Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder by Lisa Verge Higgins Page B

tell them about the dark puddle she’d seen on the floor of their hotel room
     last night, only realizing afterward that what looked like motor oil was actually Judy’s slick new raincoat.
    But Becky knew she wouldn’t win a face-off with Monique, not on this subject. “It’s true that my night vision is not so great,”
     she conceded. “I see lights, but I have questionable depth perception. My doctor compared it to looking at the night sky.
     You see a flat layer of stars. The truth is, those stars are hundreds of thousands of light years away from one another.”
    Monique murmured, “Did you and Marco talk about all this?”
    “Of course.”
    “All of it? Like you just told Judy and me?”
    “Verbatim? No.”
    One beat between the words, and in the darkness, that hesitation revealed itself as too obvious a lie.
    “You want to talk about that, Beck?” Monique asked. “Because though I’m glad to finally hear some detail about exactly how
     this disease is affecting you, I get the sense that there’s something even more serious going on. Something you’ve been hesitant
     to share with us, maybe?”
    Becky’s insides went liquid. She hoped the chatter from the Germans and the clinking of dishes and the whole ambient noise
     of the place covered up the swift hitch of her breath. Becky knew that Monique understood a lot about her disease. Monique
     knew the medical jargon that filled those websites. And Monique had friends at the hospital—doctor friends—who could fill
     her in on all the terrible details.
    One particular detail Becky kept pushing out of her mind. It was unspeakable, inconceivable. It could not be true.
    So she swiftly changed the subject. “Marco and I,” she stuttered, “had a very bad parting.”
    Despite the Germans chattering just beside them, Becky felt the intensity of Monique’s and Judy’s attention, their magnetic
     concentration on her words. Without seeing their faces she didn’t know if they caught on that she’d dodged the real question.
     “I bet he feels like a shit,” Judy said into the pause, “for blaming you for the fender benders and the lost keys and the
     misplaced mail—”
     “Judy,” Monie interrupted, “why don’t you let Becky tell us exactly what’s on her mind?”
    Becky heard the pat of Monique’s fingers on the table, searching amid the dishes, tugging the tablecloth in search of Becky’s
     hand. Becky pulled her hands away and clutched them in her lap. She did not want comfort. She did not want to speak aloud
     the unthinkable. Nor did she want to wade too deeply into the sucking, bottomless mess of her relationship with Marco.
    So she condensed her fears into something simpler, something pithy, something that nonetheless cut to the bone.
    “I used to dream,” she said, “that after Gina left for college, things might get better between Marco and me. You know I always
     wanted a home like yours, Judy.”
    “Filthy?” Judy chirped. “Broken-down and creaky?”
    “Crawling with kids.”
    In the awkward pause Monique made a choking sound while Judy drew in a slow, uneven breath.
    “For a mother who is soon to go blind,” Becky said, “there can be no more little Lorenzinis.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    A re we having fun yet?
    Monique pulled the hood of her raincoat over her hair as she handed her ticket to the man at the pier in Cologne. It was a
     grim, foggy sort of northern German day, not exactly perfect weather for a pleasure cruise down the Rhine River.
    Becky, wrapped in a thin windbreaker, followed Monique over the worn pier to the ramp. Judy brought up the rear, grimacing
     against the needles of rain and clutching her hood as her luggage bumped behind her. As soon as they ducked into the low-ceilinged
     center of the boat, Judy spied the restaurant. “Coffee,” she groaned. Judy scraped her luggage around and planted it beside
     Monique. “Check my luggage for me. I’ll save us a table by the window.”
    Monique agreed and