Memories of Nina

It was at the playground where Mona told me about you and Mark.
The news burst over my world with a shower of sparks.
Illuminating faces: yours, mine, Nancy’s, Mark’s.
At last the jumbled clues make sense.
One piece of the puzzle brings total coherence.

I see your eyes - dark, brooding capacious.
Rebellious, depressed, searching, flirtatious.
The sorrow of your marriage, your dissatisfaction.
Mark’s understanding warmth, a tempting attraction.

While Nan babysat, watching your children,
You lay in her husband’s arms, skin to skin.
The soap opera brew of sex and betrayal
Left my heart feeling bruised, jaundiced and stale.
Loving you both, I shrank from the news
Til my love forced me deeper, face to face now with you.

Remembering your flowered leggings sprawled on my floor
The glow in your eyes as you opened the door.
"I’m having a baby!", you told your friends four,
"Isn’t that the most exciting thing you’ve ever heard?".
Nan’s sweet secret smile on hearing your words.
That spring and that summer, the two of you grew.
Belly matching belly, sisters together, Nan and you.

Facing your demons, you triumphed in birth.
I admired your strength, your courage, your worth.
Nan turned from the test and accepted the knife.
Too afraid of the responsibility for running her life.
Nancy the victim, increasing the weight
Mark carried through life, early and late.

Your baby entranced me, but you’d wanted a daughter.
Dreamed night and day of a girl called Aniata.
Nan’s son was a grouser, little Benjamin Mouser.

The babies ate sand Friday nights at the beach.
We ran on the shores, beyond the waves’ reach.
In our yards the next summer, the children ran nude
Their little bare bottoms too sweet to be rude.

We talked and we laughed and we cried in our tea
Our small sisterhood really comforted me.
All that time, I never understood your despair.
You felt so trapped, but I failed to hear.

You and Nancy stood by me through my next pregnancy.
Loving and mothering and sharing with me.
You envied me my daughters, Matisse was so sweet
A perfect little rosebud; my bliss was complete.

Finding my balance, I lost touch with you.
The distance between us just grew and grew.
When we talked in those days, the silences lengthened.
Your discomfort around me strengthened and strengthened.

One day you called me, with a serious voice.
Your determined tone told me you’d made a choice.
Because of changes in you, we could no more be friends.
You’d called just to tell me you’d chosen this end.

Nan called me, too. She was pretty upset.
You’d cut her off, too. She couldn’t accept it.
My last act of friendship, to try to understand and accept
You pulling away from me, as Nan softly wept.
Your last act of sisterhood, keeping me out of your trouble.
Your affair with Mark, the prick that burst our bubble.