The Payment Book I Mailed My Best Friend

The divorce took most of that year. Dale got the house, because his name had been on it first and Lori could not have made the payment alone anyway. She got her retirement back, mostly, and a little rental on Elm Street with a window unit and a leaky bathroom faucet.

Steve went over and fixed that faucet on a Saturday without being asked. He came home and said, “She’s got nothing in that refrigerator but ketchup and pickles, Deb.” So I started bringing over casseroles.

The first few months after, Lori and I talked every day, same as always. Then it was every few days. Then she started missing our Thursday coffee at the bakery, and when I called, she said she was picking up extra shifts.

I believed her. Why wouldn’t I? A woman alone with a girl in college picks up shifts. I had seen it a hundred times at the pharmacy counter, the tired faces, the coupons, the question about which generic was cheaper.

The money never came up. Not a dollar of it, not once in two years. Not a “sorry it’s taking so long” or an “I haven’t forgotten.” Nothing.

I want to be honest here. It bothered me. Some nights it bothered me a great deal, usually in the spring when Steve went up that ladder with his bucket of tar.

But I never said a word. I told myself she would bring it up when she could. I told myself there were worse things than a curling roof. I told myself I was being a good friend.

The truth is I was a little afraid of what she would say if I asked. I was afraid it would cost me something more than eight thousand dollars.

And then the Jeep.

I heard about it before I saw it. That is how a town of thirty-five hundred works. Marcy at the pharmacy drop-off window leaned over on a Wednesday and said, “Did you see Lori’s new ride? Must be nice.”

I said I hadn’t. I counted out somebody’s metformin and kept my face still and felt something go cold in my stomach.

By Sunday I had heard about it four more times. So when I saw it sitting there in the St. Mary’s lot, shiny as a new dime, I was not surprised. I was only sad.

And I thought, well, maybe this is it. Maybe she is back on her feet. Maybe she is ready, and she just does not know how to start. I will make it easy for her.

That is what I thought I was doing in that parking lot. Making it easy for her.

That Sunday afternoon, after we got home, I did not cook dinner. I sat at my kitchen table with my coat still on and stared at the refrigerator.

There is a photo on our fridge that has been there since the girls’ junior year. Kenzie and my daughter Megan, side by side and smiling, one in a teal top and one in pink, standing close for a school portrait.

They grew up like sisters, the way their mothers did. Kenzie has her head tipped against Megan’s. They were sixteen. They thought they knew everything.

Steve came in from doing chores and found me like that. He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down without taking his boots off, which tells you how worried he was.