* * *

I studied the door trying not to breathe too loudly. The silence was so heavy it seemed like a noise in itself and I didn’t want to do anything to disturb it. The sudden buzz of a bumble bee a few feet away was deafening.

The dark gray paint on the door was peeling and the black “B” in “14B” was hanging crooked. We heard footsteps from the other side, and for the first time it came home to me that Shelly Price was real.

 

The footsteps got louder and then that chipping gray door swung open just like any other door would. And there she was.

I struggled not to show my surprise. The girl standing before me looked like she was about twenty-five. She had shoulder-length tightly curled strawberry-blonde hair that frizzed out in an 80’s kind of way. She was wearing a white t-shirt and boyfriend jeans and light make up, and she was short and curvy and had big blue eyes. They were deep, sea-blue, kind eyes.

She didn’t look like a killer. She looked like a friend.

 

  “Can I help you?” She smiled as she said it, like she might actually want to help us, not as if it were an obligation. I turned to Marti, waiting for her to say her piece, but my friend was gone and a motionless statue stood in her place. Marti’s face was blanche as the grave and her own sea-blue, kind eyes were glazed with…something. I didn’t know. How could I? It wasn’t my mother who had died. I couldn’t imagine or even begin to sense what she was feeling.

  I snapped out of my musings about Marti’s eyes and turned back to the girl standing in front of me before the moment could get too awkward.

   “Are you Shelly Price?” I asked timidly, not used to being the one to speak up. Marti was the talker, not me.

  “Yes.” She swallowed, blinking those baby blues. “But I go by Michelle now mostly. Do you guys want to come in?”

  “Sure,” I stuttered. My elbow nudged Marti in the ribs in the hopes that she would wake up and start walking in with me. “If that would be ok.” I added. Marti mumbled something intelligible.

 “What?” Me and Shelly Price asked at the same time.  

 

  “I can’t do this.”  Marti repeated. Then before I knew what to do she turned on her heel and took off down the walkway back to the car. The door slammed and the radio started blaring.

Aghast, I sought desperately for something to say. But no words would come.

 “Who are you?” Shelly Price whispered, her voice suddenly pale and hollow instead of breezy and friendly. I tried to scramble my scattered thoughts together. Leaving now wouldn’t change anything. I had to be the brave one today. I had to be brave like Marti was always brave for me. Today was my chance to step up and help her, give her a push that she needed. She’d nudged me and pushed me and encouraged me and prayed for me my whole life. And now in this moment I would do my best for her.  

 I thought at the time that maybe I wasn’t doing the right thing, but somehow in my heart I knew that I was.

  “My name’s Margaret Corey. And Marti Crawford is my friend. Grace Crawford was her mother.”