In my school years, friends drifted in and out. Fickle fate granted a lifelong few. Afterward, they were temporarily shipmates to a common port of call. Unloaded, we embark to our different shores.I was blessed with a lifelong friend, Julie. We met in grade school.What first attracted us? I can’t remember. I was a protean, rural, Asian of dark complexion who snuck on a public-school bus. She was a pedigree, urbane, freckled girl with almost translucent skin, driven to school from afar by her stepmother. Blond, blue-eyed, she was in a stable family of wealth. I, with straight black hair, dark brown almond eyes, was in a dysfunctional family of poverty. So different but there were common bonds. Perhaps loneliness, we didn’t fit in with the others. Ugly ducklings, we shared sarcastic humor and questioned church orthodoxy others didn’t. We drew together, outer moons circling one another as we orbited the school’s popularity gravitation center.The bonding developed on our similar assumed superiority, sense of humor and secrets we told. On eight grade graduation, we were among the select, those accepted to Notre Dame. There, we molted our ugly duck feathers to become swans. From her puberty cocoon, she fluttered out trim and statuesque. Her freckles faded to added attractions on a beautiful face. In high school, our friendship coalesced into the friend’s forever, one for two, two for one level.She was my maid of honor, I, her married maid of honor.We trusted each other with our secrets. In our senior year, I alone knew when she got pregnant, who the bad boy was, where it occurred, (in the back seat of his hotrod Camaro with tuck and roll upholstery, at the Moonlight Drive-in). I knew when she left for the secret abortion and her being sterile when she returned.I confided to her my driving lessons, first kiss, engagement surprise, Vixens rush, hubby’s Squirt and Alviso’s train kiss. She knew I was a virgin on the altar, my honeymoon highway musings, Motel 6 virginity surrender, Disneyland’s ride delights and Titanic panic on seeing the Queen Mary. I related my marriage experiences, my birthing pangs, and my parent’s secrets.I knew her University of California, Berkeley experiences, her engagement, her husband’s infidelities, the messy details of their divorce and who the woman was he ran off with. After her divorce, she introduced me to potential replacements for my approval. The first I chose refused to sign her financial prenuptial agreement, the second did.He was divorced, broken by an ex-wife and had a daughter. A good husband, he was kind to her and most importantly, was socially compatible with hubby and me. Every year we or they visited and we took a trip together. She was bitter about the nuns and priests, their terror tales of hell that caused her fear, confusion, and guilt into adulthood. I assuaged her ire and consoled she needed to sympathize with them. They, unlike us, were trapped in their Middle Age habits, we’d escaped.I sermonized she should feel empathy for the clergy who became enmeshed for life in vows taken when young and confided there was a priest who helped Mom. I told her to dwell on the spiritual experience of knowing God and avoid God’s reprobation, even when we get slapped by God’s strange ways. My hypocritical pontification was an irritant in our relationship.Our friendship survived our marriages, her divorce and my relocation to the Pacific Northwest. Mail, phone and later email kept us in contact. Distance, however, does not make the heart grow fonder. The time spans between contacts crept longer. The adolescent, friends forever, two for one, one for two, faded.In truth, I never was her friend. I’d betrayed her. She never güvenilir bahis knew my secret puppet shadow persona. She knew about my swing shift tales but not of Edward, not a whisper. With him and his replacements, I was unfaithful to hubby and her. Like my husband, she knew me but knew me not. My persona self, super mom and wife lied again and again of who I was. The me she saw was the one I wanted all to see.My betrayal was a lie of omission. After I confessed to Gabriel, I took a step to be true and told her I’d been unfaithful in marriage. It was a tiny step into honesty with no details.My revelation re-cast me in fractured light. She was hurt, no devastated, a second divorce for her. Her lifelong friend was not the friend she knew. She’d experienced the pain of infidelity, saw me for the first time as a betrayer, like her philandering first husband. My hypocrisy exposed, she sympathized with hubby, not me. She’d been honest with me about everything and falsely assumed I had too.She’d never revealed a secret I’d told. Why hadn’t I trusted her? Her reaction alarmed me. She knew hubby well. I didn’t want to take the risk of her betraying me back by revealing what I’d told.I selfishly protected myself. I added hubby knew, it was one time, and it was in response to his swinging fiasco, insurance