“Still, it seemed like a lot,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “I had no idea Colleen Thompson had been sick. If I had, I’d have called her or at the very least sent a note.”
“She hadn’t been sick for long,” Liddy told her. “It seemed like one day she had some testing done and the next week she was gone.”
Maggie smiled sadly, remembering the girl they’d christened Tree, short for Treetop, because by sixth grade she’d towered over everyone, including most of the teachers. “Remember how the gym teachers and coaches all tried to get her to play basketball but she hated it? She wanted to play field hockey.”
“At which she sucked.” Emma added a second helping of brie to her plate. “God rest her soul. They had a lovely service for her at my father’s church. He gave a stirring sermon.”
“Your father always delivers the best sermons, Em. He was wonderful at my mother’s memorial. So comforting,” Maggie said, and Liddy nodded in agreement. “But I thought he stepped down as pastor.”
“He did,” Emma told her, “but her parents wanted him to do the service for Colleen, since the family had been members of the church for so long. You know my brother, Dan, is the pastor now, right? He took over when Dad retired.”
Maggie nodded. “I do.”
They fell silent, Maggie not only thinking of her mother but remembering other class members they’d lost over the years before Emma said, “I think we’re at the age where we can expect to hear about more friends passing on.”
“You make us sound ancient. I’m not ready to think of myself as old. We’re not old.” Maggie frowned as she slid some fish onto a cracker. “Lid, what’s in the sauce for the fish?”
“Sour cream, a little mayo, some lemon juice. Chopped fresh dill. I think that’s it.”
“It’s delicious.”
“Thanks. It’s my mom’s recipe.”
Emma crunched a slice of red pepper. “Dying is a fact of life. We’re all aware of that. I didn’t expect to be a widow by my fiftieth birthday, and Maggie, I’ll bet you thought you and Art had all the time in the world.” She spoke softly, as always. The times when Maggie’d heard her raise her voice or lose her temper had been rare.
Before Maggie could respond, Liddy said pointedly, “And I never expected to bury a child.”
Maggie reached over and squeezed Liddy’s hands, which were folded together on the tabletop. Liddy’s daughter Jessica’s suicide three years ago had shocked everyone who had known her.
“I think a change of subject is in order right about now,” Emma said, but Liddy shook her head.
“Not talking about it doesn’t make it go away. For reasons I still don’t understand, the fact remains that Jessie chose to end her life, and not a day passes when I wonder what I’d missed. There must have been signs I overlooked, things she’d said that should have tipped me off that she was in pain. How could I have not known?” Tears formed in the corners of Liddy’s eyes. “What kind of a mother doesn’t know her child is hurting so badly she’d rather die than continue to live?”
“Honey, you can only see what people choose to show you. For whatever reason, Jessie chose not to share.” Maggie continued to hold on to Liddy’s hands. “We’ll probably never know what was going on, what she was thinking. Why she didn’t confide in anyone. But we do know that you were a great mom to her. She adored you. You know that.”
“She never acted depressed or troubled,” Liddy continued on as if she hadn’t heard Maggie’s remarks. “She had days when she was down, like everyone does. I never thought there was something deeper going on. I’ve gone over and over every day I can remember for the weeks leading up to it, and I still don’t see anything that should have set off an alarm that something was seriously wrong. She did seem to be a bit melancholy that last week, but not to the point where I was concerned. I knew she’d stopped dating Rob, and I thought maybe she was sad because he’d broken up with her. But afterward, he told me she’d broken up with him without any clear explanation.” Her glass protested with a ping when she set it on the glass-topped table with a little too much force, and her voice cracked. “What did I miss?”
“Our kids don’t share everything with us. Very often, they tell us what they think we want to hear.” Maggie released her friend’s hands. “There are things neither of my girls told me when they were growing up, things that made my hair stand on end when I heard about them later, which I did mostly by accident. Even now, I only know what they want me to know. I had no idea Gracie and Zach were having problems until she told me he’d moved out, and that was weeks after he’d gone. Frankly, I still don’t understand why they divorced. And Natalie.” Maggie rolled her eyes. “She didn’t tell us she was pregnant until she was almost four months, and Jon had already walked out on her.”
“Has she been able to locate him?” Liddy asked, as if grateful to change the subject.
“She isn’t trying to. She says he’d gotten heavily involved with drugs, had no interest in stopping, and had no desire to go to rehab. She says she doesn’t need his child support and doesn’t want him in Daisy’s life. Doesn’t even want his family to know he has a daughter.”
“Was he abusive to her?” Emma asked tentatively, as if she might be almost afraid of the answer.
“Not as far as I know. He was always sort of quiet, but amiable. He and Art got along well, and Art was always good at seeing things in people the rest of us missed.
