Page 33 of To Love or to Lose
Wren Callaghan is standing on the porch when Eloise, Winnie, and I pull into the driveway.
“El, did you know your mom was going to be here?” Winnie asks, noticing Chrissi is also on the porch.
“I did not.” Eloise waves at her mom with a questioning look as we all approach.
Usually, she’s busy running the Taylor’s diner in town, so oftentimes we only see her when she’s in an apron or waiting tables.
“Eloise Ila.” Her mom smiles.
“Mom…” She trails off as her mother pulls her in for a hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Am I not allowed to visit a friend?” Chrissi asks.
“No, I just wasn’t expecting you.”
“Is my mom going to pop out too?” I ask.
Winnie, Logan, Luke, Eloise, and I were all born within a year of one another. First Logan, then Winnie, Luke, me, andEloise last. We like to joke that they did it on purpose so we could all be best friends like they were.
They’ve always denied our theory.
To this day, they are still the best of friends. All their best and worst moments have been shared with one another, and I can tell they wanted us to have that same experience.
Throughout my entire childhood, I always imagined that would be our future—that the four of us would be best friends for the rest of our lives. We would see each other get married, have kids together, the whole nine yards.
But then, Winnie’s mom died in a car accident, and it was the worst thing to happen to our friend group.
That’s when I started to doubt whether I wanted a life like our parents’. I couldn’t possibly watch what happened to Winnie’s mom happen to one of my closest friends.
We were fifteen, and it hit everyone hard. Harder than any of us could have imagined.It was hard to see my best friend go through losing her mom, obviously, but it was even harder when I was also feeling the pain of her death.
For our parents, losing their best friend was an enormous struggle. Susan was the driving force of their friendship; she was what kept them together. Our moms had already been bonded for life, it had seemed, and Winnie’s mom dying caused a momentary rift in their friendship.
“Where is your mom now, Gen?” Chrissi asks, breaking me from my thoughts.
“She’s in Paris, she’ll be back tomorrow morning,” I tell her.
Even if my mom is detached from the group more than the others, her friends are proud she’s doing it to pursue her dream.
It is what my dad had been begging her to do for years, and while it’s the reason Gwen and I grew up with more days with our nannies than parents, it doesn’t take away from her accomplishments as a businesswoman.
“Oh, that’s so fun!” She exclaims, bumping her shoulder with mine. “You need to start convincing her to take you with her.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Wren, where’s Logan?” Winnie asks.
“He should be inside somewhere.” She points to the partly open front door. “You guys can go look for him, we’ll be there in a minute.”
“L!” Eloise calls through the foyer. “Where are you?”
“I’m coming!” He shouts from the top of the stairs. “Give me one minute!”
“He sounds like he’s in a frenzy,” Winnie jokes, making Eloise and I laugh when he descends the stairs with Luke behind him.
“Wow,” I say.
“I feel like every girl in a rom-com who’s about to go to prom,” Logan jokes as we all gawk at him from the bottom of the stairs.
