Making love

Three women sat together on the edge of a rocky beach, examining pebbles. No two are the same, Emily said, as her friend held one up toward the sun and squinted to see if it would catch the light. The three of them had been trying to get here for years, sharing disrupted phone calls, sporadic group chats and holiday cards—dutifully keeping the thread of their connection alive, if not always taught.

Emily had spent those years in and out of the oncology unit at Stanford Hospital with her little boy. She had no way of knowing that after the shock of his diagnosis wore off, her life would come to revolve around the giant medical campus filled with scrubbed nurses and mediocre salad bars. Everything worked as planned and he was in remission now with a good prognosis, but nothing would ever be the same again, not like it used to be. Not like it was the last time she’d seen her friends.

The sunlight started to turn auburn and a star appeared in the sky. Her friends started to pull their sweaters out of their backpacks, which signaled to Emily that it was time to head back to the house, though she wasn’t cold at all and actually enjoyed the cool breeze on her bare arms. They packed up their things, each one taking a small collection of pebbles with them as souvenirs and headed back to their rented cottage.

They’d met in high school as freshman, each one more nervous than the other and desperate for a group to travel with in the intimidating hallways filled with kids who looked like grownups. Now, Stella was divorced and not afraid of anything in the world besides her cranky, feral cat’s rude outbursts of claws and hissing. She’d grown so raucously independent that it was hard to pin her down anywhere in the world for longer than a weekend, and her friends worried about her constantly—was she safe? was she happy?

Jannelle on the other hand had somehow been planted like a big broad oak tree in the garden of her beloved home. She’d be out there, mysteriously, for hours at a time. Her wife and kids would have to bargain with her just to come in for dinner, even as the day started turning dark. She’d slip inside, quiet and steadfast in her countenance just like she was at 15, yet the years had taken their toll, and you could feel the weight of exhaustion when she entered the room.

As the house started to fill up with the scent of sautéed onions and garlic, Emily started to hum. It was a song from who-knows where, but somewhere they shared because each one picked up the tune in turn and soon the kitchen was ringing with la la la’s and mmmm de da dum mmmmm’s. Soon her cheeks were red and tears tumbled down her face, like clear crystal pebbles, and when Stella caught sight of Emily’s face her voice quivered and she let out a howl as she too began to weep. Jannelle’s voice soared, carrying the music into a new register and completing it with improvised words of love and despair…

Oh my gooooood, good Lord, whaaaaat have you done to US? Your baaaaabies, sweet mother LORD, this life you’ve given us! Oooooooh good Lord!

Laughter and smiles broke into the chorus of wailing and singing as Emily and Stella put down their knives and joined hands in a gyrating dance to Jannelle’s big, soaring voice. The scene was too enticing and soon Jannelle put down her wooden spoon and joined the circle to move and sway with her friends, bending and spinning and shimmying across the kitchen floor until the force of it all broke open the dams of her eyes and tears flooded forth. Jannelle fell to her knees and her friends fell upon her, crashing down into one sprawling body of joy and pain.

They lay there until stillness overcame them and just as quickly as they all came to rest, the faint smell of burning onions jolted them into action and belly laughter. The dinner had to be re-started and they didn’t eat until late into the night, telling stories, singing songs, and holding each other in hugs, deep listening, and unspoken understanding.

As she looked at her friends over the candlelight of their table, Emily thought about how beautiful they looked, painted with the colors of hard lived lives and deeply loved loves and glowing with the soft, tender wisdom that comes only from truly knowing oneself. Nobody loves me like these women do, she thought, and then she lifted her glass and told her friends how much she loved them, and how much she would miss them until they were together again.