Second Chance Friends

by Jennifer Scott

  “It’s fixed?” Melinda asked, leaning back to assess the curtain.

  “No. I mean, yeah, it looks fine now. But what I meant was you don’t have to keep babysitting me. I feel so bad about how much I’ve disrupted all of your lives.”

  Melinda stepped off the stool she’d been standing on and wiped her palms on her jeans. “We’re not babysitting. We’re supporting. You haven’t disrupted anything. And I thought you were okay with it.”

  “I am. I was,” Maddie said. She ran her hand over the open page of her book again, nervously touching the writing. “I mean, I think I’m getting better now. You can’t do this forever.”

  “That’s great,” Melinda said. “But we still want to be here for you. It’s not forever. Just for a few more weeks, balloon girl.” She reached out and patted Maddie’s belly, which felt tight and hard under her palm. “We’re not doing this because we have to. We’re doing this because we’re your friends. I’m your friend.” She patted the belly again. “You’re about to pop. Any day now. We’re about to find out soon if it’s a boy or a girl.”

  “It’s a boy, I just know it,” Maddie said. She rubbed her belly, something Melinda had seen her do more and more often lately. She’d also heard her humming softly while rocking in the chair. Maybe she really was feeling better, like she said.

  “Is this for the baby?” Melinda asked, lifting the corner of the book in Maddie’s lap and letting it drop again.

  Maddie let out a big sigh. “Yeah. I’ve been filling out the family history part. It’s really helped, telling the baby about Michael. They didn’t give me enough room, though.” She flipped to the back of the cover and pulled out several folded sheets of paper, each filled with her tiny handwriting. She ran her finger along the fold of the pages. “He was so amazing. You can’t sum up a guy like Michael in one page.”

  “This baby will be amazing, too,” Melinda said. She knelt in front of Maddie, resting her hands on the arm of the rocker. “You know that, right? It may not seem like it now, but as soon as you hold him, you will feel how amazing he is.”

  Maddie nodded. “I know. This baby has stuck with me through all of this, so I already know he’s a fighter. Michael made him that way. And I kind of do feel it now, how amazing he is.”

  “It makes me so happy to hear you say that,” Melinda said. “But you’ve been fighting right along with him, so I think maybe you made him that way, too. Or her.”

  Maddie managed a smile. “Now, go. Do what you need to do. We’re fine here.”

  Melinda fussed with the curtain for a few more moments, not sure if she was trying to get it perfect, or if she was just being reluctant to let go of Maddie.

  “Hey, Melinda?”

  She turned. “I know. It looks good. I should go.”

  “No.” Maddie picked at the edge of the page open before her, looking uncomfortable. “I just . . . I’m your friend, too. I wanted to make sure I said that. Because I’ve said a lot of hateful things to you, but you never gave up on me. I know it’s all three of you who’ve helped me, but you’re the one who kept pushing. Thank you.”

  Melinda smiled. She supposed she was the one who kept pushing. The one who first had the idea to find Maddie at all. The one who pulled her out of the bathtub and insisted she keep living. Maddie wasn’t the only fighter. She was a fighter, too.

  And she had her own life to fight for.

  She looked over her shoulder one last time as she headed out the door. Maddie was bent over the journal again, writing intently with one hand and rubbing her belly with the other.

  • • •

  Melinda was home before Paul, which gave her plenty of time to set the stage the way she wanted it. She started with dinner, which she hadn’t made in so long she’d almost forgotten how. It seemed pointless to cook for two people who would only eat in awkward silence. But today would be the start of something different. Melinda was determined.

  So much had happened. There was so much hurt. Yet she saw how Maddie Routh had fought. How she’d fought for Michael. How she’d fought for the baby that she’d so desperately wanted and then so desperately resented. How she’d fought for the love she’d once forged for herself. What would be Melinda’s excuse for letting her love just fade away?

  While the chicken roasted and the potatoes boiled, she changed out of her uniform and hung it over the treadmill just like she’d done a hundred times. Habit. She picked up the leg of her pants and rubbed the fabric between her fingers. She’d worked so hard to earn this uniform. It was one of her pride points, being an EMT. It was the only thing she’d wanted to be for so long. But the uniform also held a lot of memories, and a great many of them not good. Some of them the stuff nightmares were made of. She used to think this made her special, her ability to keep her cool when confronted with a grisly scene or a stunning trauma or a tragic moment. But now she knew the truth—that only a part of her kept its composure. The rest of her hung on to those moments and let them take her down, slowly and completely, on the inside.

  She whisked the pants off the treadmill and took them to the mudroom, where she stuffed them into a garbage bag. Her two weeks were up. Come Monday, she would be wearing scrubs to work. A formality, really, for the person answering phones at a dental office, but she supposed she would welcome the comfort.

  She went back into her bedroom and gathered up her other uniforms and took them out to the garbage as well, shoving them deep within.

