Barb stares wistfully at the awkward space between her kitchen and pantry. It serves no purpose. It’s too tight for a dining table or dinette. Yet any attempt to place a small table with flowers or tchotchkes in its midst only further amplifies its awkwardness, as the objects are quickly swallowed by negative space. It’s a veritable no man’s land. (Or no woman’s land, as the case may be.) The pointlessness of this space rubs her the wrong way. Especially today. 

Today is her 80th birthday and she wants everything to be perfect – though she knows full well by now that such a thing doesn’t exist. One rarely reaches the ninth decade without recognizing this fact. Barb is recovering from hip surgery. It’s the second hip. And she’s got one knee to go. She adjusts herself on the seat of her walker and looks over the food items set out on her kitchen table by her breezy and cheerful middle-aged daughter, Lara. Fruits and vegetables on a long flower-printed tray bare their skins – shamelessly flaunting various shades of orange, green, red, yellow, and blue. Meanwhile, crackers, cheese, and hunks of bread rest plaintively on a large oval plate of cobalt glass. Another tray, this one circular, silver, and gleaming, offers up rolled sandwiches cut into perfect pinwheels that remind Barb of those which entertained Lara as a child. Lara has worked tirelessly to help her mother during this time – picking up groceries, cleaning her condo, and even arranging the informal birthday gathering they’ll have this afternoon that will bring together Barb’s three goddaughters under one roof. She’s looked forward to it all week.  

Barb was at the hospital for all three of her goddaughters’ births; each over fifty years ago now. The sisters are the daughters of her lifelong best friend, Ally. Barb and Ally had met in, of all places, church. Neither of them was religious, by any stretch of the imagination. Their presence in the house of God was the result of Ally’s 1950s mother who was concerned about keeping up appearances, and Barb’s more progressive parents who embraced mysticism and yoga while advocating continuous spiritual exploration. So it was that every Sunday, Barb (reluctantly) and Ally (obediently) attended church with their families. 

The two formally met when each of signed up to assist with the church’s summer camp. At the time, they’d seen each other around school, but traveled in different circles. Or, more accurately, Barb moved from point to point in a rather large social network while Ally, painfully shy and having moved there the year before from Canada, kept to herself. When they struck up a conversation at the church and discovered they were both going to be at the camp, there was an immediate bond. It was one of those inexplicable things. Neither knew exactly what it was. Ally had identical twin brothers whom she adored, but who frequently lived in an insular world occupied by only them. Barb had no siblings and was an only child. In each other, they’d finally found a sister. 

“You doing okay, mom?” Lara calls from the bathroom, drawing Barb back into the present moment. 

“Yep,” she smiles, thinking about Ally and how far away she is. “I’m okay.”

“I’ll be out in a minute. Just have to dry my hair.”

“Take you’re time, honey,” Barb says. The woeful humming of the blowdryer carries from the bathroom. Barb sighs. 

Barb and Ally were both celebrating their 80th birthdays this year, though Ally’s was a few months prior. Barb is drawn back into reverie as she considers all the birthdays, milestones, celebrations, and journeys they’d taken over their many decades together. So, so many.

She recalled the time in their 20s when they’d taken a road trip to Pennsylvania and stayed with some friends they’d made in college. “Your 20s are for overindulging,” Barb’s mother reminded her before she and Ally walked out the front door of Barb’s childhood home. “Take advantage of them.” Barb’s mom had said this while standing on her head – something she and Barb’s father did every day for good health. Barb had rolled her eyes, perpetually embarrassed by her parents. Nevertheless, the next day in Pennsylvania Dutch country, she proceeded to get sick on too much fudge. Ally’s excesses leaned toward Cold Duck wine. She’d gotten so lit that she stumbled to the old piano in the hotel lobby and composed, on the spot, a sang about the Amish kids who sold vegetables along the side of the road. Barb laughed as she recalled how she and Ally were asked to promptly return to their room.

By the time they reached their 30s, they’d settled; both married with children. This only strengthened their bond. Barb’s kids were Ally’s godchildren, and Ally’s were Barb’s. The two families were tighter than any that shared blood. In those early years, the two couples would travel to far-flung places like Europe, Hawaii, and Mexico. And because it was the 1970s, their kids would stay home with relatives or hired help. As the kids got older, easier, and (somewhat) less annoying, they would join them on these excursions.

