by Sarah Price
Tia,
As you can tell from the picture on the front of this postcard, I am in Muro, Spain. I arrived over a month ago and am staying in a quaint little beachfront inn called the Rioja. I came here to see for myself what it is you saw, trying to relive in my mind your childhood memories, the ones you have told me so much about. I can see why you love it so much. I am at peace here and it seems like the best place for me to be.
There is no easy way to say this other than to just come out with it. I am dying. You are the only family I have. Please consider sharing in my final journey home. I will wait for you. I will save you a seat.
Abby
A voice interrupts her thoughts. “That’s a pretty postcard.” Tia looks over to the woman sitting next to her, the woman holding the sleeping baby. Before she can comment, the woman asks her, “Is that where you are going?”
“Yes,” is how Tia answers, afraid that if she says anything else, the crack in her voice will reveal her feelings of pain and sorrow to this stranger.
The woman, oblivious to Tia’s emotions, continues the conversation. “It looks like a lovely place. Are you traveling on business or pleasure?”
Although she knows the woman means well, Tia wishes she would stop asking her questions. It is a long flight and she doesn’t feel like engaging in small talk for the next eight hours in the state she is in. “I’m visiting a sick friend,” she responds flatly.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. She must be a good friend for you to travel so far to see her.”
A good friend? Tia almost smiles. How can she describe Abby to this woman who has never met her? Traveling Abby with her unbelievable adventures and consistent postcards. Dependable Abby who seemed to emerge from thin air in the moments Tia needed her most, even if only on a three by five piece of stiff paper with some writing scrawled on the back. No, Abby is much more than a good friend. Indeed, she is one of Tia’s best friends.
“I actually haven’t seen her in over ten years,” Tia says softly, raising her eyes to look at the young mother next to her. If they had to engage in conversation, which now seems inevitable, Tia knows better than to be rude.
“Ten years? Wow, I take it back, she must be a great friend.”
“Yes, she is. We’ve been friends since we were little.”
“I’ve heard of friendships like that, long distance and such. I think I saw a segment like that on Oprah not too long ago. Friendships that last a lifetime.”
“I guess you can call it that,” Tia hears herself say. She doesn’t like the word lifetime. After all, it sharply contrasts with the word dying and that word is lingering too much on her mind. Was the lifetime friendship in its final stage? Could it be possible? “We grew up together and then she went off traveling and I stayed behind to raise my family.” As the words are coming out of her mouth, Tia is surprised at how open she is to this person she doesn’t know. She’s not normally so forthcoming with strangers.
“Definitely a Lifetime TV movie.”
Tia smiles and nods to the woman, whose attention thankfully returns to the suddenly fidgeting baby in her arms. This gives Tia the opportunity to place the card back in the white envelope and into her bag. She thinks about Abby’s request to come and see her. She thinks about the way Abby told her and why she didn’t just choose to pick up a phone. Tia knows the reason why. It is a difficult request to turn down especially if there is no one on the other end of a phone who she can make excuses to.
And, after all, Abby is her best friend, has been for almost all of her life. It seems impossible to think back to a time when Abby was not there. Tia leans her head back and closes her eyes, trying to recall the image of Abby the first day she saw her.
Chapter Three
I met Abby in second grade, growing up in Riverdale, New York. She was the new kid in our class and, like the rest of my friends, I could not take my eyes off of her. It wasn’t that she was extraordinarily beautiful or particularly ugly. In fact, she was no different than the rest of the girls in my elementary school. With long brown hair, light brown eyes and a fair complexion accented with a few freckles on her nose, she was average looking and would have blended in with the rest of us had it not been for the way she dressed.
Abby had combed her hair into two pigtails with two large bows tied at the end. Each bow was a different color. She had on bright white tennis shoes, the kind that looked like they had just been taken out of the shoebox, and was wearing pink checkered corduroy pants with a black vest over a bright oversized blue sweater. She was different, no doubt about it- different even for a child growing up in the early 80s when wearing headbands on foreheads, leg warmers over tights and bright neon shirts with slogans telling everyone to “Relax” were the norm. Whatever the trend was, Abby always seemed to fall just outside of the fringes of it. As an 8 eight year old girl, I knew that different was not such a good thing. At that age, you want to blend in with the popular kids, not stand out as Abby had.
Although I was curious about this new girl, I cringed when my teacher sat Abby next to me in class. Like so many other things at that age, who you hung out with defined who you were. The stranger the friend, the more of an outcast you were and no one was stranger than Abby. Yet, despite of it and maybe because of it, I was drawn to Abby like a moth to a light. Abby had an ease about her, a friendliness that came through immediately. I can still remember standing up to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in class that morning and looking over to see Abby mouthing a hello to me. She contorted her face into a silly expression that made me giggle loud enough for my teacher to give me a stern look. As a straight-A student and teacher’s favorite, it was the first time I had gotten in trouble in class. Instead of keeping my eyes forward, I looked over again at Abby and saw her try to balance herself with her left foot, hopping furiously so as not to tumble forward. Without thinking, I leaned over to talk to her:
Tia: “I like your bows.”
