B.F.F. by Christie Tate

Author:Christie Tate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Published: 2023-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Callie and I got past the medication conversation because neither one of us ever mentioned it again. I quietly filled my prescription at the Costco pharmacy and hoped the little green pills would cut the darkness as it had after Zara was born.

Very quickly, however, we fell into other conflicts that I never saw coming until I heard her deafening silence on the other end of the phone. The first happened after I told her about a playgroup I joined on Thursday afternoons. I’d invited her to join, but she couldn’t because of her work schedule.

“I feel so isolated,” Callie said.

“I know what you mean,” I said. I felt that loneliness and isolation, too, which was why I had taken steps to connect with other new mothers.

“Yes, but you have a playgroup and I don’t.”

Was I supposed to apologize? I hated the feeling of not knowing how to make it better, even though she wasn’t asking me to fix her. This was a much smaller version of the guilt I felt when I got pregnant before she did.

A second tiff was slightly murkier.

One day, Jolie, a friend from the Saturday breakfast crew who had a son six months younger than Zara, invited me to go thrifting with her in Lincoln Park. We buckled our babies into strollers and looked through the secondhand play mats and cashmere blankets that affluent families in Lincoln Park had discarded. I found a wool cardigan for Zara and a snowsuit for Elias.

The next day, I mentioned this outing to Callie in passing, and she abruptly got off the phone. What was wrong now? Our excursion took place on a day that she worked. I would be happy to go again with her if she wanted, though she wasn’t really the thrifting type. I felt angry that we couldn’t find an easy rhythm and annoyed that she was mad at me. Again.

Callie left me a voice mail a few days later.

“Christie, I felt so hurt—” I can’t remember now if I deleted the message right then or if I listened and have since forgotten, but I remember sitting in my minivan with my kids in their car seats, waiting for me to turn on the ignition and drive us home from the pediatrician’s office. Earlier that day, I’d gone to a recovery meeting and heard people sharing on the topic of “toxic relationships.” Allyson, one of my favorite women there, shared about a friendship that had fallen apart recently. “I just let go. We’d been fighting all the time, and I needed some space. It was a gift I gave to myself.” Her words reached inside and grabbed hold of me, like a lifeline.

I wanted that space. I was tired of being tense around Callie. Maybe I should do what Allyson did and let go. Give myself some space.

“How do you do that, ‘get space’ in a friendship?” Meredith asked a few days later over tea when I told her about it. “If you’re

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