The day Barb turned 50, the two couples and their adult children were in northern Michigan where they’d invested in several timeshare weeks. Ally showed up at Barb’s door with travel mugs full of coffee and whiskey and an armful of dog-eared magazines. “We’re going to the beach and doing this today,” she said, motioning to the mugs and magazine. “Just the two of us.” Barb nodded. “No argument here.”

After that, they’d started a tradition of doing something together, just the two of them, each year on their birthdays. Fifteen years later, to commemorate reaching 65, they had several glasses of wine at a restaurant in town. They decided they would throw a bash for themselves and ended up at the local grocery store stumbling and laughing while looking for various items. Ally was also a little confused, asking the grocery clerk the same question two or three times. When Barb awakened the next day, groggy and headachey, she felt a little embarrassed by their behavior the previous day. Ally did too. They vowed to never go to that grocery store again. In retrospect, Barb has thought about that day many, many times. Had she not seen it? Or maybe she didn’t want to. Lara comes out of the bathroom, her greying blond hair still thick and with just the right amount of wave. Ally’s daughters, all curly-headed, had envied Lara that hair back when they were kids.

“It’s almost 3 o’clock, mom,” she says. “They’ll probably be here any minute.” And as if on cue, the doorbell rings. Lara and Barb share a conspiratorial smile. Of the two families, it was Ally’s that prided itself on punctuality. Barb takes a deep breath. To be with Ally’s daughters today will be almost as good as being with Ally again. Ally, who is thousands of miles away in body, but millions of miles away where it counts. She thinks of her dear friend, her wonderful sister, who lives cycling through a continuous loop and will soon no longer recognize Barb. Or even her daughters. Yet Ally remains very much alive. Barb sheds a single tear and then composes herself before Lara opens the door to Ally’s three daughters. They are there to see her. 

And she them. 

Martha Grayson takes her tea in the backyard each morning. It’s a distinctly British thing to do – to “take one’s tea.” She isn’t British though. Not even by a mere speck of a percentage. She knows this because she’s had her DNA tested. According to her blood, she is 72% Norwegian, 12% Belgian, 10% Swiss, and 2% First Nations/Native American. Chippewa, specifically. (This would not have been enough to get her a scholarship once upon a time. So, at the very least, she needn’t lament a lost opportunity.) The final 4% rather strangely includes minute percentages from a conglomeration of West African and Far East Asian countries. Who knew? Her blood. That’s who.

Martha Grayson is also .05% Neanderthal. This tickles her. Upon discovering her sliver of Neanderthal lineage, she envisioned a tiny caveman living in her heart. She pored through caveman names on the internet and now calls him Mog because “it’s a caveman name that signifies a wise and knowledgeable individual who possesses a deep understanding of the natural world.” Were he not tucked somewhere behind the left ventricle of Martha’s heart, she’s certain that Mog would be one to also take tea in the backyard. A civilized caveman with an appreciation for flowers and bird song, to be sure.

Martha Grayson retired five years ago from her job as a pediatric oncology nurse. It had been… difficult work. But it was work she’d been called to do for reasons that baffled, worried, or entirely escaped her friends but were painfully obvious to her. At any rate, upon retiring, she’d been looking forward to traveling the country in a Winnebago with her husband and best friend of 43 years, Gregory “Grant” Grayson. Aside from being the product of questionable parenting, Grant was an inveterate hermit. When he would begrudgingly join Martha for social events, he would put on an impressive show of congeniality then suddenly disappear like an octopus blending into the ground beneath it. Over the years, they referred to this jokingly as trapdooring. Grant’s sheer dedication to mastering the art of trapdooring was achieved a few weeks after Martha retired. He had a massive coronary while mowing the lawn and trapdoored his way right out of her life. She’d begged him for years to lay off the fast food. But the man could never turn away from the siren song of crinkly paper encasing steamy French fries glistening with grease. When Martha would lament Grant’s shortcomings to her friend Bill, he’d calmly remind her, “we’re all doing our best with what we’ve got.” She wishes now though that Grant’s best could have been a little better.

