Page 196 - In Five Years

I want to scream. I want to throttle her. I want to understand how, how, how.
It’s Bella.
I take another sip.
“I remember when you and Bella met,” she says. “It was love at first sight.”

“That park,” I tell her.
Bella and I didn’t meet at school, but instead at a park in Cherry Hill. We had

gone for a Fourth of July picnic. My cousins lived out in New Jersey and they
were hosting. We rarely visited them. They were conservative to our reformed
and had a lot of opinions on the level of Jewish we were. But for some reason we
weren’t at the beach, so we went.

Separately, Bella and her family were at that same park, although they, like
us, were setting up shop in a home twenty-five miles from there. They’d come

for Frederick’s work—some kind of company barbecue. We met by a tree. She
was wearing a blue lace dress and white sneakers, and her hair was in a red
headband. It was a lot for a little girl from France. I remember thinking she had

an accent, but she didn’t, not really. I just never heard anyone speak who wasn’t
from Philadelphia before.
“She couldn’t stop talking about you. I was afraid she’d never see you again,

so we put her in Harriton.”
I look up at her. “What do you mean, you put her in Harriton?”
“We weren’t sure she’d make any friends. But as soon as she met you, we

knew we couldn’t separate you. Your mother said you were starting Harriton in
the fall, and we enrolled her.”
“Because of me?”

Jill sighs. She adjusts the scarf at her neck. “I’ve been less than a great
mother, I know that. Less than good, even. Sometimes, I think the only thing I
did right was give her you.”

I feel the tears in my eyes spring up. They sting. Tiny bees in the lids. “She
needs you,” I say.
Jill shakes her head. “You know her so much better than I do. What could I

possibly give her now?”
I lean forward. I put a hand on her hand. She’s startled by the contact. I
wonder when the last time anyone touched her was.

“You.”