody around you has life figured out, and it's just you who can't seem to get the hang of it?”

  I laughed. “All the time. But that's not just you. I think most people feel like that at one point or another.”

  “Yeah, but not very many people have to deal with a crazy parent like mine.”

  “Probably more people than you think, but nobody likes to talk about it much. We only want people to see the good things in our lives, show off how well adjusted we are, when in reality, we've all got problems. Hey, take me as a shining example. I have daddy issues, and definitely don't like to talk about that.”

  That made Allie laugh.

  “Maybe that's true”, she said.

  “It's most definitely true”, I answered.

  “But still, Ian's family just always seems so perfect. I spent New Christmas with them last year, and the whole time I was there, I caught myself thinking: Why can't my family be like that? It just ended with me resenting my family even more and kind of feeling jealous of Ian for not having to put up with drama all the time. I enjoyed myself, don't get me wrong. Gabriella and Will treat me like one of their own and definitely always invite me along to family gatherings, but...” Allie stopped talking and suddenly looked like she regretted ever having said anything at all.

  “Sorry, you don't need to hear all this”, she said.

  I caught her hand before she could pick up the sponge again. When my fingers made contact with her skin, I swear I felt that spark everybody always talks about. It was like being outside with a thunderstorm brewing in the distance. The whole air around us seemed charged with an electric current. I wondered if she could feel it too.

  “Don't stop talking”, I said. “I want to hear it all”