Martha Grayson takes a late morning nap and then prepares for her afternoon. She walks past the one room in the house that she still can’t bear to enter. Even now, twenty-five years later. She continues down the hall and is eventually greeted by Balthazar in the kitchen. When twenty-one years ago it was clear there would never be another child, she’d adopted the giant 79-year-old tortoise. She’d been in love ever since. (Grant had sometimes joked that she loved Balthazar more than him. It was not a statement she immediately refuted.) With an anticipatory glance from Balthazar, she opens the refrigerator and pulls open the produce drawer. It squeaks in protest, but she knows it’s not a legitimate gripe. She retrieves a head of lettuce from the drawer and kneels next to Balthazar, petting his head. A patina of calm glazes his shiny black bead eyes as he tilts his wrinkled head toward her. “Happy 100th, my best of friends,” she says as he gingerly takes the lettuce from her hand. “You don’t look a day over 75.” Balthazar blinks as he chews his lettuce and she appreciates his remarkable sense of humor. He shuffles slowly out of the kitchen. A decades-old injury to his back left foot gives him the demented gait of an inebriant. This endears him to her even more.

Martha Grayson spends five afternoons per week volunteering as a docent at the zoo. As she exits each day, she offers Balthazar a parting gift of melon or cut grapes, then places her hand over her heart to ensure that Mog is with her. She loves being a docent. It gets her out of the house, keeps her moving, and places her gently in a world where animals peacefully co-exist and children are healthy. Some would argue that she’s not the perfect person for the job though. There are certainly days when the embedded trauma rears its multiple heads like some modern-day Cerberus and she can’t quite conjure up a smile, let alone a greeting, for the visitors. Other days, she opts out of conversation with her fellow docents to instead linger alone near the playful primates who make her smile or the sure-footed ungulates who give her a sense of grounding. There are even occasions when she hides in the bathroom, feigning intestinal woes. Constipation, after all, is a long and solitary affair that needs no justification. As a result of this behavior, some of the other docents or zoo staff regard her as standoffish or cold. Others have come to call her the cranky docent. She’s well aware of this. Perhaps they’re joking. Maybe they mean it as an insult. But it’s a moniker to which she takes no offense. Or, well, very little, at least. Because at the end of the day, she knows she’s doing her best with what she’s got. Even if she still, after all this time, has to remind herself most days that it’s enough.

Arriving home from school, she placed her backpack on the old wooden bench in the kitchen. It creaked and complained. She sighed in return. She set to replaying the day in her mind, as she often did. It must have been something I said, she thought. Though, as usual, she had no clue what it was.

She felt most of the time as though she viewed the world through the gauzy and gossamer walls of a cocoon. And that she was perpetually at that stage between caterpillar and butterfly. Long languid days in the chrysalis when enzymes dissolve the caterpillar into a soup-like substance while its tissues, limbs, organs, and imaginal discs strategize their move to their correct positions. Yes. She was butterfly sauce. 

What was it I said this time? She bit into an apple bursting with a sweetness that washed over her tongue like cerulean blue music. Were she to describe the experience out loud, that’s exactly what she’d say.

At the sound of her sister and brother in the other room playing and laughing, she felt that familiar surge of overwhelm – bitter in her mouth like unsweetened chocolate. So she sought solace in her bedroom closet just as a nautilus retreats to the first chamber of its geometrically perfect shell. It was a place where she was free to ponder, mull, wring her hands, and gaze through the small circular window on the eastern wall. How lovely it would be if the rest of my house were as perfect as the nautilus shell, she thought. 

From the closet and the space inside her head – that cozy attic corner where she truly resided – her words flowed into the air with seamless precision. They were white-hot percussion – clear and concise. But she suspected this is not what other people experienced. Those troublesome creatures who lived outside of her head seemed to witness something more akin to an illegible sign composed of buzzing, flickering, and fading neon letters; their narrow winding tubes filled only halfway with the illuminated gas.

“Screw them,” she said and moved to a deep nook at the back of the closet. There she had carved out a her-sized spot complete with a small lamp, a pad of paper, and a set of colored pencils. She leaned against her favorite polka-dotted dress and put pencil to paper. Her body felt at ease and she moved through the gateway to an alternate world. It was a world where colors had flavors, flowers had song, and she never EVER said anything wrong.