Girls Interrupted

The first time I heard Pachelbel’s "Canon," I was a sophomore in college, sitting on a cold dorm room floor, wrapped in a Mexican blanket. My roommate Erika was playing the cello alongside her friend on violin. They started slowly, coaxing music into the chilled air with their bows, while I sat stunned, letting my Camel Light burn down to my fingertips. The solitude of the piece brought tears to my eyes and when they finished, Erika laughed, dismissing it as fluff.

“Wedding fluff!” she spat, as if nothing could be worse. 

Erika was like that, unaware of her impact, content to let others take the spotlight while she clapped from the sidelines. We were part of a tight knit group back then, a motley crew really, but it was Erika’s cool and cultured bohemian streak that struck just the right balance with my uptight nature. She was the wild flower to my potted plant. She let things slide while I held on to every last shred, clinging and obsessive.

“Just shrug it off,” was her advice after a minor break-up with a very minor guy. “Don’t let this dude hang out in your kitchen.” And by “kitchen”, she meant my head. She was right. There was no point in agonizing over it, dissecting every moment with tweezers, as was my habit. It was over. I took her advice. I learned to shrug.

After graduation, Erika and I always circled back to each other, traversing years of slave-labor jobs, crummy apartments, boys, men and then marriage and kids. She wore my veil at her wedding. I was one of the first calls she made when her daughter was born.

“Look at my person!” she exclaimed when I met baby Ella for the first time. “She’s perfect,” I said, looking down at her navy eyes.

Erika was warming a bottle next to a pile of dirty dishes. Clothes littered the floor along with boxes of wipes and mail that had been knocked from the counter. She floated around the chaos, immune, while I fought every instinct to not grab the vacuum. Her smile was the calm in the storm.

My son Jay was born the following year and at nine-months old, just when I started getting the hang of the Diaper Genie and burp-free bottles, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. He had survived an in-utero stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed on his right side. The symptoms were only just beginning to show and our world started crumbling down around us. Erika was one of the few people who stuck around to watch the dust settle. Turns out, talking about a kid with a serious medical condition can kill a friendship faster than saying “I have sister wives”.

“We have to start OT and PT right away,” I said, choked with tears after an initial hospital visit.

“I don’t know what that means,” Erika whispered.

“Me neither,” my voice cracked with the realization of how far from normal my life was becoming. I had gained access to the club that no parent wants to be a part of, the missing chapter from the What to Expect book. It was the saddest time of my life and yet, one of the most clarifying.

Soon after Jay was diagnosed, my husband Charlie and I made the tough decision to sell our house and move to a different state to access better schools and therapy programs. We sought out the best doctors, learning as we went, forging through toddlerhood then pre-school. Rather than succumb to the crash of that wave, we swam against it, with everything we had.

I started to meet other parents whose kids had special needs, our own distinct language setting us apart on the playgrounds. I met Lydia, a blonde beauty with biceps like Madonna, whose 9-year old son was about to undergo a hemisphrectomy, a procedure where surgeons remove part of the brain to help alleviate seizures.

“Tons of yoga and really good red wine,” was the answer she gave me after I asked how she kept it together. Then she smiled and said quietly, “I have really good friends. They’re everything.”

I thought about what it took to be that friend, to support someone whose kid was about to have half of his brain obliterated and I wasn’t sure I was up for that task. My own world was heavy enough. But weeks later, after Lydia’s son came through the surgery, I listened to her relive the procedure and the brutal days that followed, over lattes and scones. She cried, then I cried, and we eventually ended up laughing and when she was done, she hugged me.

“Thanks. I really needed that.”

In the back of my mind, a voice said, “You can be that friend.” I had to admit, I felt privileged listening to her story, one that could have just as easily been my own. I was bearing witness, sharing her fear but, also, her courage.

Right around the same time, Erika’s life was spinning into a free fall. She had just brought her third child home from the hospital when her father lost his battle with cancer. I took the two-hour ride to see her, my car packed with her favorite foods, then sat in her driveway, in mute shock. Splintered front steps were held together with a vice-clamp while a screen door dangled by a twisted, rusty wire. Plastic toys dotted the lawn along with gardening tools and shards of clay pots. Inside, kitchen cabinets, like crooked teeth, hung wide open on yellowed walls. Her bathrooms were pockmarked with mold, the bedrooms blanketed in dirty laundry. She was falling apart along with everything else around her.

We sat at her kitchen table as she talked. She was upside down in her mortgage, the bills were piling up and she missed her Dad. I encouraged her to get out of the house and find a job doing something locally.

“Just get something part-time, something to help stop the bleeding.”

“We can’t afford the daycare,” she sniffed.

“Getting out of the house will do you good. You’ll be around people, you’ll get on your feet again.”

“It’s too hard. You don’t understand. It’s too hard,” her sobs ended that conversation and all the conversations we had days, then weeks, later.

She refused therapy and grief counseling. She looked the other way when her kids started showing signs of anxiety. My attempts at helping fell flat. She was looking for validation but I could only offer solutions, action plans, the very things that helped me move through the worst years of my life. I watched as Erika sank further into her depression, unable and unwilling to move from her spot at the table, cigarette in hand, cold coffee in a stained mug. I wasn’t sure she would ever recover and then, out of the blue, she invited us for a night out in the city.

“The play is hilarious!” I could sense her smile over the phone. “You’ll love it!”

Her husband Mark was a drama teacher and struggling playwright on the side. His play was in previews at a small cabaret and Erika looked gorgeous standing at the front door, flushed with opening night jitters. She hugged me tight, her blond curls circling us like a lace shawl.

“Thank you for coming,” she whispered, squeezing my hand. 

