My Best Friend's Girl

by Dorothy Koomson

  I bit down on my lower lip and dipped my head as she talked. She wasn’t going to be here in a few years. In twenty years. In five years. Even in a year. That was a horrifying thought, knowing someone you loved wouldn’t see the future. Wouldn’t know how gray her hair would turn, how many wrinkles her face would be invaded by, how saggy her body would become. Wouldn’t be around to see what type of person her daughter became. My chest contracted; fresh tears escaped my eyes and drizzled down my face.

  I might not be here in twenty years, in five years, in a year, but I didn’t know it. I didn’t have that clock ticking away so loudly in the foreground it drowned out everything. Del was going to die.

  “I didn’t want to make a video. I don’t want her to forever think of me like this. I want her to remember me as the healthy woman in the pictures, not someone who looks so gray and old and tired. So, the letters will help. I hope. I hope.” Del’s eyes reddened.

  “You’ve got to love her. Promise me. Even when she’s really bad, or says something horrible, you’ve got to love her. Promise me. Please promise me.”

  I brushed brusquely at my tears. Who did she think I was? What did she think I was? Of course I’d love Tegan; if I didn’t I wouldn’t even be considering this. “Del, just because I stopped talking to you doesn’t mean I didn’t still care about you both.”

  “I’m scared she won’t have unconditional love. And that’s all a mother wants for her daughter. For her to know there’ll always be someone there who loves her no matter what. Promise me that’s what you’ll give her—unconditional love.”

  I nodded. “I’ve always loved her. Why do you think I sent her presents? And look—” I scrambled about in my bag, pulled out the red leather wallet, opened it and showed it to her.

  As she took it, I noticed her hands were covered in skin that was paper thin, the veins underneath blue and green like wires in a cable leading up to the plug of her fingers. They were scarred with marks from where the drips had been. I glanced away.

  Del opened my wallet and saw a picture of Tegan. I’d taken it on her third birthday, just weeks before I left London. I’d plaited her hair into two cornrows with a center parting and she was wearing a pink pinafore with a white top underneath. She was grinning at the camera, holding her chin forward, her eyes squeezed shut.

  “You’ve always carried this?” Del whispered. “Even after…”

  “Yep,” I cut in. I’d put that picture in there when I moved to Leeds and I realized I wouldn’t be seeing Tegan again. It was the only photo I had of her that didn’t instantly give away who her father was.

  I wanted, no, needed a reminder of her because in all of it, in all my hurt and anger and shock, there was one truth that was clear to me. One truth that was never blurred in my mind: it wasn’t her fault. Tegan wasn’t responsible for my fiancé and my best friend screwing things up. Besides, “I’ve always adored Tiga. You know that, you said it yourself the other day. I couldn’t stop loving her just like that.”

  Del’s body relaxed, as though one of her concerns, one of the things on her list of things to worry about had been dealt with. “One more thing you must promise me,” Del said, still staring down at the picture.

  “What’s that, then?”

  I felt her eyes staring hard at me until I raised my eyes to her. “When you adopt her you’ll change her name to yours, won’t you?”

  “Probably. To be honest I haven’t thought about it in that much detail. I’ve only had twenty-four hours to make the decision, so I’ll need a bit more time to refine the details.”

  “But once you’ve done all that, you’ll change her surname to yours, won’t you?” Del asked again.

  “I suppose,” I said with a shrug. “Probably.”

  “All right. Then you’ve got to let her call you Mummy, if she wants to.”

  “You what?” I shrank back in my seat, stricken. “Come on, Del, that’s…No. No. I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not.”

  “You’re not her aunt but you let her call you Auntie.”

  “That’s completely different! You know that’s completely different.”

  “I want her to feel as though she’s got another mother, that she’s got someone who’ll do all the mummy things with her.”

  “She will have. But it’s not right, her calling me Mum. It’s not…It’s not natural!”

  “That’s the best argument you’ve got?” Del raised what would have been her left eyebrow as she mocked me.

