Week 6 ReWrite

Is Blood Thicker Than Milk?

Today we are not speaking. Yesterday was tipsy. Tomorrow is still not known but a week ago…we were good. It’s like that with us, she and I are not like two peas in a pod but are more like milk and cookies; both are nice on their own but are much better when together. However, this yummy combo was not concocted overnight - it has taken more effort then a fifty year long marriage but every moment has been worth it because a friend like this is that diamond in the rough we all hope to find.

I have five sisters, I love them all; she, however, is my sixth sister, not by blood but by choice. We make a daily conscious effort to make this choice and the feeling you get when you know you are being chosen for this place of honor in someone’s life is an ultimate high. Sixteen years now we’ve been making this choice, for it was sixteen years ago we met.

It was the mid-nineties, I was finishing up high school and I was ready for the world! Of course I wanted it all handed to me on a silver platter, what kid didn‘t. We were a generation that was raised having to start working as soon as we were big enough to lift a blueberry rake (thank you child labor laws for coming into play years later). So by the time I was breaking out of accounting class I figured I knew the ins and outs of earning a buck and, with pyramid schemes flooding Ellsworth, my ex and I thought why earn the buck when you could swindle it; after all that was faster and easier - or so it was thought…

Her ex and my ex worked together, old Mr. Bellows kept them pounding nails and scraping paint but work was scarce and times were tough; everyone one was on the look out for a way to improve their situations. Somehow, our exes pulled together a plan…probably the best (only good) idea they ever had.

I was informed one afternoon that we would be hosting an event, a meet-n-greet of sorts to learn all about a new business opportunity (thoughts of a pyramid scheme came rushing to the forefront) and I was to be prepared for my life to change. Change it did; however, not in the way the exes thought it might. Amway may have been their spiel of choice, thoughts of riches beyond their imaginations, dreams of quick bucks and self employment, busier and richer then Sam Walton; but it was the long haired lady that altered my life. Granted Amway did have that get-rich-quick jingle to it but I discovered something worth more than cash.

She sat in our living room quiet as a mouse. She had long blonde wavy hair, tall, slender, eloquently dressed (like a proper lady on her way to church); she spoke softly, sharing her hopes and dreams in a soft voice just above a whisper. Her and her husband were to be our sponsors, the people just above us, the ones we would have to go-to and I thought… “Oh god! This will never work - her and I are just going to clash!” She was too sweet, too doting on her husband, too kind, too gullible…not at all someone I could mesh with but like my mumma always told me - never judge a book by it’s cover.

***

“You didn’t EVEN give me a CARD for my birthday! You have NOT been around to help me at all. Don’t bother to call me - I won’t answer! I need a BREAK!”

Mouse was gone…

Spoiled milk and burnt cookies!

“Don’t worry, I WON’T call! You NEVER answer when I do anyhow! I wanted to spend time with YOU on your birthday! Next year I will just send you a freaking CARD!”

***

My ex and I would drive to her home in Milbridge once a week to pick up our SA8, and each week we stayed a little longer. They taught us how to play the card game “Hearts” and then they taught us how to keep playing after a few drinks. We bonded over swapping cards beneath the table to beat out our exes’s hands and we bonded while scraping jello and potatoes off her kitchen ceiling because we, once again, managed to lose our hearts to them.

***

“I don’t know what to do. It’s been two days. I miss you.”

Milk.

“I don’t know either but I miss you too. Should I come over?”

And.

“Yes.”

Cookies.


***

Cool Autumn days are made for baking and there is nothing that makes a day better then eating a spoonful of raw cookie dough while splatting your best bud with flour. Her and I don’t often bake together so when we do - it’s therapeutic.

Therapy is often needed in daily lives but few are able to accept the help; I was there when she divorced her husband and her maid-of-honor when she married her current one, she held my hand as I confronted the teacher and principal at the school I removed my son from…we both lost our fathers to cancer, we’ve cut our Christmas trees down together; we are best buds - we’ve learned the secret.

Set the temperature to 350’, mix up the dough - eat it raw - splat flower, and poor yourself a glass of milk because blood is not thicker than milk.