“You look amazing,” I whispered back, thrilled to see her out and about.

The venue was set up like a dinner theater, cozy and close. We took our seats in the front and then the curtain opened. It was clear from the start, the comedy was not going to be my flavor of funny. The jokes were creaky and dated, more Borsht Belt than 30 Rock. Erika watched for my reaction and I obliged, smiling wildly and laughing at all the right moments.

As if on cue, the waitress appeared with tequila as the humor took a nosedive. “Retard” jokes and riffs about short yellow buses led to the climax, which involved a wheelchair and a punch line about Christopher Reeve. There was more, but I stopped listening as the voices onstage faded into the laughter echoing around me. My ears were finely tuned to the loudest of roars, those coming from Erika and Mark. And in that moment, my heart died just a little bit.

Jay had always taken that short bus to school. And while he could walk without wheelchair assistance, some of his friends could not. There was no amount of tequila that could drown the shame burning up my spine.

As soon as the show ended, my husband and I dashed for the door, yelling hasty goodbyes as we hit the city street.

“Well, now we know.” Charlie said quietly, putting the lid on the friendship before I could.

“Yes we do.” In fact, I knew so much more than I wanted to. For days after the play, I hit the rewind button, replaying conversations, looking for clues. Erika knew all about my life with Jay, my deep seeded worries and fears, and Mark’s play was like a personal nightmare brought to life. Even worse, she invited me to watch and enjoyed every second. I was crushed. And then I was angry.

“So, what did you think of the play?” These were the first words out of her mouth when I answered the phone. I jumped in, head first.

“I’m never going to laugh at a wheelchair joke. Or kids on a short bus.”

“It’s just Mark’s style; obnoxious yes, but just silly fun,” she said lightly, as if reviewing the latest Chipmunk movie.

These were Mark’s words, his defense, but she was giving them life, standing behind them as if they were her own. Another shock. The aftershock.

“You laughed at someone in a wheelchair! You did that!”

“It wasn’t personal,” she said casually, “Mark certainly didn’t mean to offend you. I can’t believe you’re taking this so seriously.”

“I can’t believe you’re not taking it seriously.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry you were hurt by it…” she trailed off.

We spoke a few more times after that, stilted chats made up of polite banter and awkward pauses. I never heard from Mark, someone I had called my friend for more than 10 years, and I never understood Erika’s silent defense of his work. I questioned if her free spirit, her “shrug it off” attitude was simply a resistance to stand her ground. Perhaps this was why her life remained in chaos; she refused to make the harder choices, to fight the waves. It was as though I was looking at her for the first time, through a new lens, one without a shared trust or history. And I didn’t know what to say to this person, or how to proceed with a friendship that was never really what I thought it was.

So, I avoided her calls, responding with a one or two word text. I resembled every guy I dated in my 20’s—aloof and indifferent. She responded by leaving rambling messages. She had Googled ideas on how to befriend parents of kids with special needs and was ready to start anew. I thought this was funny at first but then my stomach dropped when I realized she actually sought out instruction on how to be my friend.

I flashed back to my chat with Lydia that day in the coffee shop, the tight grip on her napkin while she described her son’s recovery. There was no instruction needed.

Then, things went quiet with Erika, both of us retreating to our corners as radio silence replaced our daily chats. I let this happen, knowing we were slipping past the point of no return. I felt paralyzed, unable to let go yet unwilling to hold on. I couldn’t just shrug this one off.

Later that month, I spent a weekend with some old friends from high school, girls who can say they knew me when my hair was huge and my jeans were skin-tight and zipped at the ankle. We laughed deep into the night and then started all over the next morning.

It was one of those weekends that flowed easily from start to finish, laughter to tears and back again. Confessionals and declarations, tequila and wine and back again. The simple gesture of a hand over mine, as I talked about Jay’s medical struggles, was like salve on a blistered burn. I felt safe in this knowing circle, but most of all, fortified. I saw my reflection in their faces, appreciating the well-earned laugh lines and silvery strands highlighting their temples. In the years since we learned to drive stick shifts together, our shoulders had grown wide and strong. There was great capacity here. There was whispering in the silence, an unspoken mantra of “hell yeah!” when asked to go another round. We were kindred in this way.

On my flight home, I realized that’s what was missing with Erika. The way we handled life’s biggest challenges, the sleeper waves that hit out of nowhere, had become radically different. She was content to let those waves wash her to shore while I couldn’t help but swim against the current. It was suddenly clear to me that our friendship was over, and probably had been for some time.

Yet, I still couldn’t think of my younger self without seeing Erika by my side, a touchstone to who I was a million years ago. I loved peeking in that rear view mirror if only to remind myself of how far I’d come. Perhaps that’s why I’d tended to our friendship over the years rather than let it go to seed naturally. Ironically enough, that’s how it ended anyway.

A few texts here and there, bits of nonsense and gossip, the numbing ointment before the needle. The good news is that I’ve learned from our breakup. Like all long-term relationships that meet their demise, there is wisdom in the wake.

These days, when I think of Erika, the memories are sepia-toned and distant. I’ll see her smile when a certain Clapton song comes on the radio, reminding me of simpler days. And in those moments I think that maybe I should have told her that our breakup wasn’t over a night at the theater, but about who we had grown into and apart from. Maybe I should have called her to the mat, invited her to explain the wheelchair joke to Jay, so she could witness its cruel impact rather than discuss it from atop rhetorical high ground. And maybe, just maybe, she might have experienced that shift from being towed along by the currents to swimming upstream, buoyant and breathless, purposeful and alive, whisper becoming mantra:  Hell yeah.

 Originally published in My Other Ex by the Herstories Project