Alberta

Chapter Two: Intimacy

"Mama, I met a girl in primary today... she's my age mama. She held my hand and we are going to be the best of friends"

She runs her hand through my auburn hair "That's wonderful honey"

"She's five too?" My mama would ask.

I would reply "Yes mama her birthday is two days before mine... her name is Willa... isn't that a nice name?"

She would answer "She sounds special just like my Alberta"

"Willa Jameson" she would confirm out loud, as she remembered the large family who had joined the church that morning. "They seem a devoted family. We must invite them for dinner. I think Willa will be in your kindergarten class Alberta... they are in the same school district. Two streets over I believe...that will be good for you to have a friend already honey"

As a late teen I would think back to this conversation and the moment I met Willa. I would wonder when it was that girls holding hands became shocking and not wonderful, sweet, cute or adorable. When did two girls holding hands become a direct attack on the church and its beliefs? A reason to cast out, a worrying sign that the girls may need to see their bishop to discuss relations, relationships and boundaries.

And so holding hands became intimate, because they made it forbidden, and that meant Willa and I were intimate on a daily basis most of our lives, up until the month of my wedding.

It was a day that should be celebrated each year with joy and wonder at the years that lay ahead and all of the wonderful things your union and your love will create before you. My wedding day though, it became the anniversary of Willa's absence from me, and the unendurable aching that would keep me up at night like an old house that creaked from its bones, twisting and moving at its core, expanding and sometimes sinking.

The last day Willa would hold my hand...

"Alberta" my mama called, watching me leave the back porch. "Don't let Willa keep you long. We have a dinner with Ben tonight and his parents. Don't be late"

I nodded and ran towards the white picket fence, pulling the gate with a force and heading to the place I knew Willa would always meet me, the park that sat between our homes. It was sometimes busy, but today it was quiet. I see her throwing a basketball from the end of the basketball court and casually watching it fall effortlessly into the basket. Willa is the captain of our girls' basketball team, well she was, we had not long left school for the last time. Like she senses me there, she turns, and her smile meets her eyes. I walk to her side. "That was a great shot" I say, impressed and pointing at the basket.

"Come" she replies, reaching for and pulling my hand with her as she takes me over the grass and to the cluster of trees that are like a hidden garden in the back of the park. She pulls me into the shady clearing and let's my hand go, placing her back against a large oak tree. I stand and watch her, her large brown eyes take me in. I stumble a little on my feet, wondering what she wants to say, but she doesn't say a thing. Her chest rises and falls and she looks to me intensely. She reaches out and tugs my hand and pulls me towards her, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.

Her body almost collapses against me. "Are you crying" I ask, a little taken aback.

I knew Willa wasn't impressed that Ben had asked me to marry him. I knew that. She rests her head against my shoulder. I feel her breath upon my neck, and from afar it may seem like we are moving or swaying slowly in a dance.

"Alberta" she whispers.

I am thrown by her use of my full name. "Willa" I return "what is it"

She pulls away and looks into my eyes as if she is wanting to say something important, something that is hurting her to hold in. She squeezes her eyes shut momentarily, and a fresh tear falls down her cheek. I am frightened by the raw emotion that is echoing from her features, her mouth opens and shuts. It's as if her words are caught, or she is frozen by them.

"Willa, you are scaring me" I beg, feeling tears prick my eyes with the fear on my best friends face.

"Alberta" she starts again... "Allie" she corrects wiping her eyes with her hands and rubbing them down her t shirt to dry them.

"I can't" she finally confesses.

She takes off across the grass and away from me, leaving me stood in the clearing, completely unsure of what had just happened.

I would soon learn that it would be the last time I would see Willa Jameson for a long time. It would be for an unimaginable, at the time, five years.

She would leave a note, a note I still had to this day, and in it a poem that spoke more to me, always, than the spoken word.

The sunsets are ours, they are
A goodnight kiss from me to you
A moment to take
A gaze not to break
Always here
Alberta
Bad days and good
Look for me there
The sunsets are ours
I'm here

Always, Willa x

And I would realize that what she couldn't bear to say that day in the clearing was "Goodbye"