Kindred Spirits

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  “I wish she hadn’t done it,” Mary Kay said.

  Carol was temporarily blinded. A car coming around the bend sent a wave of water onto their windshield, coating it with invisibility. “Damn him,” she cursed, her heart beating fast as she fiddled with the wipers, accidentally turning them off. “What did you say?” she asked when they were back on track.

  “I was saying I wish Lynne had held on a little longer instead of throwing in the towel. I understand why she did what she did. I wouldn’t have wanted to live with that pain, either.”

  “Ditto.”

  “But she might have had a few good weeks, even a few good months, left in her. There’s no telling what might have happened in that—” She gripped the door handle and closed her eyes. “Oh, God. Is there any way you can drive straighter?”

  Carol chuckled. “Sorry, MK. I’ll do what I can, but this road is switchback, first this way then that, up and down.”

  Mary Kay covered her mouth.

  “Are you all right?” A flash of oncoming headlights revealed her friend’s complexion, white and waxy. “Oh my God. You’re not all right. You’re sick.”

  “Shh.” Mary Kay gestured to Beth, dozing in the backseat. “It’s nothing.” She lowered the window for some fresh air. “Nothing more than the combination of car sickness and stress.”

  “Stress from this trip?”

  “That and”—Mary Kay took another calming breath—“this marriage proposal.”

  “That’s not the way most women in love react to a marriage proposal.” Carol kept one eye on the road, and one eye on her seatmate. “I have to say, this thing with you and Drake has us all confused. If you’re getting sick over this decision, then you need to talk about it.”

  Mary Kay stuck her head out the window. “There’s nothing to talk about. I just need to get out of this car.”

  “I don’t think the car’s the problem. Is there something wrong with Drake we don’t know about? Is he a closet control freak? A closet abuser? A closet. . . anything?”

  “No. He’s perfect. He’s the most perfect man, ever. He’s funny and warm and just great to be around. I love him. Next to you guys, he’s my best friend.”

  Carol threw up her hands and slapped the wheel. “Then what is it?”

  “He wants a family.” Mary Kay lowered the window more and inhaled. “And I can’t give him one.”

  “What do you mean you can’t have a family? How do you know?”

  Mary Kay told her the saga, starting with her two infections and the laparoscopy that confirmed her fears.

  Carol pieced the timeline together. “So Lynne knew?”

  “She was the only one and I swore her to secrecy.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Carol couldn’t help but be slightly hurt. She’d always thought of them as a tight circle of four friends, the Society.

  “I’m not completely sure why I didn’t tell you.” Mary Kay took another breath. “In retrospect, there might have been a fair amount of denial. And I didn’t know you guys that well back then. The only reason I ended up calling Lynne that night was because it was a blizzard and she had four-wheel drive.”

  “You do realize, this is what I do for a living, right?” Carol said. “Reproduction law is my thing. Every day I help infertile couples find the right surrogates.”

  “I can’t see myself using a surrogate mother.”

  “I doubt you’ll have to. Blocked fallopian tubes are fairly common and easily treatable. In vitro fertilization is the first option, of course. But you know that already. What does Drake have to say about this?”

  Mary Kay turned toward her. “That’s just it. He doesn’t know.”

  “He doesn’t . . . what?”

  “He doesn’t know what I just told you.” Another breath of fresh air. “He’s fully convinced I’ll have no problem getting pregnant. When we first started dating, he came across an old packet of birth-control pills and made a comment. You might say I didn’t exactly leap to correct him.”

  “You were taking the Pill to avoid an ectopic pregnancy?” Carol asked.

  “Right. I stopped them a few years ago when I turned forty, since they put you at an increased risk of stroke after thirty-five. I’m glad I did, too, because I lost about ten pounds.”

  “But why didn’t you tell him the truth?”

  “So he wouldn’t leave me for a younger, more fertile woman. I know, it’s bad.” She studied her hands in her lap, ashamed. “I’m like the teenage girl who agrees to sex so she doesn’t lose her boyfriend, except, in our case, the stakes were higher.”