Abby: “Thanks, I picked them out myself. “
Tia: “Purple is one of my favorite colors.”
Abby: “Wanna see my socks?”
I nodded yes and Abby leaned down, lifting her pant leg to reveal a stripped yellow sock and a solid red sock. The teacher gave both of us another look and I could sense that she had second thoughts about seating Abby next to me. Abby quickly lowered her pant leg down again.
Tia: “That is so cool. I don’t get to wear what I want. My mom picks out all of my clothes.”
Abby: “I always wear what I want. My dad says I should learn to become an individual.”
Tia: “What does that mean?”
Abby: “It means I get to do whatever I want. Hey, if you like my socks, wait ‘til you see what I have for lunch. Do you like peanut butter and cucumber sandwiches?”
Soon after that, I met the person responsible for Abby’s quirky ways, for her colored socks and cucumber-peanut butter sandwiches. I met Abby’s father, Kelly Peters. Mr. Peters was a single dad raising his daughter. Abby told me that her parents separated when she was very little. Her mother remarried right after the divorce into an “all ready-made” family with three young stepsons to take care of and no room for a fourth. So she moved in with her father to start a new life together.
Abby’s father was very open-minded about the world and he passed that down to his daughter. He allowed her to do anything she wanted as long as what she wanted was within reason for her age. He wasn’t irresponsible and never put her in danger but the things he let her do, most parents wouldn’t let their children do. Once, Abby came to school in February dressed in her Halloween costume. The teacher immediately sent her home with a note explaining that it was not appropriate to be dressed as a clown in January. Mr. Peters sent her back to school the next day in the same costume with a note responding that what the world needed were more clowns to make people laugh and that he had hoped Abby would help her find her smile again.
I always found my visits to Abby’s house an adventure. I never quite knew wh
at to expect, especially with meals. There were many dinners when Kelly Peters would serve us pancakes or ice cream, always with a side order of vegetables to make sure we were eating something nutritious. Once, during a sleepover, I woke up to the smell of fried chicken and a side order of corn on my breakfast plate.
Life was certainly interesting at her house and very unpredictable. Because her father worked two jobs to support the family, he didn’t have much time to spend with his daughter. So every chance he had, Kelly would whisk her off on short trips. Holding a map of the United States, Kelly would barge into Abby’s room, declare a “Peters Road Trip” and ask her where she wanted to go. Abby would close her eyes, point her finger down on the map and wherever it landed is where they would go. The places were never exotic. I laughed to hear them planning trips to Pittstown, New Jersey or Rome, New York but for the both of them, it was an adventure and Kelly never tired of seeing new places. It wasn’t London or Paris, but as he explained it, it was always someplace he had never seen before. Every time they would come back from one of their trips, Kelly and Abby would cross that place off their map and move on to the next destination. Looking back, I can admit now that I envied Abby’s relationship with her father because I never had that with my own father. A few times, Abby invited me along on her mini vacations but my father called it foolish and unsafe and wondered what kind of a father Kelly Peters was to drag his daughter to dangerous parts of the country like Woonsocket, Rhode Island or Weed, California.
My parents were the complete opposite of Kelly Peters. They were immigrants who came over from Spain to build a better life for their family in America. My mom and dad were working class people who struggled to make ends meet, saving every penny for a rainy day. Because of their lack of it, getting an education was very important to them. They believed it was the only way for me to be successful in life. So from an early age, my parents expected me to study hard and bring home perfect grades so that one day I would grow up to be a respectable doctor or attorney. If Abby’s father encouraged Abby to be different, my mom and dad taught me to play it safe and live by the rules. I was raised to respect my elders, never question authority and most of all, never ever wear mismatched socks or eat lasagna for breakfast.
I guess because of our differences, I was drawn to Abby. She was able to do things I had always wanted to try but never was allowed to do. And for Abby, I believe I was her voice of reason, letting her know when she crossed the line. We became best friends and inseparable.
After grade school, both of us went to St. Andrews’ High School, a local private school –I got accepted on an academic scholarship, and Abby barely squeaked by. I was the bookworm, the geek on the honor roll who never went out on a Friday night because her parents wouldn’t allow it. Abby was the average student, never studying for exams, barely passing her classes but one of the most popular girls in school and a star athlete. Even though the school had a strict dress code, Abby expressed her “individuality” in little ways, whether it was by dying one strip of her hair purple or adding a patch of bright scarlet red silk fabric to the inside lapel of her uniform jacket. Abby always found a way to be Abby. She also believed anything was possible.
Tia: What do you mean you are trying out for the football team? You do know you are a girl?
Abby: Ha, ha, funny. Of course, I know I’m a girl. So what?
Tia: So what? Abby, it’s an all-boys team.
Abby: I am a good kicker and the best scorer on our soccer team.
Tia: Yes, I know that but I also know you are a girl.
Abby: A minor technicality.
