Awhile ago I mentioned having seen my former best friend as I walked to the bus stop. I brushed over the subject of how the former part came into the equation. Jane asked in the comments to hear the story, if I was willing. I am willing, just not so sure about the able part. This is my first attempt.

Chaz and I met on the day princess Diana died, August 31, 1997. I am certain that I wouldn’t remember the date if it weren’t for this fact. I had been up half the night before watching coverage of the car crash that took her life. The following morning I had planned to have a yard sale to bring in some needed money. I dutifully pulled out the items of furniture we no longer needed as well as the toys, clothes and books. Alex and I had bought our first house in 1995. It was small, but nonetheless an exciting moment for us. I had been an avid book collector in the years before we’d had children, but life found me later with neither the space nor the time for literally hundreds of books.

A lot of people came to my sale that day. I can’t say that any of them made an impression on me, except for Chaz. He showed up with his wife and two kids; a boy named Christopher about Nathan’s age and a little baby girl in a stroller who happened to have the same name as my daughter. That was the nature of the meeting really. His wife commented on the fact that our daughters had the same name, and then the introductions took place. What I remember about Chaz from that day was how quiet he was, and the careful intensity with which he studied the titles on the books. I knew he was a reader. I study books at yard sales the same way, always have.

I didn’t give them another thought. In early September it was time to take Nathan to his first day of school. When we arrived I saw the family again. It was their son’s first day too. Christopher was crying and begging his parents not to go and Nathan was dry eyed and ready to play. The teacher asked that the parents leave and the children find a seat. Before Nathan ran to a table I leaned down and whispered to him, “Remember, that’s the boy you met at our yard sale. He is having a hard time saying goodbye to his Mommy and Daddy. Maybe if you sat with him he’d feel better.” Nathan ran up to him and invited Christopher to sit with him. At once the friendship was born.

The next day and the following days Chaz dropped his son off in the afternoon with his young daughter in tow. I noticed that he was the only father in a sea of mothers and that he stood with his daughter off to the side while he waited. We had spoken a few words here and there over the next couple of weeks, nothing major. I knew that he lived close to us because I saw him walking that way but he walked so fast that we never walked together. I was in no hurry to get home. I saw other moms try to talk with him, some even doing the wiggly flirt complete with batting eyelashes. His answers were short and then he would stare at some unknown object in the sky until they gave up.

At this particular time in my life I had been battling panic disorder and depression for years. I was still agoraphobic and I found it difficult to function normally. I had hoped that the start of Nathan’s life in school might be the start of some sort of social life for me. I was friendless. Alex and I had drifted apart when the kids were born, until we became two people who happened to live under the same roof, one who worked long hours away from home, and one who cared for the children and the house. I longed for someone to talk to.

One day Christopher and Nathan came darting out of the classroom and speaking at the same time. They started begging Chaz and I to let them play together after school. Chaz shrugged his shoulders and said “Sure”. As we walked home I was filled with worry. Nathan had never been to a friend’s house to play before without me. He had never been away from me at all except when he was with my mom, my sister Maria or his dad, and never for very long. I assume Chaz sensed my hesitance because he turned back to look at Polly and me as we walked towards home and said, “You guys can come too.” Filled with relief I smiled and Chaz slowed down and walked next to us.

Once we arrived at their apartment, which was about five houses up from our house, I was happy to see our boys running around and talking loudly. They fell easily into play, as our daughters did too once they were released from stroller strap confines. That left the two of us to sit. When Chaz and I later looked back on that first afternoon we had differing memories of the way it played out. I remembered being incredibly nervous and shy, he remembers me sitting down and talking and talking. Perhaps we are both right. I may have spoke at first out of nervousness, but the level of comfort that we would eventually obtain by the end of that first very long conversation was one never before experienced in my life and one I don’t expect to be able to duplicate. I now understand what people mean when they say, “We just clicked.”

His wife came home from work that evening to find us still sitting in the living room talking. I was immediately scared. I thought that she would be angry. She was surprised, but she too seemed pleased to have company. She teased him when he said no, he hadn’t offered me anything to eat or drink during that time. The fact was it had never occurred to me, or to him, to stop to drink or eat.

So became the pattern of the next several months. Chaz slowed his walk way down so that we could walk our boys to and from school together. Oftentimes the kids begged to play after school and most of the time we let them. Many times I came along too, bringing Polly. Sometimes one of us would need a babysitter for an appointment or something and the other one would happily oblige. I was positively bursting with the newfound friendship. When his wife would come home from work we would talk but it wasn’t the same type of rapport I had with her husband. She had also dropped a few nonchalant comments about people who are so crazy they have to take antidepressants or people who have to take Prozac to have a personality so I had a sneaking suspicion we wouldn’t get along if we scratched more than the surface of each other’s personalities.

Several times I asked him if perhaps his wife might be mad about us being friends. He assured me that wasn’t the case. She in fact told me more than once she was happy to see he had made a friend. Alex wasn’t thrilled about it, and I knew for a fact he was not angry because I had made a new friend, he was jealous because my friend was male. I didn’t care. The way that I felt at the time was that Alex had so successfully pushed me away by then that I had every right to have a friend. Chaz and I loaned each other copies of our favorite books, movies and albums and then discussed them with each other. I made him copies of my CD collection. His grasp of history and literature was fascinating to me because it exceeded my own. I was able to learn a lot without ever feeling less than. I was always excited for the next day so I could tell him about something. When I shared the pieces of my past that I felt comfortable sharing he listened carefully and never pressured me for more than I felt comfortable revealing. Sometimes in the telling of a story I would realize there can be humor in the pain. We laughed together.

Things seemed good. Then one day there was a fight between him and his wife and the consensus was that I was not welcome to come over again. When he told me of this on a Monday morning I didn’t push for a lot of details because I had figured that it would come to an end at some point, that even though we never touched or even sat next to each other, choosing instead the farthest seats across the room from each other, that at some point one of our significant others would get jealous and put their foot down hard enough. The look on his face was one of pain and shock.

This is getting long. To be continued tomorrow…