  Rather shamefully, it was. What I was trying to say was, you couldn’t replace a human being that easily and it wasn’t right to try. Tegan had known her mother, she’d remember her. What was it going to do to her mind, asking her to think of me as a new version of the woman she called Mummy? Tegan might love me, but she could never love me like she did her mother. Asking her to try would be wrong. It’d tear her apart, it’d confuse her in ways that we couldn’t even begin to understand. I wasn’t going to be responsible for screwing her up.

  “You know that’s not all I’m trying to say,” I replied.

  “Come on, Kam, what do you think adoption means? It means you’re becoming her mother, you’re adopting a role. You’re taking over from where I left off. I want her to think of you as her mother. And I want you to think of her as your daughter.”

  “I will.”

  “Not if you won’t let her call you Mum.” Del stopped talking suddenly, rested her frail body and her scarf-covered head against the white pillows. I watched her inhale a few times, her skin paling with each breath. Her eyes slipped shut. “If someone calls you beautiful often enough you believe it.” Her voice was as thin and fragile as tissue paper, the slightest interruption would tear it apart. She slowly opened her eyes. “If someone…If they tell you something often enough you believe it. Self-fulfilling prophecy. I want that to happen to you and Tegan. If she calls you Mummy often enough you’ll believe it. She’ll be a part of you that you’ll never…you’ll never want to let go. She’ll become your daughter.”

  “She will be. You know that saying, ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?’ She can still call me Auntie and I’ll be like her mother. I can’t ever be her mother because she’s got one, you. But I’ll be the next best thing. I’ll be the rose and still smell as sweet.”

  “Please. Just think about it.”

  “OK. I’ll think about it. Only think though. I’m not promising anything.”

  Silence came to us. Silence that she broke with, “Kam, about Nate—”

  “Del, please, don’t,” I interrupted. “I’m barely coping with all this. I can’t handle talking about that as well. OK? Please. We’ll sort it out another time.”

  “Another time,” she echoed. “Time’s funny like that. Infinite. Forever. We aren’t.”

  “You say that, but no one has actually proved that time is infinite.”

  Adele smiled. “You’re so obnoxious.”

  “I try.” I smiled back at her. Then I verbalized what I’d been thinking through while I’d been waiting in the corridor. “Look, you said you had a few months…I’m going to get time off work. If the doctors agree, I’ll find a place to rent for the three of us and you can come home. I’ll learn how to take care of you and you can come home. You know, till…Till…” I couldn’t say it. I’d thought the word, considered what it meant, but I hadn’t said it. Wouldn’t say it. “I want to be there with you at…” I swallowed. “I want to be with you.”

  “You’ll do that?”

  I nodded, my face buckling with emotion. I knew what I was offering. I couldn’t say the word, but I was offering to watch her do it. I’d have to watch my best friend leave this planet. I’d balked at the thought of taking care of a child, could I really sit with someone I loved and watch the life ebb out of her? I’d have to. Of course I’d have to. She had no one else. And she’d do the same for me if the roles were reversed. “Of course I’ll do that, Del,” I said. “Of course
I will.”

  She held her hand out to me and I took it. It was cool to the touch, the skin papery and dry. I thought it might crumble if I held her too tight. Our eyes met and for a second I felt like I was back in that college bar. Everything good about her, all her inner beauty radiated outward at me.

  “Count yourself lucky,” I said with a cheeky smile. “You know I wouldn’t do that for anyone else, don’t you?”

  “I’m honored,” she replied with a slight laugh, her fingers curling around mine, “truly, I’m honored.”

  “No, I am.”

  chapter 9

  A week I’d been in London, although it felt like a lifetime. A lifetime of traffic-clogged streets, anonymous living and accents like mine. It was almost as if I’d never left. In that time, in the past eight days, the three of us—Adele, Tegan and I—had slipped into a routine. A loose one, but still a routine. Structure, no matter how small, was important for all of us.