Nothing ever got in the way of what Abby wanted. Because she wouldn’t accept “no” for an answer, she tried out for the all-boys football team, after petitioning the principal, and made the squad as a second string kicker. She didn’t stop there. Abby was also the lead in most of the school’s musical productions and the Vice President of the Student Body Council. Although she was friends with virtually every person at school, I was the one she confided in, sharing the good and the bad. And the bad came to Abby during her junior year at St. Andrews. Kelly Peters had passed away suddenly of a heart attack. She woke up one Tuesday morning to find him lying face down on the kitchen table, with a plate of hotdogs and spinach and a map of North Carolina clutched in his hands.
I was the first person Abby called after it happened and we spent hours talking on the phone. Most of the time, I listened and she cried. Never having gone through that kind of loss before, I didn’t know what to say to her. Since I didn’t have the answers to any of her questions, such as why this was happening to her, I thought it was best to just be there for her.
My mom drove me to the funeral home for Kelly’s wake. I waited on the long line of mourners, listening to them talk about Abby’s father as I always remembered him and still do to this day-lively, happy and in complete adoration of his only daughter. As I approached the front of the room, I saw her sitting there, quiet and still. She was dressed in a simple black dress. It was the first and only time I had ever seen my friend dressed so normal. Her expression was somber and her eyes were swollen. She stared straight ahead at the closed casket that was directly in front of her. I was grateful that the casket wasn’t open, unsure of how I would react to seeing Abby’s father lying there with his eyes closed, the same eyes that always jumped with excitement and were so full of life. Right next to the casket was a travel book lying on a table with a collage of pictures. Taking a closer look at the frame, the pictures were all of Kelly in various poses, next to famous monuments, tourist spots, museums, all across the country. He was smiling in each and every one of them and in most of the pictures, Abby was standing right next to him with her arms around him. I picked up the book for a closer look. It was a coffee book about the best places to see in the world. I flipped the pages, each one more colorful than the next, until I stopped at the last page. There was a written inscription, with the single phrase:
“Here’s hoping you are traveling with wings.”
Such a simple statement but so true of what we all wished for Kelly.
After his death, her mother wanted Abby to move in with her but she wanted to finish high school at St. Andrews with me. So, Kelly’s sister, Margo, who never married and had no children, agreed to live in her brother’s apartment with Abby until she graduated.
It took me some time after Kelly’s death to try to talk to her about it. Even when I finally got the courage to do it, she always managed to find a way to change the topic. I took it as a subtle hint to drop it and so I did. But it was shortly after her father’s death, that Abby began to talk to me about traveling. And since I pretty much did anything she asked of me, she somehow convinced me to join her. Abby was always encouraging me to do things I would never dream of doing, like trying out for the school play, even when I had the worst singing voice on the face of the planet or getting me to ask Jesse Stone, star quarterback of the football team, to the junior prom even when everyone in school knew he was dating a college freshman.
So in her usual persuasive manner, Abby began planning a future of passport stamps, layovers and hotel check-ins with me to begin right after high school graduation. It didn’t seem to matter to her that I was petrified of what my parents would think if they knew I wasn’t going to college straightaway. And after awhile of hearing Abby talk about all of the exotic places we would see, it didn’t seem to matter to me either. Her excitement was contagious and it eventually rubbed off on me. So, one afternoon, a week before she was to turn eighteen, both of us began planning our travel itinerary. Sitting on the edge of the bed in her room, I was looking through several informational pamphlets Abby had given to me.
Abby: I have it all figured out. To see the world and be able to afford it all, we’ll join the Peace Corp. It says that they have sites all over the globe and we can pick where we want to serve. I was thinking we’d start off in Africa and move to Europe and Asia.
Tia: Peace Corp? Abby, I don’t know
about that. I don’t think my parents will go for it.
Abby: Think about it, Tia. It won’t be the typical backpacking through Europe, trying to find yourself, kind of trip. Your parents know you want to become a doctor so this will be good experience and we’ll be helping people in need. They can’t say anything bad about that. It’s the Christian thing to do.
Tia: But we’ll be two girls off by ourselves with no adult supervision, no cell phone signal and possibly no running water.
Abby: There has got to be a time, Tia, when you start thinking for yourself and live your life for you and not for others. When are you going to do that, huh? When you’re too old to do it? When your parents have died and left you alone to figure this all out? When? Don’t do anything you’ll live to regret later.
Tia opens her eyes suddenly, the thought of Abby’s words so long ago coming back to haunt her now as she sits on that plane. Did she have regrets? Her parents have long passed away, leaving Tia and her brother settled with families of their own. They had done their job or had they? Tia had two wonderful children. She had a marriage that lasted over two decades and from that, she had Michael who loved her at one time in her life. “Was my life wasted? What if I could go back and change it all, would I? Tia asks herself. “What if I had decided to go with Abby? Where would my life be now?”
That is the question that weighs on Tia’s mind now and with seven hours to go before landing in Spain, she has all the time in the world to think about it.
Tia and Abby
Months had passed and Abby and I were a few weeks away from high school graduation. I was the valedictorian of my class and was spending most of my time after school writing my speech. My parents were so proud when they heard the news and left me alone to prepare for the big day. On one such afternoon, Abby had called me, asking to come over. She had something important to show me. She sounded so happy over the phone, like a cat that had just swallowed a canary.