Between Friends Read Free

thrill of new life that I remembered from being pregnant with Letty.
    And then, in addition to the lists of healthy new habits, here came the practicalities of it, the solid facts of in vitro that I’d not allowed myself to think about until I got past the purity of I want another baby .
    I needed to talk to Cora. And Dr. Collins at the fertility clinic. I didn’t even know if the embryos were still good after ten years, but my recent reading seemed to indicate that there was definitely hope.
    I knew the doctor would suggest that we harvest new eggs. There was no way Cora would be willing to go through it all again; the shots, the hormones and the crazy mood swings, the harvesting itself. She did it for us twice, but we were both on the slick side of forty now, in wholly different stages of our lives.
    The giving end of IVF was a young woman’s game, the younger the better. But I wanted a biological sibling for Letty. The same genetic pool. Cora and Benny weren’t the best of friends, but there was no question that they’d made a beautiful, healthy daughter.
    And the embryos were all sitting there, waiting patiently for me to rescue them from their chilly tubes. I’d paid the fees, three years in advance, a regular reminder—like Letty’s birthday—that I could sustain life, bring it into the world and shape it. When paperwork came in about the embryos and my choices, I’d never even given it a second thought. I’d chosen “Continue to Preserve” and written the check, and for the first couple of times Benny had been right beside me, excited about doing it again.
    Cora and I hadn’t talked about it for years, but it was only considerate to talk to her first. Of course I had no idea where she was. I didn’t follow the winds; I had no idea if she was in California for the Santa Anas, in Russia for the boras, or in South Africa for whatever those were called. I could wait. A month rarely went by that we didn’t talk on the phone, though it seemed as though even that was slipping lately.
    It was possible that I’d see her that summer. Meteorologists had predicted a busy hurricane season, and if we were threatened, she’d show, hauling along other researchers. They’d turn Cora’s mother’s house into a dorm, with people sleeping on sofas and up all hours of the night, rushing to the storm-beaten beach with their equipment like kids running toward the circus.
    I glanced at the clock. Letty was late, due home twenty minutes ago. No more cheerleading this year, but she’d started babysitting for a toddler two blocks away. I’d give her ten more minutes, and then call her cell.
    Benny had finished his ministrations for the birds and was now sitting staring out at the yard, patiently watching for the arrival of his favorite brown thrasher family looking for their overripe pears. I would usually take my glass of wine and join him, let him point out the ones I never noticed when they arrived, the female cardinals and painted buntings, both drab in comparison to their mates. But not yet, it wasn’t time yet. I could tell from the set of his shoulders, high and tense. No words were going to get past.
    All I could do was wait and fantasize about my baby.

LETTY

    “My mom is probably already home,” she said to Seth. “Just let me off here.”
    She pointed to a house that had been empty for almost two years. It was only a block away from her house, but it was like a whole different neighborhood. Her mom said it was foreclosed and would go to auction soon, but nobody had bothered to clean it up or anything. Her dad always said he was going to take the lawn mower down and do it himself because he was sick of looking at it, but he never did.
    Seth didn’t argue. He knew her dad was a cop. Everyone in town knew everything about her. Her mother, with her big mouth and dead eggs and stupid Miracle Wall, made sure of that.
    He pulled into the driveway and under the carport, the shade sliding over them, and peered at the