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she has been poor and constantly sad. She has lived through a time when women would never ever consider walking down a long highway in the middle of a black, cool spring night to exorcise their demons and flick their middle fingers at the world.
    In the hours since the women have left Susan's house, since they have moved from one field to the next and walked dozens of miles, the world has already pulled on a new face, and the women are part of that changing landscape. They are determined, gleeful, thinking and sorting through thoughts and feelings as deep as the earth they stand upon. But there is Mary, slowing her pace as they leave the side of the road and bowing her head and lifting her arms to circle herself in a kind of hug as they move ahead.
    Chris, the observer of the world, witnessed Mary falter, and her mind flew in several directions at once. Because of her work as a journalist, Chris has known and interviewed one hundred Marys but it was only in that moment as she looked off into the nothing, that she had an inkling of what it might be like to be a Mary, unsure of everything, always needing someone to affirm her actions, to give permission for living and walking and breathing.
    The Marys of the world, thought Chris, start out in high school creeping from one boy to the next because the idea of not having a boyfriend, or just somebody always there, is so terrifying they cannot even imagine it. In her own school, there were a good dozen Marys and their weekly dramas of breakups and new romances made her laugh and provided hours of free entertainment.
    The college Marys were the same girls with different faces, and even in the days of burning bras and groping for personal sexual satisfaction, she was amazed at how many Marys made it through those years with their needs intact and strong as hell. There was no time then or need or desire to figure these women out. Chris simply had no time for the man pleasers, for the women who seemed to abandon themselves for someone else, for the Marys of the world who could never quite bring themselves to walk away from or toward anything.
    Her last editor had been a Mary to beat all Marys. Married and divorced three times and anxious immediately to fill the empty space next to her with anyone who had a penis and shaved something besides his legs. This editor was as complex as Chris's own heart. One minute she was making decisions that could change the course of lives, and the next she was canceling her entire life for the chance to be with someone she barely knew.
    Then there is Mary Valkeen, mother of three, wife of Boyce, struggling up this highway with her arms embracing her own heart as if trying to keep it from falling outside of her chest. Chris suddenly saw in Mary's face the struggle it had been for her to walk just a few miles, and what a struggle it will be to turn away from her friends. When she slowed her pace to stay even with Mary, Chris wanted to cry out when she saw the veil of agony that had crossed her friend's face.
    “Mary,” whispered Chris as they dropped back from the rest of the women and Chris laced her arm through Mary's crooked elbow. “Are you having a hard time?”
    Mary looked up quickly, not surprised that someone had noticed her lack of enthusiasm. She didn't think she had the heart for it. That's what she wanted to say. “I'm embarrassed by my lack of commitment to my friends,” she wanted to admit. “I just don't need this,” she could add and then, “Oh God, I wish I could be like you. I just can't do this, because I already have what I need.”
    What Mary wanted was to go home and crawl into bed next to Boyce and his thick, comforting arms. She wanted to lie there warm in her own bed with the sound of the alarm clock humming next to her left ear, and then wake up in just a few hours so she could hand her boys an apple and a granola bar before they race off for early basketball practice. “I'm not strong like you.”
    “We're not that