Things That Get You Through.

Early in the morning, somewhere before 6:00 am, Elise had awaken to the fiery branches outside the window of their guest room. Elise had told Claire that the tree waited just for her, the leaves clinging tightly to the branches, bergamot and ruby leaves, ready to fall, but not until Claire’s arrival. The bottom branches were now shedding their clothes, drips of red and orange sprinkling the front lawn.

The water boiled in the microwave. Elise sat silently for a moment, sniffing the ginger-peach tea bag and listening for Claire’s footsteps on the stairs.

Homesickness is a lonely disease. It is unreconcilable but only mildly treacherous. It is a disembodied feeling, as if your heart might be yearning for another country  - somewhere in the inexistent – somewhere where people are living without you and you without them, and yet, you know exactly who they are.  It had been 6 months since Elise moved, and she still missed the open freeways of Houston, the bleary orange lights speckled along the edge of the road at night, and the smell of driving in the city. 

The microwave beeped, and she tossed the tea bags into the matching cups, shoving them deep into the sizzling water with her spoon. The floor creaked above her, and finally she heard soft footsteps pacing the bathroom floor, water running, a few sighs, and then Claire emerged, stepping down the stairs to join her for tea. 

“Finally,” Elise said.

“Hey, chemo is like pregnancy. Morning sickness,” Claire replied, her green eyes flashing. These were the only eyes Elise had ever seen smirk at her, as if she did not need her mouth to smile.

Elise was house-sitting that week, and Claire joined her, caring for an English Cocker-spaniel and a beautiful house nestled into the side of a hill with a forest behind it.  

They sat together in wing-backed chairs and watched the sun as it rose through the trees and lit up dew on the grass. Claire told her about the cancer and the steroids, the chemo, but only for a little while, and began, in her usual and magical way, to draw out Elise’s life before her.

There was a grace that went before Claire, that enclosed behind her and hedged the edges of her life; this grace would bump against her friends, her foes, her family and softy, surely cause a person to think more serenely about the world – to question what was now taken for granted as fiction – whether perhaps there was a God who was real and truly loved His children. Her life could do that. 

Elise knew Claire wasn’t perfect; in fact, as they sat there conversing over tea, snuggled into robes with the dog tucked into Claire’s lap, Elise became profoundly aware that mortality was not a joke for either of them. Thus, this conversation, this moment would transpire, evaporate and leave only neurological traces in the vast expanse of their minds – and even so Elise would always remember Claire differently than Claire saw herself.

Regardless, they sat, murmuring to themselves about men, marriage, life – how it would come quickly and leave – about whether Claire should make plans for the future, how she so desperately wanted to, and Elise would exhort in her ignorant way that Claire should dream, dream wildly and ready herself for life.

“I’m just not sure, Elise, any more. It is so hard to be unsure all the time,” Claire spoke frankly, between sips, “And anyway, who knows? The doctors said this might just work. I mean, I’m on a break before I start just drinking organic mishmash and stuff.”

Elise smiled at her,”Speaking of which, do you need to eat something before you take your meds?” She stood up, setting the tea on the glass coffee table and moved toward the kitchen, “I can make you an english muffin with cheese??”

“That would be great,” Claire responded,”I hate this steroid. It has made me gain weight.”

Elise rummaged through the refrigerator,”You look fine!” she said.

“No. I look oinky. AND, I need a shirt. I need a shirt that has writing on the front that says, ‘No, I don’t eat fast food, I just have leukemia and am taking a steroid that makes me retain water, thank you very much!’”

Elise laughed, and brought her a the english muffin, “Well, this is FAST food…” She winked.

“God is strange,” Claire said, “He uses the most peculiar of broken situations to bring about the strangest of joy. Not to say I feel joy about looking oinky, but I am glad to be here with you.”

“I have definitely missed you,” said Elise.

The words hung delicately in the air, as an enchanted chandelier, twinkling about them; to miss someone is to envision a beauty about them, to dream of experience with them, to imagine a future or to replay a past – it is a dedicated feeling, like love.

It was being missed that made Elise feel like she could be home where she was; as if Claire, from the distance of Houston, could send her the peace of friendship, bring it to her in her suitcase and leave it with her for safe-keeping.

When Claire came to visit, she felt sure she might crack, split right down the middle of her heart and ooze blood and tears for weeks. But, instead the comfort of her laughter settled her soul, and she rested better those nights than ever before.