The Facts

Once upon a time, in a neighbourhood not all the different from most, a family moved in. They unpacked their lives and hoped for the best or something close enough.

We met by fluke, which is often how I meet people. Groups are not my forte and I will never be a collector of people. Long gone are the stutter and pidgeon-toed clumsiness, though what remains is otherness and

friendships come about while sitting alone in a cafe or at a party that I hadn't even planned to attend.

 The school playground was where I met Lena. Parents and their children would often congregate in the morning before classes began. It was mostly for moms to socialize and keep an eye on their little darlings.

It was my second year. The streets were a a sea of monster homes; we rented.

It was a quiet neighborhood, close to the school, though I didn't particularly like our house and the landlord was a horrible amalgam of all bad landlords that relish the cat and mouse game of whether or not they will find it in their heart to do a repair in the next 6 months. Over time, it became apparent that the house had both a mould and anaemic heating though I planted a massive quantity of sunflowers our first summer there because I still hoped to make it a home.

On the outside, it was reminiscent of the neighborhood from my youth but it couldn't have been less so. The moms at school were different. My mother would have described them as being of a certain ilk ( though she would have easily been accepted). To me, they fit a profile. White, privileged, judgemental and bitchy. A few were not so closet alcoholics. Their offspring were routinely bullies and their husbands, routinely frightened of breathing in the wrong direction. Into this cabal I entered, having no way of ever being on the inside.

On a day to day basis, I coped. Just barely. My three playground allies were the holy roller who put her kids to bed at 7 pm, the once wealthy and now destitute divorcee who wore too much makeup and not enough clothes and the mom from the rundown apartments on the western most edge of the neighborhood who worked part time at the local grocery store and dyed her hair blue black. Of the three, I liked her the best. I couldn't exactly call her a friend, but it was someone who didn't try to convince me that Halloween was tantamount to devil worship, or scare me with their obvious rage at having to sell all of their LV's and Manolos.

And then Lena arrived in fall, as my daughter began grade 2. Her son was in the same class.

At first I enjoyed that she sought me out and chatted, but I also knew that her friendliness had an expiration date: she and her kids would fit in and quickly realize that the 3 of us did not. And I understood that Lena's singular MO was to seamlessly be on the inside.

To other moms, I was their very own Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer. Not allowed to join their reindeer games. Lena was. And she didn't have to even try. Yet she never passed up an opportunity to chat with me, though always away from prying eyes. In the company of others I was all but invisible and expected to be functionally silent. I felt like the date you take to some obscure restaurant where you will never be seen because you are a secret.

 Did I appear to accept the status quo at the time? Yes, with appear being the operative word. I vacillated between angry and hurt, often both. 

Our kids never socialized despite being the same ages. They were both given to blank stares, easy popularity and natural sporting abilites, along with an undercurrent of meanness. Lawson was a dead ringer for Howdy Doody with pale blue unblinking eyes. Lauren (yes, all of there names started with L, including their father's) was very blond, cooly confident at 7 and like her brother, a natural athlete. They both played hockey outside of school and were perennially carrying home stories (often untrue) about my son and daughter.

That Lena was anti-Semitic became clear that first year at the school's annual holiday concert. I overheard her tell a random dad that she was glad to not have any "Hanukkah crap" on the evening's program the way their former school always did. She loud and unashamed. You could count the number of Jewish families at the school, mine being among them. 

In that moment, I ignored her remark but filed it away under micro- aggression, I was actually hoping I had misheard or not understood. I knew I hadn't but it was easier that way. 

 Eventually grade 5 came and went. The whole time we were there, I increasingly had her number. When she was invited to join the mom's night out group in her first month at school and I, after more than a year had not, she seemed to relish telling me about it. In fact, she could have served as my entree but never would. Her overall smugness about everything from her home, vacations, number of shoes and purses she possessed vexed me though I bore it all, made the appropriate positive noises and then went home, feeling kicked.

Our dynamic was a delicate balance, made possible by my willingness to play the part of hapless underdog; someone who appeared to accept their station in the relationship. To her mind, she was offering me a kindness-a form of charity and her payment was getting to gloat and feel superior. Early on she had confided that her parents had divorced when she was young due to her father's infidelity. Her mom had remarried and Lena eventually gained a half brother. I sensed a lot of baggage there and my nature dictated that I let her behaviour slide. I wanted to believe she was insecure underneath all the bravado. And oddly enough, Lee loved to confide in me about her marriage. Our respective spouses were very different. Larry loved hockey; lived hockey. He was a mid level manager in a large company and enjoyed spending money immensely. He bought Lee many gifts and often cooked elaborate meals, but at times he was a hard ass and a screamer. It wouldn't have been for me, but sometimes I thought he got a bad rap. Lena with my husband? It would have been like putting a fish and an orange together. In retrospect, it's clear she told me things because I wasn't remotely in her social whirl. 

 Those first five years of school felt like 10 and I figured she and I would drift. And to an extent, this is what happened. We would occasionally meet for coffee and over time this became more and more infrequent, sometimes replaced by a phone conversation. Eventually it was down to 4 or 5 times a year and then just on our respective birthdays. We had been doing the birthday coffee since the beginning. It wasn't a bad ritual pers se, though over time, it just felt needless. We were both being polite and often, I suspect, she showed up out of pity, which I disliked even more so because I didn't need or want to be there either. She would spend the entire time going on ad nauseum about her superior beings and their level of awesomeness. Prom photos, hockey wins, school grades, boating at the cottage. I just listened and smiled. I played my part to perfection. And just when I felt ready to run away screaming, we would part and I would spend the next few days engaging in an internal post mortem, vowing to never see her again, but there always seemed to be a next time and here's the thing: she would always be the initiator. It never made sense other than I think she always felt better about herself after spending a few hours with me.

