A Place Called Home: by Maxine Thompson

Author:Maxine Thompson [Thompson, Maxine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crafts; Hobbies & Home, Antiques & Collectibles, Art, Literature & Fiction, Drama, United States, Parenting & Relationships, Adoption, Drama & Plays
ISBN: 0964757656
Amazon: B003GDI8XY
Publisher: Black Butterfly Press
Published: 2010-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Mom, I know you’re going to call Chelsea and tell her about your book signing,” said Hailey, her sixteen-year-old daughter, as she emerged from the shower, a towel wrapped around her head.

“No, I’m not.”

“Why not?” Hailey peered out from under the towel in disbelief.

“Hey, aren’t you the one who said my relationship with Chelsea was sick?”

“Well, still. I never knew you could be this stubborn.”

“Just say I’ve passed the need for other people’s approval. What I think about me is a little more important now than what anyone else thinks. You remember that. You hear?”

No words could describe how Dillon felt about the schism in her friendship with Chelsea. Although it wasn’t the same pain, it was a comparable feeling to the emotions she’d experienced when she and T.J. were separated. Not exactly betrayal.

But a shattering of her illusions about her women friends. Because she had always been open like the pages of a book, she’d assumed others close to her shared all the same innermost details of their private lives. She was just beginning to realize how little she understood people and their hidden agendas. All she could think of now was how precarious the fault lines which ran along the cracks of a friendship were.

What she’d seen as a clear blue over the years with Chelsea was now the color gray. She couldn’t say who was right or wrong. Just that it no longer felt right anymore to call Chelsea, to enter into each other’s inner sphere.

But now she found that there was no one who’d really listen, understand her quirks and idiosyncrasies as a poet, as a woman, as a human being. As her kids would put it, “Chelsea knew where she was coming from.”

And the funny thing was Chelsea didn’t write a word. Still, she could slice through any of Dillon’s delusions of grandeur, deflate any bubbles of false pride, and sniff out any hypocrisies in Dillon’s character. Chelsea was one to often call Dillon “on the carpet” about the difference in what she said and did. The problem began when Dillon started to call Chelsea on her “nonsense.”

Maybe if Dillon had never gone into therapy and learned about co-dependency, she’d never would have started setting boundaries with her friends as to what her private and public self entailed.

After years of Dillon’s life being open season for her friends to comment on, she began to draw lines. Chelsea had seemed to resent this. Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. After all, they had shared intimacies such as menstrual cycles, unplanned pregnancies, and fibroid tumors. They often completed each other’s sentences. Usually, after a long distance phone call, (which neither thought anything of dropping $20 or more for,) characterized by one long-winded, free-for-all talk, they’d both hang up, feeling somehow purged of life’s daily assaults.

So why hadn’t Chelsea told Dillon she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis? Dillon silently resented that she’d heard it first from her mother, who was also Chelsea’s mother-in-law. Even so, she still called Chelsea, trying to be comforting.

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