  “I’ll say.” Carol tapped the brakes. “That would explain your tummy ache. I bet you have an ulcer.” Though the symptoms were exactly like Lynne’s in the beginning—and they’d passed those off as the flu or stress, too.

  “It’s gotten worse since Drake found my birth-control pills this weekend and knows I haven’t been taking them.” Another wave of car sickness. “The kicker is, now that I know what a stand-up guy he is, I’m pretty sure he would have stuck with me if I’d been honest about all this in the beginning. But now I’ve messed up everything. Who wants to marry a colossal liar?”

  And with that, she wiggled off the engagement ring. Carol hit a pothole and the ring went flying out of Mary Kay’s hand. “Oh, crap.”

  Mary Kay bent down to find it.

  Beth, rousing in the backseat, sat up and, over Mary Kay’s bent back, spied the oncoming disaster. “Look out!” she screamed, gesturing to the deer lumbering toward them.

  Mary Kay threw her arm across Carol as Carol slammed so hard on the brakes she lurched forward and seized up the safety belt, but it was too late. The front end of the car hit the galloping brown body, its hooves flying in the headlights, big black eyes wide in panic. The thwack was so hard, the car shook.

  “Shit!” Beth exhaled as the deer limped off. “Did you kill it?”

  Carol, her hand over her wildly beating heart, was too breathless from shock to answer. “Is it dead?” she whispered hoarsely.

  Mary Kay rolled down the window and peered into the night. They could hear it thrashing in the underbrush, struggling, getting up, and falling down. Injured.

  “No, honey. It’s worse. It’s alive.”

  The state trooper crested the hill and, spying the Highlander with its Connecticut tags, lights on and idling by the side of the road, did a U-turn, angling his cruiser behind Beth, who nervously waited in the driver’s seat while Mary Kay and Carol were in the woods seeing if they could find the deer.

  He dawdled for what seemed like an unnecessarily long time to run her plates before getting out and approaching the Highlander. He swept his flashlight over the backseat, illuminating the suitcases, Carol’s laptop, and the Igloo full of martini mixings. The beam lingered there, curious.

  “Were you the one who called about the deer?” He appeared at her window, stocky and short, a brass D. EVANSTON name tag pinned to his left pocket. Beth found it interesting that he wore wire frames, like her husband, and decided he couldn’t be all bad.

  “Yup.”

  “May I see your license and registration?”

  With a quivering hand, she turned over the tidy Dartmouth-green plastic packet marked BREWSTER INSURANCE: A FRIEND IN NEED IS A FRIEND IN DEED. Marc had taught her it was best to have your papers organized and ready.

  The trooper left, returning a few minutes later sporting a kinder and gentler attitude. “So, you came to Pennsylvania to bag you a deer, huh?”

  “Uh-huh,” Beth said, not getting the hunting joke. “It ran right into us.”

  His boots crunched on the gravel as he proceeded to inspect the front end. Beth joined him to assess the damage and was shocked to find that not only was the bumper of her pristine Highlander caved in, but that stuck to the license plate were tufts of brown fur.

  “Oh!” she cried, horrified. As someone who stopped traffic to avoid hitting even the smallest animal, Beth found it unthinkable that Carol had taken o
ut a large mammal with her car. “We tried to avoid it. We really did.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, my girlfriends are in the woods where the deer is. She’s a nurse.”

  The trooper said, “The deer’s a nurse, huh?” He was trying to make her feel better, but it wasn’t working.

  “No, my friend Mary Kay. She’s seeing if she can help it.”

  The trooper nodded to himself. “Wait here,” he said, then scrabbled down the embankment.

  Beth ran back to the car, where she turned on the heat and snuggled into Carol’s good camel coat. The night air was awfully cold in this damp, remote place. At least the rain had stopped. Two cars passed, slowing down, rubbernecking.

  Finally, Mary Kay and Carol emerged from the woods, Carol giving Mary Kay a hand up the steep part. They were covered in wet leaves and twigs and looked very somber. The trooper followed and went to his cruiser.

  “What’s going on?” Beth asked.

  Carol sat in the back. “He has to shoot it.”