A week before my birthday, I received the call inviting me out for coffee. I begged off, citing a busy schedule and left it there. Lena never called over the next year and whenever I thought of calling her, I imagined her launching into her habitual bragging and thought, "no".

My own world was crumbling as I watched my father's health worsen day by day. I felt helpless as he struggled through the last stage of Alzheimer's. The physical and emotional toll on my mother was simply retched to watch. My relationship with my father had always been challenging, but accepting that there would be no resolution or do- over brought out a sadness that felt bottomless. What I had wanted and waited for at various points was an absolution that never came. I wished for him to adore me for who I was, and accept me for who I wasn't and would never be. And then, he was gone and the story just ended.

Over the years, I had repeatedly retreated, then tried again. The fact was that we were just vastly different. He didn't cotton to different at the best of times and he probably would have preferred a daughter like Lena; she would have made sense to him. The reality of who I was only pissed him off even when I was trying to do everything right.

Our snarls would always lead to confrontation, after which I would make a hasty retreat and disappear like an octopus leaving a cloud of ink.

But that stopped as my father increasingly retreated ever more with the passing months and years. There is no fairness or dignity to it, but here's the thing: he stopped disliking me and I stopped being afraid of doing it all wrong. I think he simply forgot that he saw me as an overly emotional fuck up. For the first time in my life, he hugged me long and hard and it felt good.

Irrationally, I couldn't accept certain realities. I knew where it was all leading, but up until the end, I couldn't wrap my mind around him simply not being there. And then he wasn't.

The radio silence between Lena and ended with a text close to my next birthday. I am not sure why she thought getting together was a good idea, but she proposed walk and I accepted by rote, but prefaced it with the news of my father's passing. She responded with the particulars of our getting together and that was it. The expected, "I'm so sorry" was missing. It felt like a slap.I was hurt and shocked...actually in disbelief. How does one be so callous?

In the moment, I did nothing and decided to sleep on it. When I got up the next morning and started making coffee, I became irate. Every lousy thing she had ever done; each affront or boast came flooding back and I started scrolling for her number.

"I can't meet you tomorrow", I said flatly. 

"Oh...that's too bad. I'm busy the rest of the week", she said. 

I detected this slightly snarky tone, As in how dare I not do as she wished because she had nothing better to do and it would fill a slot and I was supposed to be grateful or something.

"Do you know why I can't make it?", I continued.

"No….why", she said sounding confused.

"Because you didn't offer me your condolences (you bitch) and while I realize I am not a top tier friend, l'm a person. Maybe not a worthy person in your books but I am a person." 

"I've offered condolences to strangers", I continued. "I've said sorry to people who have lost a pet."

As I said this my free hand shook violently and my heart was beating out of my chest. It felt both surreal and liberating at the same time. I also felt like throttling her.

"I can't deal with death" she bleated. Yes it was actually a bleat, like a mournful sheep and I thought, "Are you kidding me?

And the she started to sniffle and the sniffle became full on crying. Usually someone's tears will move me, but I felt less than nothing. No, actually I felt manipulated.

At this point, I need to backtrack and say that Lena has numerous friends. She had always been very vocal about her neighborhood friends, her cottage friends, her longtime friends, and her friends through her kids' hockey. I suppose my status was token Jew. Kathy would be most accurately described as her best friend. There was never a conversation with Lena that did not include Kathy. She had met Lee, as I did, at school, but their friendship was always destined for BFF status. Kathy had cottage invites every summer and there were lunches and exchanged birthday gifts and I am sure, deep confidences shared. Kathy was a perky, petite blonde. She was a landscape designer who dressed in Ann Taylor and fed her kids canned fruit. Lena worshipped her.

Had I been treated as an equal to Kathy or Lena's other bosom friends, the boasting would have been easier to tolerate. But that was the point. She didn't do this with them. There wouldn't have been any pleasure in it because they were who they were and I was somehow never going to measure up. Even when I did something lovely for her, like the meals I painstakingly prepared for her and her family when she had both hips replaced, but it would never be as thoughtful or appreciated as the sushi Kathy brought over.

Should I have taken my leave of this person much sooner? Yes of course, but I am bad at goodbyes.

I let Lena have her tears for 30 seconds and I finally spoke. "If Kathy had lost a parent, you would have found the words." I was almost yelling into the phone now. "Of course you would!"

She mumbled something about how she Kathy texted back and forth every day so it "would have come up". Hearing this made my anger flare.

"I am a person Lee", I repeated. "I have feelings and and I am no less deserving, whether you think so or not…Your insensitivity is more than I can bare."

And then I was done. I dropped the mike and waited. She was still sniffling a bit and it made me even more incensed. I wanted to scream at her; to tell her to go fuck herself, but I said nothing in the vast silence.

Finally, she spoke. Death scared her she said. She had never been able to deal with it she said. You are an ass (I said to myself). And then I just wanted to stop hearing her voice, so I said goodbye and hung up.

An hour later, she texted me. She apologized and thanked me for my honesty; that she had learned something. It was hard to discern whether she was being sarcastic or genuine. Reading her words made me feel queasy. Perhaps I should have felt triumphant but all I felt was tired. I had said what I had wanted to say for so long and yet it felt hollow. She would no doubt tell her husband and Kathy that I was crazy and ungrateful. And I didn't care. Not even a drop. 

A month became a year and a year became many more. A very silly part of myself hoped she'd call and prove me wrong, though the truth was clear. I have played the whole relationship over in my mind too many times, all the while knowing full well, that she never gave me a second thought. It should have been easier to be okay with a door closing firmly behind me. But as like I said, I'm lousy at goodbyes.