  We’d wake at fifteen seconds past the crack of dawn because Tegan liked to scramble out from under the covers, lie on the end of the bed, turn on the hotel room TV, find cartoons and stay in front of them for as long as I allowed her to. As soon as the TV went on, I would pull a pillow over my head, trying to blot out the high-pitched squeaks and clangs emanating from the screen.

  After about an hour of cartoons, I’d drag myself from the double bed, stiff and kinked up because I’d have been on the edge all night scared to death I’d roll over and crush her. After my shower, I’d persuade Tegan into the bath. By the time we were both dressed, Tegan would be incandescent with excitement because she knew she’d be seeing her mum soon.

  We’d drop by the hospital for an hour or so until we’d exhausted Del, then we’d go house hunting. None of the houses or flats Tegan and I saw were right for us but I knew we were going to find something today. A nice three-bedroom ground-floor flat that would give Del her own space and Tegan and I our own rooms. Maybe even a garden for Tegan to play in now that summer had kicked in and the days were bright with sun and positive energy. Today was the day, I could feel it in my soul.

  Everything else had slotted into place. I’d asked for a six-month sabbatical from work, but they’d suggested I have the preceding week and the next two weeks as my annual leave, then work from home—home being the place I rented with Del and Tegan—three days a week. We’d get e-mail, I could easily work from the London office of the department store, where I was national marketing manager, and if I needed to go to Leeds, they’d schedule midday meetings so I had time to get there and back in a day. I’d find an estate agent to sort out renting my flat in Leeds. It was all going to work out. We just needed somewhere to live.

  Despite my conviction about finding the right house, today hadn’t exactly started well. My five-year-old charge hadn’t roused from bed yet because she’d been up late, fizzing with excitement about the future. About the three of us being together. She’d begun to relax with me in the past eight days. Now she felt she could do things like turn on the telly without staring at me until I asked her what was wrong. Also, I guessed her mother had been talking to her about the longer term future because she’d started asking things like, “What’s Leeds like?” and “Can I have my own room?”

  Tegan’s latest idea was getting a cat. There was no way on earth that we were getting any kind of furry animal, not now, not ever. They were fine in the wild, but not in my flat, nor my realm of responsibility. I don’t know where she got the idea from but it’d been one of the first things she brought up when we went to visit her mother yesterday.

  Tegan had opened the door to Del’s room, ran in, leapt up onto the bed and began her ritual of kisses. They started high up on Del’s left cheek, got lower and lower, crossed her chin, avoiding the tube hooked through her nostrils, then went up to her right cheek. Tegan never seemed to notice her mum wasn’t looking well or that she was connected to machines. And, yesterday, I wasn’t surprised. Del looked amazing.

  Color was back in her face, that mottled gray and yellow had faded, instead her skin glowed a healthy pink. The red had all but gone from the whites of her eyes and the sparkle was back in the steel-blue windows to her soul. Apart from the navy blue scarf around her head, the thinned face and the lack of eyebrows, she could have been the Del I knew all those years ago. I’d grinned because she’d done it. She’d accepted that she did have a choice in this after all—she could get better, live.

  “How you doing?” she asked. Her voice sounded far more substantial than it had been only three days ago, and my grin widened.

  “I’m fine. I’m always fine,” I said. “You look so well.”

  “I feel well. Not well. Better. A lot better. You, on the other hand, look exhausted.”

  “I’m fine, really.” I was tired, couldn’t remember the last proper night’s sleep I’d had, but hey, let’s get everything in perspective. Terminally ill, a bit knackered—who should be complaining here?

  “Please take care of yourself, Kam.”

  “I am,” I replied.

  “That’d be a first,” Adele said.

  “I am.”

  “Can we get a cat?” Tegan interjected.

  “You’ll have to ask Kamryn about that,” Del said, passing the buck rather neatly to me, even though she knew how I felt about all things furry.

  “Can we?” Tegan asked me.

  “Not right now, sweetie. We’ll talk about it another time.” As in never.

  Del pushed her lips together to hide her smirk.