coverage in case my honesty attempt boomeranged. Seeing me in a different hue, saw through it, knew there was more. My added lies furthered the dissolution of our friendship. The infidelity topic never came up again. We both managed the bilge pumps to keep our friendship on an even keel while it sank.Unrepentant, I patched the honest tidbit leak in my subconscious. My error was telling her a little not omitting the lot. Like when Mom revealed her past, she couldn’t un-hear what I’d admitted. I regretted my honesty lapse, not my years of betrayal.As our friendship sank, the realization my deceit ruined what was wonderful, gnawed on my conscience. It was too late to confess all and no way to refloat what had sunk. The revelation hurt but a much greater shock of admission was coming, a terrible truth about myself, hidden from me until her death, a death by suicide.Hubby and I drove down to Los Angles for a mini-vacation, a get out of the rain trip. Like usual, I emailed Julie. Her husband emailed back. They were looking forward to seeing us but she had “issues”. We needed to limit our visit to two hours instead of our either usual overnight stop or trip together. I assumed her “issues” were my lie of omission and set thinking about what I could do to re-establish what once was but was gone.They lived in Saratoga, an upscale, hill city, of Silicone Valley. The oak trees surrounding her house were sculpture into bonsai shapes as if owned by a giant. My mind still struggled for a way to address her “issues” as we drove up their driveway, walked up the brick pathway, climbed the steps and tapped on the big front door with beveled glass window panes. As we waited for it to open, I had no answer. I did notice the lawn had weed patches, so atypical of Julie’s fastidiousness.Her husband answered, led us in the spatial living room and sat us down, all too formal. After an uncomfortable time-lapse, she came out. She greeted us in a Chinese silken housecoat, still not dressed to face the day even though it was two o’clock. Instead of her normal neatly coffered hair, wisps of disarray shown. She looked haggard.Is her greeting me in her housecoat her saying I’m no longer important to her?We hugged, a social gesture I’ve never enjoyed with most due to insincerity but enjoyed with Julie. As we hugged, I felt her insincerity. We sat and sought easy conversation as her güvenilir bahis siteleri husband brought tea, coffee, and little sandwiches and placed them on the ornate coffee table. I noticed a slight tremble in her hand holding her teacup.Is she so upset with me she trembles?Stymied for comfortable words, her husband got up and brought out a pistol he’d purchased to show hubby. It was a Sig Saur 380, like the one I got for shooting Paul. Hubby announced I had one just like it and I’d trained with it to be a dead eye. Julie flinched. She knew I didn’t like guns. She knew there was more, another lie of omission.After her husband put the gun back, the conversation again lagged. Breaking the silence, he announced his oldest grand-daughter was turning sixteen and getting her driver’s license. My mind flashed to hubby teaching me to drive and my first kiss. I related how our kids got their driver licenses.The conversation slipped into second gear. We prated about children, grand-children and even my new great-grandchild. The three of us, in selfish bravado, unknowingly exacerbated Julie’s childlessness. She sat silent. Tit for tat, her husband and I matched offspring experiences with hubby seconding. Soon the two hours had passed. Remembering the visit stipulation, hubby got up and declared we needed to rush out to avoid 5 o’clock inane traffic.On the porch, Julie and I were alone for a moment. I hugged her and pointedly asked if she had an issue we could discuss. Her body was stiff. She dryly replied, no. After a cheek kiss, we parted. Descending the brick pathway to the car, I looked up again at the bonsaied contorted oak trees and made a note to sculpture our yard’s fir trees.As we drove the re-routed Monterey Highway, aka US 101 south, hubby analyzed our brief meeting and speculated on her suffering Parkinson’s disease due to her hand tremble. I knew it was something else. Her stiffness when I hugged, her lack of return cheek kiss, her dry no, I knew it wasn’t Parkinson’s, it was other “issues”.Once again, we stayed in Santa Barbara before descending into the LA freeway traffic, now amazingly without its rug of smog, an EPA miracle. It wasn’t at the Motel 6, still there to nostalgically remind us of our wedding night. We stayed at the Bacara, just north of Santa Barbara, near Goleta. Bacara is a hidden gem of what California once was and still is in reserved spots. Its early California, mission influenced architecture captures the leisure days when California was an unfettered paradise. Staying there takes one back in time to a visit in an early California hacienda on an undisturbed coast.When we first