Between Times

Cee calls me up this afternoon. Is there any chance we can meet for a cup of coffee? A flash of joy runs through my bones. We haven’t seen each other in ages. It’s lovely to be in the mood, in the position, to make a spontaneous escape from the domestic doldrums.

We’ve known each other for eons. We were neighbours when our children were young. We tried to keep in touch, but rarely succeeded, after they moved outside of the city.

They wanted a rural lifestyle. We liked the city life, despite the fact that we had no garden or playground nearby. Nevertheless, I’ve followed her career, she mine.

We sit in our favourite café. One we used to go with our babies. The coffee was good, the room was baby proof (e.g. no electrical sockets in reach) and the waitress didn’t give us dirty looks if the children wandered out from under the table.

This afternoon, those days seem so far away. Cee remarks upon this.

We chat without really conversing. I’m saddened by the fact we’ve obviously lost the closeness of past times.

At the point when I am wondering whether I should go, Cee is suddenly telling me how she and her husband are divorcing. In between her story of a recent family reunion and a rant about our impoverished educational system, she mentions something so intimate and tragic, I stop breathing.

Instead of asking her “Why?” I ask her “What are you going to do?” and a look of relief cross Cee’s face. She just does not have the energy to bridge the emotional distance that has developed between us. The years of talking only when we’d bump into each other downtown, the thousand promises to meet soon though we never did, back to the time when we’d sit in her garden and confide to each other how overwhelmed we were with life.

Sitting in the café this afternoon, over our second cup of coffee, Cee talks about what she is going to do now. Today. Tomorrow. As long as it takes to finalise her divorce and start on a journey after-her-divorce.

I tell her I’ll help, if she wishes. Certainly, I can do that, though I know those between times are lost. We’ll just have to take tentative steps forward into a new friendship.