  “Can’t they bandage it or something?”

  “It’s in pain and suffering, Beth,” Mary Kay said. “It’s not fair to let living things suffer. Putting him down is the humane thing to do.”

  Mary Kay was referring to the deer, but Beth couldn’t help thinking about Lynne. Beth had tried to deal the best she could with Lynne’s suicide, helping out with the funeral and throwing the reception, even putting her own parents’ needs aside so she could fulfill Lynne’s last wishes.

  But this deer thing was the last straw.

  Suddenly, she was mad. Mad about how her car had been ruined, mad about how an innocent animal had been needlessly injured because Carol and Mary Kay hadn’t been paying attention. She was even mad at Donald Miller for saying they had no business trying to find Julia.

  Mostly, though, she was mad at Lynne for going to a place where Beth could not follow, for writing the suicide notes alone, for not telling her about Julia.

  For not saying good-bye.

  “I’m sick and tired of all this talk about needing to mercifully put people down because they’re in pain and suffering,” she said. “Whatever happened to fighting to live?”

  “We’re not talking about putting people down,” Mary Kay said gently. “We’re talking about an injured wild animal.”

  Beth wiped her dripping nose on the sleeve of Carol’s coat. “That’s what I mean.”

  “I don’t blame you for being upset, Beth,” Carol said. “This is all my fault. If I’d been paying more attention to the road, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “What were you two talking about, anyway, that had you so distracted?” Beth made eye contact with Carol in the rearview.

  “Lynne,” Mary Kay lied. “We were talking about Lynne.”

  Carol replayed what Mary Kay had done in the woods trying to save the deer, bending to get close to its head, murmuring soothing sounds. Its large eyes, frightened, gradually closed, its breathing subsided from panicked breaths to a calmer rhythm. Carol had knelt, quietly transfixed.

  She had never thought about it before, but she knew then, in the woods, that Lynne’s suicide was particularly hard for Mary Kay. Mary Kay had invested years chauffeuring Lynne back and forth to New Haven, taking notes during her oncology appointments, researching her chemotherapy options, encouraging her with positive thinking. And yet, Lynne had died. She had chosen to die. She had given up.

  And Mary Kay, knowing full well that Lynne was contemplating suicide, let her.

  “There he goes,” Beth said, watching the trooper plunge into the darkness, shotgun in hand. “I can’t listen.” She punched on the radio, cranking it to full volume. The song playing was “Hotel California,” an Eagles number they’d heard so often during their trip, Mary Kay had christened it the Pennsylvania state anthem.

  Beth stuck her fingers in her ears. Mary Kay broke out in the chorus and Carol joined her, belting the lyrics at the top of their lungs. They sang and sang and didn’t think. Just when Beth crooned, “You can never leave!” there was an unexpected banging. All three women jumped.

  “Holy Toledo,” the trooper said after Beth cautiously lowered her window. “I’ve been standing out there for ten minutes. What the hell were you women doing, yodeling your heads off in there?”

  Yodeling? Carol tried not to take offense. They were hardly yodeling.

  Beth said, “We were trying to drown out the shots of your gun. Is it over?”

  “Beats me. Went down there and the deer got up, ran off. Looked A-OK from where I was standing. Probably, it was just in shock when you two found it.”

  Carol squeezed Mary Kay’s shoulder.

  Beth exhaled in relief. “Awesome.”

  The trooper got back in the cruiser and waited for them to pull onto the road. They drove off, shaken by the accident and relieved the ending was relatively happy, though none of them would be the same as they were before the deer rushed headlong into their car.

  That had upset everything.

  The hotel off the interstate was nothing special, a simple business joint, though with its well-lit lobby and warm cookies waiting for them at the check-in desk, it felt like a five-star resort.

  “It’s warm and dry,” Beth said, shaking out her umbrella. “And it’s not on four wheels.”

  Carol lifted her nose. “Chlorine. There’s a pool.”

  “I say we meet there in our suits for martinis and whatever I can order from the room-service menu.” Mary Kay applied her signature to the reservations with a sweep of her pen.