  She walked into the kitchen just as the oven timer sounded that the chicken was done. She put it on a platter and mashed the potatoes. She dumped the roasted Brussels sprouts in a bowl. She found a book of matches and lit the candles on the fireplace mantel. She combed her hair. She brushed her teeth and put on soft music. And then stood next to the kitchen island wondering if this was trying too hard. Was it too romantic? Would Paul be put off? Were they past this stage? And, if so, would they ever be able to get back?

  But before she could make a move to change anything she’d done, the mudroom door opened and Paul stepped in, blinking in confusion.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “I didn’t expect . . .” He trailed off. “Is something going on tonight?”

  “Yeah, kind of,” Melinda said, busying herself by searching for a spoon to put in the potatoes. “Maddie is doing much better, so I decided to spend some time with you.”

  “Why?” he asked. He let his messenger bag slither down his arm and land on the floor.

  Melinda slid the spoon into the potatoes and turned to him. “Because I love you,” she said. She started to say more, but decided instead to let it sit.

  He broke his gaze first, clearly uncomfortable. “I mean, sure,” he said. “It’s just you haven’t done that in a while.”

  “There are lots of things we haven’t done in a while, Paul,” Melinda said. “I miss you.”

  His jaw worked a few times while he contemplated what she was saying. “I miss you, too,” he said. She could see the familiar wall push its way up between them again. He was trying so hard to shut her out, but she could see something else as well. Something in that working jaw. He still loved her. There was a hope they could get back.

  “I don’t know what you did all that time you were gone,” she said. “And I don’t need to know. I really don’t. I trust you. You’ve never betrayed that trust.”

  “No, I haven’t,” he said, accusation dripping off his words.

  “I know,” she said. “You haven’t. So I don’t need to know what you were doing all that time. But what I’m hoping you didn’t do is talk yourself into giving up on us forever. Because you came back, which makes me think you want to make this work. But you haven’t really talked to me since, which makes me wonder if it ever will.”

  “You haven’t exactly been talking, either,” he said, and again Melinda could hear the blame in his words. He was so defensive he almost
couldn’t speak to her without it. “That’s what started this whole mess, if I remember correctly.”

  “I know,” she repeated. “But I’m ready to change that. I want to talk to you. I want to cook for you and do things with you again. I guess I’m just saying that I want to try to get us back. I’m willing to do anything.”

  “I see.” Still wary.

  “So I quit,” she said.

  “Quit what?”

  She picked up the potatoes and took them to the kitchen table. “My job,” she said. “I quit. I turned in my notice two weeks ago. Today was my last day. Jason didn’t even bother to say good-bye, by the way. Not that I really expected him to.”

  Paul slumped against the counter. “You quit your job and you didn’t even mention it to me? This is what you think is going to bring us back together? Jesus, Melinda, is this what our lives are going to be like now? You doing whatever the hell you want and hiding it from me?”

  “I start at Danforth Dental on Monday,” she said. “Making more money than I was making before. Plus free dental care.”

  He nodded. “I still would have liked to have a heads-up.”

  “The hours are way better,” she said.

  “I’m sure they are,” he said. He started to argue more, but she cut him off.

  “That way I can be home more for the kids.” She swallowed. “When we have them.”

  Paul stared at her harder. She could see the wall begin to chip and crumble. Could feel him leaning toward her, like a flower to sunlight. She could feel it and see it even behind the anger in his posture. “If,” he said. “I think you mean if we have kids.”

  She came to him, took his hands in hers. “I was so worried about the pain of someday losing a child that I forgot about the pain of losing you,” she said. “It’s the worst, Paul. I kick myself every day for what I did, but I never did it because I don’t love you. I did it because my love for you is terrifying, and if loving you scares me, what will loving your child do to me?”

  “You made a fool out of me for months,” he said. But his hands twitched around hers. He wasn’t pushing her away; he wasn’t letting go.

  “And I’m so sorry about that. I want to make it up to you. If you want to have kids, we can have them.”

  “You can’t just change your mind like that,” he said. “It’s not the way it works.”

  “Yes, I can just change my mind like that. I’m willing to try, anyway. No, I want to try. It’s not a sudden change. It’s been months in the making. Months without you, even when you’re here. It’s been months with Maddie Routh and Karen and Joanna, and listening to Jason bitch, and I can’t explain it all, but I’ve learned some things about myself. I quit my job, Paul. I’m serious about this.”

  She looked up into his face. His eyes were closed, and wetness had gathered beneath them. “This hasn’t gone too far?” he asked, his voice raspy.

  Melinda leaned her forehead against his chest, feeling his warmth soak into her. “Please, try,” she whispered.

  Paul let go of her hands, causing her to blanch with fear. But then she felt his hands, pressing flat against the small of her back, moving to the center as his arms wrapped around her, and then slowly floating up the length of her spine until they were cupping the back of her head. He held her tightly against him. She felt such relief circle through her that she almost felt dizzy. Her arms found their way around his waist, as she turned her head and laid her cheek against his chest.

  She could hear his heart beating.

