Poppy Mom

I've always had weird neighbor luck. In college I shared a house with three of my girlfriends. It was a shithole, with a rotten landlord and a furnace that run 24/7 without actually putting any heat into the house. We had $300/month utility bills, but were so cold we could see our breath in the house.

The only good thing about living there was the neighbor situation. We lived next door to four guys and spent an entire year embroiled in The Great Neighbor War of 1993. I can't go into the details now, because it would take forever. Suffice it to say that, when your neighbors steal your back porch, it's not a good idea to go running out the door, screaming obscenities at them. Because that's a good way to fall out of your house - you know, since there's no porch - thus solidifying your place in their memories as That Fat Chick in College Who Fell Out of Her House When We Stole Her Porch.

I've shared apartment buildings with crackwhores, and a guy from Papua, New Guinea who had two dead Ford Tauruses in our driveway and spent entirely too much time loitering outside the rather dark entry to my basement apartment. I've lived next to drug dealers, runaways, guys with Confederate flags for curtains, and a grouchy old man who shot himself in the head in his driveway. Why I haven't built myself a cabin in the woods yet, I don't know.

I've had one good neighbor experience. In the fall of 1995, Mary and Bob lived upstairs from me - and next door to the scary New Guinean - for a year. Our apartments were in an old house across the street from the University of Missouri - Columbia campus. I worked for the campus' video production department and Mary was finishing her B.A.
Bob and Mary were high school sweethearts, engaged to be married once she graduated.

I'm not exactly the neighborly type. I mean, if you had my neighbor experiences, I'm betting that you wouldn't exactly be showing up on a new neighbors' doorstep with a pie, would you? If you had my neighbor experiences, you'd more likely meet your new neighbor via telescope while running their vehicle tags through the state's database to see if it's stolen.

Bob's car wasn't stolen. Bob drove a 1987 retired police car, a la The Blues Brothers.

The weekend they moved in, I had been utterly worn out and humiliated by Guy I Shouldn't Have Been With #482. I got home, saw Mary's unfamiliar car in the driveway, and could hear her upstairs, music playing quietly as she padded around her new digs. I was lonley and miserable, and generally when I'm lonely and miserable, I prefer to keep to myself, thus ensuring that I get all the lonely and miserable bang for my dysfunctional buck. But that night, I couldn't take it. I had been used by someone I really liked. Most of my friends had recently left town, leaving me to my own devices. I decided to knock on her door and welcome her to the neighborhood.

We hit it off instantly and for the next year, we beat a worn path between our apartments. We rarely went out together, and didn't cross our social groups. But we were neighbors. Good neighbors. We'd sit in our living rooms in our pajamas and talk for hours. Or we'd visit in the driveway, leaning against the Bluesmobile, much to the annoyment of the New Guinean. We'd borrow stuff from each other. When I got sick with food poisoning the day of a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert and couldn't go, Bob and Mary got my tickets, and I felt a little better knowing that they were going to someone who would appreciate them.

When Mary graduated she got a job in Georgia and we swore we'd keep in touch. And we did. Somewhat. They got married. There were more moves and job transfers. Soon, we were Christmas card friends - our main contact was a quick personal letter tucked into the annual card.

In 1999 when I moved to St. Louis, I unknowingly moved into a house less than a mile from Mary's parents. That Christmas we spent an evening sitting on the couch, chatting just like we did so many nights the year we were neighbors. Then it was back to the annual card, and maybe a letter or two a year. It wasn't a big deal; just one of those things that happens. A brief friendship that, while strong and bright, relied on circumstances. Once the circumstances change, it becomes harder and harder to maintain. There's no animosity or hurt feelings. Just the acceptance that often these circumstantial friendship fade.

In 2002 I didn't get the usual Christmas card from Mary and Bob, so I assumed that the friendship had finally petered out. Sad, but it happens.

A card arrived the following Christmas, along with a letter from Mary. She apologized for the lack of communication and went on to explain that, in September, 2002, she had given birth to their first child. The little girl had a rare chromosomal disorder called triploid syndrome. The severity of this condition usually causes early miscarriage, but in rare cases, the baby is born. The survival rate for these children is nonexistant. Mary and Bob's daughter, born at seven months, died the day she was born.

In her brief letter she wrote about holding the girl they named Annabelle, who had Bob's red hair and blue eyes. And I was devastated for them. I was seven months pregnant with Clara Jane at that time - the same month when Mary had been when Annabelle was born and gone. I couldn't say anything. For months, I would start writing letters to her, trying to find words to express how sorry I was for their loss. Those words don't exist. And even if they did exist, how could they possibly reside in the same letter that would contain the news that I had given birth to a healthy daughter?

I did the worst thing a person can do in that situation. I said nothing. I didn't respond. And it ate at me.

I have a series of photos on my dining room wall. Black and white shots I took of the Gateway Arch on a sunny late-summer day, framed in brightly-painted teal frames. Those photos were taken the day Annabelle died. I don't think I've glanced at those photos in the past year and a half since I learned of Annabelle and not thought of her, of Mary and Bob's loss, and of my ineptitude in expressing any comfort or love to them.

Last Christmas, I decided to at least put my own paralyzing awkwardness aside and send a card. I offered much, much belated sympathy and briefly mentioned Clara Jane. A week later, a card arrived from Mary. This time, along with the letter, there were photos. Baby photos of their second daughter, born healthy five months after Clara Jane.

With everything resolved happily ever after, I didn't expect to hear anything from Mary until next Christmas. She had mentioned that they might be in town last March, but I never heard from her and didn't think much of it.

Last Saturday afternoon, I found a photo postcard in the mail. Mary, Bob and wiley little blonde girl, happily standing in front of a brick house. On the back, a note: "Guess who's back in the area! We're living in Belleville. CALL ME!!!!".

Once again, the circumstances have thrown us back together. Mary, Bob and their daughter moved back to the area after nine years of living elsewhere. Not only are they back in the area, they're in the town where we're planning to move, with a daughter just a hair younger than mine. After a brief game of Phone Tag, Mary and I caught up with each other Sunday morning. I sat on the couch in my pajamas, talking on the phone to Mary while our daughters squealed and shrieked in the background and we squealed and shrieked about how great it willb be when we're neighbors once again.

Nearly a decade passed; a decade with little communication, a horrific tragedy and some reprehensible friend behavior, but it didn't matter. Because we were still sitting on the couch in our pajamas, still talking, still friends, picking up not where we left off, but where we are now.