Read Bridge to a Distant Star for Free Online

Esteban. I think she’s arrived?” Vanessa inquired.
    “Yes, I believe she has. Follow me right this way, please.”
    Leading them to a corner table, he motioned to a secluded niche where they would have a good deal of privacy. There was still much bustling about as they distractedly greeted Emilie, decided who would sit where and settled in, at last giving Emilie their total attention. And then simultaneously, as though choreographed, all gaiety came to an abrupt end.
    Emilie appeared stricken, shrunken, weak. Her shoulders were slumped over, head tilted down, hands clenched together in her lap. When she did glance up, they saw that her eyes were red and swollen, her face raw and chapped, every flaw of her deathly pale skin—wrinkles, sags, lines—highlighted. Emilie looked like an old woman.
    Maureen reached over and clutched Emilie’s hands. “What is it? What’s happened, Em?”
    Emilie lifted her chin, but closed her eyes as she slowly shook her head. The silence was unbearable. And so they filled it, voices overlapping with peppered questions.
    “Is it one of the kids?”
    “Is it Ed? Is his business in trouble somehow?”
    “Has someone been in an accident?”
    “Oh, Em … is it you? Have you been to a doctor? Is that why you missed the meeting this morning?”
    “Let us help.”
    “Tell us what to do.”
    “Emilie?”
    When she finally spoke, the flatness of Emilie’s voice was like a generated recording, devoid of personality and emotion. “Ed’s met another woman. He’s moving out.” She glanced down at her wrist, checked the time on her watch. “Right now, as a matter of fact.”
    They stared at her, mouths open. And though they didn’t realize it, each one held her breath, features frozen in disbelief.
    “He told me just as I was about to go out the door this morning. Oh, sorry I wasn’t there today, Maureen.” An aside, eerie in its calm. “Says he’s in love—for the first time in his life. And so he knows this is what God wants him to do. Go to be with her, of course.” Emilie began to speak faster, slurring one word into the next. “After all these years … he was living for me and the kids, he says … sacrificing his own personal happiness … and finally it’s his turn in life to be happy. So he says now … with God’s blessing , he says … that …”
    Emilie stopped then, allowing the words to slip away as though she were a music box that gradually wound down. Silenced now, she was smaller still.
    The three friends exchanged quick, horrified glances and then Maureen, still holding Emilie’s hand in her own, squeezed tighter. One thought raced frenetically through her mind: Say the right thing. Whatever you do, Say the right thing. “I don’t believe Ed would follow through with this, Emilie. He’ll come to his senses.” Maureen looked around the table for affirmation from the others. “I bet he’ll be back before you know it. Certainly he’ll change his mind.”
    Vanessa started to add something, but hesitated and stopped, flustered.
    And then Sherry whispered under her breath, “Maybe it would be better for Em if he didn’t. ”
    That drew an astonished look from Maureen, but a shrill, staccato laugh from Emilie. It was nothing like her usual beloved, boisterous laugh, and that sarcastic sound—more than anything that Emilie had said so far—brought a stab of pain to Maureen’s heart.
    “Funny, I was thinking some of those same things when Ed was first telling me his ‘ news, ’ shall we say. My mind was racing, thinking surely he’d change his mind, he’d come to his senses, blah, blah, blah. And then he’d beg my forgiveness for this … this temporary insanity. ” She reached for a crumpled, much-used tissue from her lap, dabbed at her eyes.
    “And then he put his briefcase on the counter, pulled out papers. Turns out my efficient husband has already contacted an attorney.” She blew her nose and then closed her eyes. “It’s been going on