I'm Fine. Really.

Chapter Two

I’m Fine. Really. 2017

Nothing, I answer. Nothing’s wrong with me.

I’m not kidding, she says. What in the hell is going on with you?

What are you talking about? I answer and insist: I’m fine. Really. Nothing is wrong.

We were at the end of a long conversation, and we had already covered the usual topics: kids, husbands, weekend plans, chores undone. My dad had died five years before; her dad had died ten years before. Life was shifting as our parents aged. In the fifteen years we had been best friends, our phone calls were consistent but not regular. Some months we talked only two or three times, some weeks we talked once a day, some days we talked three times. It just depended on what was happening.

Shitty day, she texted me late one night months ago. My mom died. I called her right away even though it was after midnight. I was that kind of a friend. We are those kinds of friends. The hands on the clock were irrelevant.

Sunday afternoons we could talk longer, so today, there was no hurry to get off the phone. Today, everything had already been said up until that moment. Up until she asked me that question.

I knew her well enough to know she wasn’t going to hang up until I answered her.

I took a breath and said, just…you know. Same old, same old.

Like me, she had a difficult husband. She tolerated his grousing and picking at her for just so long, then she would jokingly remind him: Buddy, I know how to use a gun and a backhoe, so knock it off. He would laugh, and she would laugh, and for a while, he would knock it off. He understood her and when she had had enough, she let him know.

But her way of dealing with things at her house didn’t work for me. I had long ago given up raising objections. It just led to a fight or more fights or a longer fight. It wasn’t worth it.

I’m not kidding, she insisted. We are not hanging up until you tell me what. the. actual. hell. is going on with you. You’re just not yourself, and you haven’t been for some time. Talk to me.

She was dead serious.

So I talked.