  It was a sound she never wanted to forget.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It was Sunday, and Joanna was slow to get up. Saturday nights at Café Fellowship could get pretty late, especially if her boss got a bee up his ass about prepping for Sunday brunch. She thought she’d never get out of there, and when she finally did get away, her fingers were red and pruney from all the vegetable prep.

  She hadn’t even gone straight home. Instead, she and Sutton and Theo and his boyfriend had gone out—beers and script run-throughs for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike auditions. Sutton had somehow managed to talk Stan into allowing Joanna back into his good graces. Joanna felt like she was returning to family, or maybe truly joining a family for the first time, and although she and Sutton had still not taken anything beyond a hug, the moments between them were electric as hell.

  It was right. Nothing confusing about it. Confusion had become Joanna’s least favorite word. It was a lie. It was a crutch. It was an oppressor.

  Fortunately, Helen always brought Maddie breakfast on Sundays, and stuck around to work on laundry, so technically Joanna didn’t have to be over at Maddie’s for a couple of hours anyway. Not that she thought it was really all that necessary anymore. Maddie had improved so much—she and Melinda had been doing things together for a while now, and she’d even gone grocery shopping with Joanna last week. Joanna had accidentally driven past the Tea Rose Diner, and while Maddie had given the lawn in front of it a long look, she hadn’t shed a tear. Progress.

  Joanna was still in bed, blinking at the ceiling, remembering that she had the day off, and planning out way more things than could possibly get done in one day, when the phone rang. She reached over and picked it up, thumbed it on without even looking, assuming it would be Sutton.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” her mother answered. “You sound sleepy. What are you doing?”

  Joanna yawned loudly. “Well, sleeping. It’s not even noon yet.”

  “Nearly,” her mother said. “Guess who I ran into this morning?”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll give you a hint. Your father and I decided to have breakfast out for a little treat, so we went to LaEats, and guess who was working the Sunday brunch?”

  Joanna grimaced and sat up. She had not told her parents about the breakup yet. It hadn’t seemed necessary—she’d never announced their engagement to them, even though she’d told Stephen that she had. She thought she might save the news until her birthday in May, when she would be expected to bring him around for a family gathering. Not that she wanted to keep her parents in the dark—she hated that, actually—but she was still uneasy about the conversation that would likely follow. She was out, and loving it, but that didn’t mean she wanted to discuss things with her mother, who loved Stephen, or her father, who probably didn’t even know for sure what the word lesbian meant.

  “Did he wait your table?”

  “Yes,” her mother said. A pause. “So I take it what he told us is true?”

  “I don’t know, Mother. What did he tell you?” She really didn’t need to know. The answer was as plain as the ice in her mother’s voice.

  “He said you broke up with him. But the real shocker was that he said you’d been engaged. He seemed to think we already knew that part. Is it true? You never said a word. Surely you weren’t engaged without even telling your own mother.”

  Joanna closed her eyes, a wave of guilt washing over her. Her mother was not the type to show pain, but Joanna knew it was there all the same. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t tell you because it just never felt right. I think I knew deep down that we weren’t going to get married and I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  “Not knowing that your only daughter is engaged is pretty disappointing,” her mom said.

  “I’m sorry.” Joanna climbed out of bed and headed to the kitchen for a bottle of water. Her mouth was so dry she felt like clouds of dust were puffing out with every word. Hearing her mother’s upset voice only made it worse.

  “I would ask you what it possibly could have been about him that you didn’t like, but he told us something else, too, so I think I already know.”

  Joanna stopped drinking. Stephen had outed her to her parents? How could he do that to her? He knew how hard this was for her. He knew the struggle. He saw the way her hands shook when she told him the truth.
He heard the tears of regret as she handed him back his ring. He witnessed it. How could he tell?

  She set the water bottle on the counter and massaged the back of her neck with her free hand.

  He was that hurt by her; that was how. He felt that betrayed. And could she blame him? No, probably not. If Sutton suddenly told her that she was straight, Joanna would probably feel pretty bitter about it, too.

  “Joanna?”

  “I’m here.”

  “So it’s true, then.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry.”

  “Yes.” Joanna could envision her mother, sitting in “her spot” at the kitchen table, running an emery board over her nails, the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear, legs wound into a pretzel beneath her, as usual. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you have to be sorry about. If you’re gay, you’re gay. So what? I mean, I wish you had told me yourself. And I wish you would have come to us. I wouldn’t have pressured you so much about Stephen. Is that why you haven’t come to Sunday dinner?”

  “Kind of,” Joanna said, reeling in disbelief. If you’re gay, you’re gay. So what? Of all of the possible scenarios she had run through her head over the years of how her mother might react to her news, If you’re gay, you’re gay. So what? had never been one of them.

  “That’s just silly. We always want to see you, Joanna. If there’s any place you can just be you, it’s here. We love you.”

  Joanna slid down the side of the refrigerator until she was sitting on the floor. “Thank you, Mom,” she said, her heart so full it hurt.

  “So tonight you’ll be here?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. I’m still mad at you, but it’ll be good to see you. Now, tell me, is there a girl?”