By Miriam Bat-Ami
On the Chicago Blue Line train from Forest Hills to O’Hare, two young women sit across from me. They remind me of two other similar-aged women on a Berlin U-Bahn a long time ago when I was young, too. For years, I’ve been living in places where only trees lean against each other, bark against bark, branch against branch. Occasionally, people of the opposite sex hold hands while they walk. They rarely hug out in public. Here in Chicago, nobody except me seems interested in the two young women. They look like new books that are reading each other. I am reminded of times when I did not feel frayed at the edges; pages stained in the re-reading, passages forgotten.
For three days I’ve been visiting my son, his wife, and their two young kids. I lived in the continuous present tense as one does with young children. Now, on my way to catch another flight to my second son’s family in Sioux City, I let the train lull me into memories of the women whom I’ve deeply cared for. Their faces flash by me like stations on the Blue Line. My grade school best friend whose bed I sat on while we talked about which Beatle we adored the most; my college roommate with her long branch-like arms and theatrical intensity; the women closest to me after I got married and had kids. We moved through our episodic lives in anticipation of a station that we hadn’t reached yet.
The train runs from the underground downtown stations on to Logan Square, a thriving area with a huge summer open market, coffee shops, restaurants, and cozy independent bookstores. The young women who caught my eye bump against each other, laugh, and exit. I think of that close adult friend who allowed me to call her Reesa instead of Theresa when I really became her friend. Reesa, whom I’ve known for over forty years, has never been a girl hugger or kisser or hand holder; yet I have felt her love as one gauges wind by the movement of tree leaves.
Before Reesa’s last birthday, I sent her a card. “When I see you, ” I wrote, “I remember rushing into Lake Michigan for our annual early summer swim. You were always the first to get entirely wet.”
On those first June days, Reesa and I paddled around in the break between shallow and deep water until we couldn’t feel our feet. As we lay blue-lipped and shivering on our beach towels, I thought of her: hauling hay to the top of her barn; cross-country skiing through twisting, narrow roads that were bordered by deep drop-offs. Reesa was fearless, independent, and not prone to excessive sentiment. A public defender, often dealing with the beaten down and the unhinged, my good friend kept a gun inside her office drawer, which, she admitted to me, she came close to using. A writer, actress, and college professor, I often felt engulfed by alternating emotions that I dispelled by bursts of tears and laughter. Mismatching book ends, the two of us held the glued pages of our lives together.
Now Reesa talks to me about double vision and the difficulty she has breathing, about what it’s like to live with Parkinson’s disease. On the phone she quietly slides across words the way she did when skiing. I can barely hear a thing. Yesterday, on Facebook, I noted pictures of her car that’s up for sale.
A few months ago, in her kitchen, I stood behind Reesa. Clothes barely hung on her body. She had become so thin that she could have been a young boy or girl except for her thick and wavy grey hair that remains full of life. So many times, Reesa and I moved side-by-side, but we didn’t touch each other; I had always sensed her need for physical boundaries perhaps established by her stoic upbringing and re-enforced by her work with horses and unpredictable clients. Distance allows for a certain authority.
In the place where I had eaten so often with Reesa, the tea kettle emitted a prolonged scream. Tentatively, I placed my hand on her head. “I’ll make the tea,” I said. My hand lingered briefly. We rushed into Lake Michigan together. I marveled at the muscles in her legs, the strength of her arms, and the will of her mind.
A professor emerita of Western Michigan University, Miriam Bat-Ami has published five books including the Scott O’Dell winner Two Suns in the Sky. Her most recent works appeared in Persimmon Tree, Ember, and The Mackinaw.
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