  “We saw a house with no upstairs today,” Tegan informed her mother. “It was a bung-low.”

  “That’s nice,” Del said.

  Tegan stretched out on the bed and rested her head on her mother’s right breast, avoiding almost by some sixth sense the tube coming out of her torso and the drip in her hand. Del gazed tenderly down at her daughter’s head, then back up at me. “She’s tired as well.”

  “I know, but a day house hunting will do that.”

  “She needs to be settled.”

  “She will be. When we find somewhere that feels like home she can have her own room and she can see you any time she wants. Which is what you both need.”

  “If we get a cat, can we call it Pussy Puss?” Tegan asked in a sleepy voice.

  “Pussy’s a good name for a cat,” Del said, trying to hold back her laughter.

  “Yeah,” I said, “it certainly is.”

  “Can you imagine walking around the neighborhood calling ‘Pussy, Pussy’?” Del giggled.

  “Why are you laughing?” Tegan asked as her mother and I snickered like two schoolboys who’d discovered seethru bras in the underwear section of their mothers’ catalogues.

  “Your Auntie Kamryn is just being silly that’s all. Don’t mind her.”

  “No, sweetie, don’t mind me.”

  Tegan had snoozed while Del and I thought up the weirdest, rudest names for pets that we could wander around the streets shouting out. Our favorite had been Your Hairy Butt (“Your Hairy Butt, Your Hairy Butt, dinner time!”), which made Del laugh so much I thought she was going to pass out.

  When we got back to the hotel, Tegan had been fizzing, keyed up about getting a cat, about her mum coming home, about having fish fingers for dinner…Nothing was too trivial for her to chatter about. I’d watched her babble as she bounced on the bed. Then watched as she lay down as if about to sleep, then suddenly leap up with something else to talk about. I marveled at the transformation. Less than a week ago she wouldn’t talk to me, now she couldn’t stop. When she’d finally fallen asleep it’d been pushing 3 a.m. and I was whacked out myself.

  Now I checked her sleeping form, a small crescent shape under the blue blankets, blond hair splayed out around her face. Maybe I’ll leave her a bit longer. Del was seeing the consultant this morning, anyway, so we had house hunting as our first task of the day. I wanted to get on with it but Tegan obviously needed her sleep and a grumpy child was something I could do without.

 
A knock at the door made me jump. My eyes went to the LCD display on the clock radio by the bed: 7:55. Far too early for callers. Maybe it was the laundry woman. I bit my lower lip anxiously; I hadn’t gotten our dirty clothes together for washing. I looked around at the room, ashamed. Stuff was all over the joint: new clothes that I had to buy because I hadn’t brought enough down with me, outfits that Tegan didn’t want to wear that I’d taken out but hadn’t folded away, toys Tegan had been playing with. I wasn’t the tidiest of people and living out of one room you really needed to be. I’d have to ask the laundry woman to come back later when I’d got our washing together.

  I traversed several piles of clothes to get to the door.

  But it was Nancy, Adele’s nurse, who stood on the other side of the door. She was wearing a buttoned-up beige raincoat. Her black plaits were loose and her face was free of makeup—it was also missing her usual bright smile.

  I knew. The moment my eyes settled on her face I knew. But I also didn’t know, I wasn’t ready.

  “Hello, Kamryn,” she said with a smile. Not her usually bright, sunny one, this one was warm but subdued.

  “Hi,” I said back.

  “Where’s Tegan?” she asked.

  “She’s asleep,” I replied.

  “OK, good. May I speak to you in the corridor?”

  I nodded, looked to make sure Tegan was still sleeping before I put my shoe in the doorway so the door wouldn’t slam shut.

  We walked to the end of the hallway, to where there were two tan leather armchairs and a glass side table upon which stood a vase of silk flowers. Neither of us sat in the armchairs and I kept an eye on the door to our room.

  “I’m sorry, Kamryn,” Nancy began, and the bundle of butterflies that had been fluttering around my stomach plummeted through my body. “Adele passed away in the night.”