  “Let me get the ingredients for the martinis, and I insist on springing for the rooms,” Carol said. “After trashing the front end of your brand-new car, it’s the least I can do. OK?”

  And so it was separate rooms for each of them. Carol’s treat.

  Beth set up a luggage rack and opened her suitcase, finding her black skirted swimsuit rolled to the side. It was one of those Lands’ End suits where you could mix and match tops and bottoms depending on your shape—circle, triangle, and rectangle. She stepped out of her clothes and yanked on the suit, reluctantly assessing her image in the mirror and discovering that, for once, she was at peace with what she saw. This body of hers wasn’t about to grace the cover of Vogue anytime soon, thankfully. But it was a fine body. Just fine.

  She ran her hands over her sturdy thighs, barely concealed by the kicky pleated skirt, over the slight pouch of her stomach and around what was left of her waist. So what that her thighs were big, that her stomach protruded somewhat. She was healthy and alive. Such a thing we take for granted, being alive. Such an amazing gift. She would have to be more appreciative, she decided. No more groaning at the mirror or avoiding fluorescent lighting.

  From now on, she was going to dress with panache like Lynne used to. Colors. Silks. Patterns! She was going to celebrate her womanly form and get on her knees and thank God for another day in it. On that note, she grabbed her key card and walked out the door, not even bothering to disguise herself in a towel.

  Across the hall, Mary Kay, already in her suit and flowered sarong, surveyed the room-service menu. Man, was she starved. She picked up the phone and ordered everything that looked good: chicken wings and a quesadilla, guacamole, a few club sandwiches—no french fries, though. And tons and tons of fresh-cut fruit. Extra pineapple.

  “Is that all?” the receptionist asked.

  “Is that all?” In Mary Kay’s opinion, that had been quite a lot. “It’s only for three people.”

  The receptionist didn’t say anything after that.

  Several doors down, Carol couldn’t stop thinking about Mary Kay’s dilemma. In light of all they’d learned this weekend, it seemed absurd for two deserving people to lose out on a life together because Mary Kay had suffered some momentary lapse in judgment. It was unfair that Mary Kay had to pay twice for a random infection that could have ravaged any woman.

  Drake might be understandably hurt when Mary Kay told him the truth, not because she cou
ldn’t get pregnant, but because she’d lied. Premarital counseling might be in order, something Carol wished she’d done with Jeff to improve their communication problems. But surely Drake and Mary Kay could overcome this, couldn’t they?

  Or was she thinking about her and Jeff?

  After changing into her swimsuit, a navy boy-cut bikini with white piping, she turned on her cell phone to call Scott and tell him that she’d hit a deer. What she didn’t expect to find was a voice mail from Amanda.

  Hi, Mom, I got your message from last night that we needed to talk about Lynne. What’s up? Leave a message because I’ll be in and out all evening. Project due. Click.

  Carol replayed the voice mail and grinned at the familiar efficient delivery, the sense of business. It’s me, she realized, remembering what Lynne said about them not getting along because they were so similar.

  That was exactly how she’d sounded at age twenty—always on the go, clipped, as if she couldn’t be bothered to speak in full sentences. A roommate in college once observed that when Carol was on the phone she sounded pissed for no reason and Carol had been dumbfounded. She didn’t feel pissed. She was just . . . busy.

  We’re a trio of lousy communicators, Jeff, Amanda, and I, she thought. Jeff was as bad as she was. When he wasn’t treating his patients, he was thinking about them. And Carol was habitually catering to her roster of clients, many of whom, as eager prospective parents, were pretty demanding. She listened at work, but when it came to her personal life she never afforded those she loved most the same close attention. Not really.

  Except this weekend. This weekend she had listened and shared because she’d been squeezed into a car with two of her oldest friends and had no choice. And it had been nice. It was meaningful.

  She pressed Call Back and got Amanda’s voice mail greeting.

  “Thanks for calling me back,” she said. “I should have been clearer in my message. I wanted you to know that Lynne used to tell me things that were going on in your life, and I know she told you what was going on in my life, and I realize now that it was because she wanted us to stay connected. And I thought. . .”