After that fight there was a definite change, but the friendship continued. We saw each other when we walked the kids to school, and when the boys played at each other’s houses. My mom met Chaz soon after and asked him if he’d be willing to do a little work at her house on the weekends. He accepted. Sometimes I went over on the Saturdays and Sundays he worked on my mom’s house and worked alongside him and sometimes I stayed home. He always questioned why I wasn’t there when I didn’t show. I still didn’t tell him about my panic, depression, and agoraphobia. We spoke on the phone occasionally.

In 1999 Alex and I lost our house to foreclosure after the place Alex was working for shut down unexpectedly after 100+ years in business. He struggled to find a new job but was unable to match his previous earnings and we went under very fast. Deeply upset and more than a little embarrassed we packed up our belongings and kids and asked my mom if we could rent the vacant one bedroom apartment she had available. She said yes and so we squeezed in somehow. It was a very hard time. Chaz’s marriage ended the following spring, and his wife moved out. When Polly was ready to start kindergarten I decided to switch Nathan to the school around the corner rather than walk so far each day to the school he attended with Christopher. We still made an effort to get the boys together for play dates because they missed each other so. Chaz and I spoke frequently on the phone and via e-mail. With Alex working graveyard and me once again trying to fight off debilitating anxiety and depression I soon came to realize that I was going to have to open up about my illness to Chaz. I did so, and although he had never heard of panic disorder and had never experienced clinical lifelong depression himself he was supportive, albeit curious. He questioned the cause more than I ever had and I found myself often having phone conversations with him that consisted of me listening to well intentioned ideas as to how I could beat this thing.

What I soon came to realize from the hours we spent on the phone and the times when he came to the house to help out my mom was that if I needed him he was there, no questions asked. I mentioned on the phone once late at night that I was out of coffee and dreading the morning to come and without a word he drove over to my house and slipped coffee in my mailbox. If I or one of the kids had a cold or the flu a bag of juice and soup and even a chocolate bar and a tape he had made for me along with a letter complete with drawings would appear on my doorstep. In turn I would do the same for him, dropping off OTC medications, tea and bread, soup and crackers. Not much mention was made of it, we merely said thank you and continued on. During one particular conversation about a former friend of his I asked him why he didn’t pick up the phone and give them a call. “We’re like two ships passing in the night now.” I didn’t give it much thought at the time. In fact, I think I laughed.

When my mom needed her gutters cleaned or had a flat tire she called him and he came. When my mom started noticing the alarming rate at which he was losing weight since he started living alone she started bringing over groceries and even cooked meals that she sat at the table in his apartment and ate with him.

Increasingly tired of not being able to function the way that I perceived everyone else could I asked Alex to move out so that I could try to prove to myself that I could do it on my own. I took a college class, got a job on the graveyard shift while my mom or Alex had the kids and to my surprise was not only able to handle it, I excelled at it. Alex had an apartment around the corner and I found that we got along much better when we weren’t living under the same roof.

As my workload and responsibilities increased I was still aware through the occasional phone call we were able to squeeze into our now work filled schedules that Chaz wasn’t doing well financially. When he became aware of a part time position at my work on the shift I was working he begged me to get him the position. He also asked for a loan for his next month’s rent. I was doing well at the time with my wages and child support and so I loaned him the money. He agreed to make small monthly payments. I was less certain about the job situation, thinking that us working together was a recipe for disaster. He kept assuring me that everything would be fine and against my better judgment I went to my boss and asked him to hire him. He did.

At first working together was fun. He worked in the back of the bakery packing the items that I baked. He would often tease me a bit but I was used to that. Throughout the course of the six years I had known him he’d often teased me just enough to show me that I needed to lighten up or to make me laugh when I started freaking out and taking life too seriously.

After some time Nathan began exhibiting signs of emotional problems. I assumed that he was reacting to the fact that I had gone back to work and to the fact that his dad was no longer living with us. I was foolish and didn’t recognize the symptoms of bipolar disorder or ADHD. I did take Nathan to a doctor who agreed with me that the life changes had been hard on him and he was acting out.

I was working long nights coupled with the fact that I never got any sleep because I had to care for my kids during the day. The teasing from Chaz at work took on a different tone. Where he had once seemed to realize that I use a different gauge to measure my successes, i.e. being able to manage my depression and anxiety to the point where I could work was a major breakthrough for me personally, he now teased me about the quality of my work and the speed at which I produced the final product. Also, I knew I worked very hard and that I consistently put out the best products that I could because I’m funny like that. I like to do a good job. To be teased by my best friend about something that was so important to my self esteem hurt. Besides, as any baker knows, you CAN’T RUSH YEAST!!Sometimes I would get so mad at him that we wouldn’t speak for weeks. If I needed to tell him something work related I would write a note and tape it up in his department or have my supervisor deliver the message. My back was causing me a tremendous amount of pain. I began taking prescription pills to cope with the constant agony.

Alex came to me with a problem. He had been laid off from his job and while his unemployment benefits would support him he wouldn’t be able to pay child support. He asked if he could move back in and I said yes, actually glad to have him there to handle the constant violent outbursts that Nathan was now having. I threw myself into work. Alex’s unemployment ran out and he once again was without a job. I was frightened about the prospect of supporting four people . I began to feel bitter over the money that I had loaned Chaz. He was paying me $20. Per month. One month I heard him talk about spending 200 dollars on CDS and I was livid. I was barely scraping by. I tried to tell him how I felt but he undermined my actual stress by saying that I didn’t really have to worry because my mom was my landlord and she wouldn’t evict us. My mom certainly never offered me a break on the rent and I never asked for one. Plus, there was something wrong with my son that I felt was my fault (Mother’s Guilt!) both kids were starting to get less than splendid marks in school and I had no idea what to do.

Eventually my body shut down and I ended up in the hospital with an infection in my face that was found to be staph. The doctors spoke of the possibility of it going into my brain and none of the antibiotics were working. I lay in that bed doped up on Percocet and expected Chaz to have heard from my mom or our boss that I was very ill. I expected him to call or to visit. I envisioned my old friend, the one I had cherished so deeply, coming back. I called my supervisor to apologize for being off so many days and she told me that she wasn’t worried about it; she just wanted me to get well. She also mentioned that she had told Chaz where I was hospitalized. One night I broke down and called him and he barked at me for waking him up. He pretended that he didn’t know where I was. When I asked him why he was lying he said, “I guess it’s just my nature.” I hung up the phone.

I ended up going back to work the day after I got out of the hospital even though I was supposed to stay in bed for a week just because we needed the money so badly. I found out that Chaz had quit while I was in the hospital and I was relieved at the same time I was angry.

One night, sick of seeing things around the apartment that reminded me of him, I got a box and piled everything he’d ever given me into it. Books, movies, tapes, cds, letters, photos, drawings, everything went in. I called him and asked him what his work schedule was and after he told me I ended the conversation. On a night I knew he was at work I went and placed the box on his front stairs and walked away. Junior high schoolish of me? Yes, but I felt better. I tried to move on. Even now I’ll think of something that I want to tell him and I almost reach for the phone before I realize… It’s been over three years now since we last spoke. I haven’t attempted friendship again since.

“Two ships passing in the night.”
I finally understood what he had meant as we passed by each other the other day.