My Best Friend Said She Was Too Busy For Our Annual Trip—Then The Inn Handed Me Her Forgotten Charger

PART 5

Ellen did not text Saturday.

I noticed every hour.

At ten, nothing.

At noon, nothing.

At three, I took a walk along the beach and left my phone in the room because checking it had become a form of begging no one could see.

The tide was low. Dark ribbons of seaweed lay across the sand. A boy in rubber boots ran from wave to wave while his mother shouted that the water was colder than he thought.

I walked until the inn disappeared behind the dunes.

For most of the previous twelve years, Ellen and I had spent Saturday afternoon on that beach talking.

The subjects changed. Her divorce. My divorce. My son’s first serious girlfriend. Her father’s decline. My mother’s second marriage. Ellen’s promotion. My decision not to move when my ex-husband left the state.

We had been very good at crisis.

That thought came without accusation.

We had met when our daughters played soccer in middle school. We liked each other before either marriage ended. But our friendship became central during the years when both of us were rebuilding.

There were stretches when Ellen knew what I had eaten for dinner more reliably than my children did. I knew the code to her garage and which pharmacy filled her mother’s prescriptions. She once came to my house at eleven at night because I had found my ex-husband’s forgotten winter coat and could not stop crying over a piece of nylon.

I had driven her to sign refinance papers and waited in the parking lot because she did not want to walk back to an empty car.

We became each other’s witness.

Maybe that was what I had mistaken for permanence.

Not the friendship itself. The intensity.

At four, I found a piece of green beach glass and put it in my pocket.

Then I nearly texted Ellen a photo because she collected sea glass in a jar on her kitchen windowsill.

My thumb rested over her name.

I put the phone away.

The glass could simply belong to my pocket for a while.

Back at the inn, the clerk from Friday was gone. An older man sat behind the desk doing a crossword.

He looked up.

“Good walk?”

“Long one.”

“Best kind.”

I went upstairs and took a shower.

At six, Ellen called.

I watched the phone ring until the screen went dark.

Then I sat on the bed feeling both powerful and childish.

A minute later, a voicemail appeared.

I listened.

“Nora, it’s me. I don’t know if not answering means you need space or you want me to try harder. I’m going to assume space. I’m sorry about the lie. I am also sorry I made you find out from a stranger. We should talk when you’re ready.”

No defense.

No demand.

No promise.

I listened twice, which felt like cheating on my attempt at emotional independence.

Then I went downstairs and ate dinner.

Sunday morning, I checked out at nine.

The young clerk was back.

“Did you get the charger to your friend?” she asked.

“It’s in the mail.”

“Good.”

I signed the receipt.

She smiled. “Hope you had a nice stay.”

I almost said, It’s complicated.

Instead I said, “I did, actually.”

That surprised me.

The drive home took a little over three hours. I stopped once for gas and once at a farm stand because the sign promised cider donuts and I am not made of stone.

When I reached my house, the quiet did not feel like the hotel quiet.

It was mine.

There were leaves on the front steps. A package leaned against the door. My kitchen smelled faintly like the apples I had left in a bowl.

I put the blue weekender on the dining chair instead of unpacking it.

Then I called Ellen.

She answered immediately.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

We both waited.

Normally I would have rescued us.

I did not.

Finally Ellen said, “Do you want to come over?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“I want to talk, but not tonight.”

“Okay.”

I gripped the phone.

“You don’t have to say okay to everything.”

She gave one small laugh.

“I am aware of the irony.”

That made me laugh too, unwillingly.

For three seconds we sounded like ourselves.

Then the distance returned.

“Tuesday?” she asked.

I felt the old machine start inside me.

Tuesday dinner. Wednesday lunch. Thursday after work. Saturday morning.

I made myself answer only the question asked.

“Tuesday works.”

“Seven?”

“Seven.”

“Your place or mine?”

I thought about it.

“Mine.”

“Okay.”

This time the word did not irritate me.

After we hung up, I unpacked the weekender.

At the bottom was the keycard sleeve from Harbor House.

Normally I tucked those into a kitchen drawer with the others. I had eleven of them, different logos from different years.

I held the new one over the drawer.

Then I put it on the counter instead.

I was not ready to decide whether it belonged with the collection.

That night, while putting away the last clean clothes from the trip, I found an old photo strip tucked into the side pocket of the weekender.

Ellen and I had taken it during our first October trip in a boardwalk arcade that no longer existed. Four tiny pictures. In the first, we were smiling normally. In the second, Ellen crossed her eyes. In the third, I was laughing too hard to face the camera. In the fourth, we both looked tired.

I sat on the bedroom floor holding it.

The women in those pictures had needed each other fiercely. They had also been funny, impatient, selfish, generous, frightened, and alive. I did not want to insult them by deciding the friendship had only been real if it stayed identical forever.

That thought felt noble for approximately five seconds.

Then I wanted Ellen to call and take the whole problem away.

Both reactions were mine.

I put the strip in the top drawer of my dresser instead of back in the weekender. I did not throw it away. I did not place it on the nightstand like a shrine.

Then I finished folding my socks.