Free Bitter Sweet by Lavyrle Spencer

Fish and Lisa and Tani. We’re going to kind of take turns.’
    ‘Good idea.’ Eric considered for less than two seconds before making his decision. ‘Have you got her number, Brookie?’
    ‘Sure. You got a pencil?’
    He caught the one hanging on the dirty string. “Yeah, go ahead.’
    With his mother watching, he wrote Maggie’s phone number among the dozens scrawled on the cover of the phone book.
    ‘206--555-3404,’ he repeated. ‘Thanks, Brookie.’
    ‘Eric?’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘i’e, K K, and tell her I’m thinking about her and that I’ll be calling her soon.’
    ‘I will.’
    ‘And say hi to your mom.’
    I’ll do that. I’m at her house now. Bye, Brookie.’
    Bye.’
    When he hung up, his gaze locked with Anna’s. He felt like a herd of horses was galloping through his insides.
    ‘She’s in some counselling group for people who are suicidal. Her doctor told her to call old friends.’ He released a tense breath and looked harried.
    ‘Well, the poor, poor thing.’
    ‘She never told me, Ma.’
    ‘Can’t be an easy thing to make yourself say.’
    He wandered to a kitchen window, stared out, seeing Maggie as he remembered her, a gay young girl who laughed so easily. He stood for a long time, filled with a startling amount of concern, considering what was proper.
    Finally he turned back to Anna. He was forty years old, but he needed her approval before doing what was on his mind. ‘I’ve got to call her back, Ma.’
    ‘Absolutely.’
    ‘You care if I call from here?’
    ‘You go right ahead. I got to take a bath.’ She abandoned the percolator and coffee grounds in the sink, crossed the room to him and gave him a rare hug and several bluff thumps on the back. ‘Sometimes, son, we got no choice,’ she said, then left him standing in the empty room beside the waiting telephone.

 
     
    Chapter 3
     
     
    On the day following her conversations with Brookie and Eric, Maggie’s phone made up for its usual silence. Her first call came at six, am.
    ‘Hi, Mom.’
    Maggie shot up and checked the clock. ‘Katy, are you all right?’
    ‘I’m fine, which you would have known last night, except your phone was busy all night long.’
    ‘Oh, Katy, I’m sorry.’ Maggie stretched and settled into her pillow. ‘I had two of the most wonderful conversations with old high school friends.’ She filled Katy in on the highlights, asked where she was, told her to be sure to call again tonight, and said good-bye without any of the loneliness she’d expected upon ending her first long distance conversation with her daughter.
    Her next call came as she was bobbing her first tea bag the day. It was Nelda.
    ‘Tammi’s going to make it and Dr Feldstein says it would be good for her to see us.’
    Maggie put a hand to her heart, breathed, ‘Oh, thank God,’ and felt the day’s promise brighten within her.
    At o:3o A.M. her next call came, this one wholly unexpected.
    ‘Hello,’ she answered, and a voice out of her past said, ‘Hello, Maggie, this is Tani.’
    Jolted by surprise, Maggie smiled and held the receiver with both hands.
    ‘Tani. Oh, Tani, how are you? Gosh, it’s good to hear your voice.’
    Their conversation lasted forty minutes. Within an hour after it ended, Maggie answered the phone again, this time to hear a squeaky cartoon-mouse voice that could hardly mistaken.
    ‘Hi, Maggie. Guess who?’
    ‘Fish? Fish, it’s you, isn’t it?’
    “Yup. It’s the fish.’
    ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this! Brookie called you right?”
    By the dine Lisa called, Maggie was half expecting it. She was putting on the last of her makeup, preparing to go to the hospital and see Tammi when the phone rang yet again.
    ‘Hello, stranger,’ a sweet voice said.
    ‘Lisa... oh, Lisa...’
    ‘It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?’
    ‘Too long. Oh, goodness.., I’m not sure I won’t break down in tears here in a minute.’ She was half laughing, halt crying.
    ‘I’m a little choked up myself.