discovered it, I was enthralled by the buildings’ ability to capture the history of early California, the Alhambra archways, the heavy wood arched doors, and the black wrought iron fixtures. In its lobby, one wouldn’t be surprised to see Zorro in mask and cape appear behind the counter or even friar Junipero Serra. Its guest rooms are cottages, splayed on a gentle slope, down to a private beach. Constructed in 2000, it has an early California timelessness. We dined in one of its restaurants, pleased to have a Boodles Gin martini, a Singapore Sling for me was taboo when with hubby. Unable to afford an ocean view room, we strolled, hand in hand, in the morning to its open beachfront restaurant, content after a night of renewed intimacy. As we passed a cottage, its female occupant was on its little veranda, a falcon on her leathered arm. With a flip-up, it soared and brought back a seagull. Released, the gull squawked off, apparently none the worse except for ruffled feathers. It was obvious we were among guests not in our social circle.The iddaa siteleri wealthy do eat differently. At the beach restaurant, we had delicious omelets with cheese never tasted before comingled with mushrooms of a species unrecognized. The crisp hash browns were speckled with scrumptious veggies. The exquisite sourdough toast, with British marmalade, was framed with straight black coffee, the real Java. We watched the waves gently roll in, each giving their final little plop of applause, as if not to disturb the tranquility. The Pacific displayed its pacific side for our morning repast pleasure.My cell phone shattered the serenity. Reaching for it, I reflected,I should’ve left it in the room. It’s Julie’s husband, what’s up?When I put it to my ear, he was hysterical. He had to slow down and repeat it.Julie was dead. She’d shot and killed herself. I switched to hysterical mode too. Hubby and I scrambled up to our room, threw stuff together, hauled it out, checked out and drove back to Saratoga, surprised not to be ticketed on the way.Again, as on my wedding night, thoughts drifted through my mind as we drove Highway 101. What? Why? How? It was a jumble with a constant theme, was it something I did or said?Tidy to the end, Julie had laid her head on a pillow and shot down to avoid blood, brain, sinew, and bone from defacing the wall. When we arrived, the scene had been cleaned, the bed removed. Our only responsibility was consoling her distraught husband. He swung from tears to rage with his versions of, What? And Why? He knew the how. It was his new pistol. He assumed guilt for having brought into the house despite our disagreement.In response to our tepid questions, if it was something we said or did, he assured us it was not. It was her “issues” she’d been diagnosed with OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It was progressing and she was more and more dysfunctional. I knew she was always fastidious but wondered if she was obsessed with my betrayal.The next day we returned home, our vacation rubble, blown apart by a shot fired in Saratoga. I remained shell shocked.The funeral was delayed for a month, a secular service in Los Gatos, for ashes. Her ashes were in a marble, cemetery driveway mailbox, the latest drive through convince. They were not present at her service. I mused she’d missed her own funeral, a thought I knew would make her smile.The spartan service was well attended, mostly by people unknown to me. People’s lives are like oranges, divided into segregated slices. Those unknown, were other slices of Julie, a reminder we only partially know another, even a best friend. At the husband’s request, only the funeral director delivered a eulogy. I was relieved, my prepared spiel was unnecessary. I didn’t trust my voice or emotions before the throng.In the lobby, her life in pictures was splayed on cork boards. Pin held photos of her and me among them. After the service, I met a few old acquaintances and re-connected with past banalities. Befitting her wealth, a sumptuous lunch was served at an upscale hotel in downtown Los Gatos. I met the relatives, until then unknown. While her husband was cared for, the bulk of her estate went to a faraway cousin I’d never met.Attending the previous Notre Dame classmate’s funeral caused the question, who am I. Julie’s resulted in a self-perception answer, beyond adulteress, despicable.The time from her death to the funeral service allowed thirty days of reflection. By then, I realized I’d never been her friend. Despite shared interests, humor and secrets, I’d treated her like I’d treated others, except family.I’d always been sensitive about family, defended them even when obviously less than perfect. Hubby knew; never berate my family, the family before our marriage and the extended one afterward, atomic or molecular. If I didn’t have something good to say about a family member, I didn’t mention them. If there was something good, I trumpeted it.