Free Bridge to a Distant Star by Carolyn Williford

immediately stiffened and held her breath. She could feel her face flushing, so she busied herself with a project, looking down.
    “I heard. Appears Ed’s found himself … well, a newer model, shall we say?”
    Titters of laughter followed. Maureen’s flush deepened, her heart noticeably pounding in her chest.
    “Divorcing?”
    “In the works, I hear. Wonder if he’ll marry this woman and have four more kids?”
    “He’s leaving her with four kids? The louse.”
    “Oh, yeah. Four little Estebans—all with names beginning with an E, after Ed and Emilie. Dedicated father. Upstanding church member and leader.” The speaker looked up, and Maureen caught a spark of delight in her eyes. Maureen noticed Jennifer was now hanging on every word too. “Only this time he’s backed up the alphabet by one letter. Any more kiddos gotta have names beginning with a D this time around.”
    Laughter erupted, with several exclamations of “Oh, Jan. You’re terrible.”
    Maureen had been threading beads onto a wire, but her movements were so unsteady that, after three unsuccessful tries at threading a single turquoise bead, she was intensely aware of those near her, worried they might notice. She put the bead and thread down and rising from her stool, leaned over to whisper in Jennifer’s ear, “I’m not feeling well. Think you can handle this?” Without giving Jennifer a chance to respond, she went on, “Call Mrs. Sandler if you have any problems. And please tell her that I got ill. That I had to leave.”
    Jennifer looked puzzled, opened her mouth to respond, but Maureen immediately turned on her heel. After grabbing her purse, she was out the door before Jennifer could get out more than, “Maureen? Can’t you—?” Jennifer turned to the group of women and shrugged her shoulders.
    Not until Maureen had turned the keys in the ignition and pulled out of her parking place did she let the dam break. She allowed the pent-up tears to flow, and her heart pounded even harder, though she wouldn’t have thought that possible. Her hands were shaking so badly that she gripped the steering wheel as hard as she could, hoping that would make the involuntary movements stop. Instead, when she lifted one hand off the wheel to test it, the entire hand shook as if she were elderly and frail.
    She quickly donned sunglasses to hide her tears and turned the air conditioning on high to drown out the accentuated hiccups that accompanied her staggered breathing. Though traffic had thinned considerably, the drive home felt interminable, mostly because she was alone with her thoughts. There was nothing you could do, she told herself. You work there; it wasn’t appropriate to interrupt. But the more she attempted to reassure herself, the faster the tears came.
    Once inside the relative safety of her kitchen, Maureen leaned against the door—appreciating the solidness of it—that she could symbolically shut out the world. She finally calmed her breathing and tears simply because she was emotionally and physically spent. Immediately searching for the new bag of coffee in the pantry, she went through the mindless motions of making a pot. Then, gratefully plopping into the soft cushioned chair at the kitchen bar, she clutched a mug in her hands, breathing in its rich aroma before sipping. The soothing quiet of the house was a rare gift, and Maureen knew she needed to make the most of it while she could. Too soon she’d need to go pick up Aubrey. And Colleen.
    Mechanically, she reached for her Bible and the devotional book she’d been dutifully reading, turning to the selected passage for the day, 2 Peter 1:19–21:
    “And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”
    Maureen’s thoughts immediately flew to the display of stars she stared at each night as sleep eluded her. The scene had