“It was so ironic,” Evie declared as she gently clunked her cast onto the table top. “We’d had a perfect day of skiing, and there we were in the parking lot, about to load the car for the drive home, when my right foot shoots forward on what must have been ice, and I start to go down. It’s like a reflex to put your hand out,” she continued, nodding at her broken wrist, “and the doctor said it never stops the fall.”

I heard, I sympathized, and I filled in for her at the office. There were only two others besides us, so we all picked up a pile of work.

That was a year ago, and it’s when I got to know Evie’s family. Maybe because we worked together every day, we rarely socialized out of the office. I knew about Mike and Jessie of course, but I wasn’t really acquainted with them. After the fall, when I often had to be Evie’s right hand, I interacted with her husband and daughter.

Mike is typically Irish. He’s short, rounding, red-haired, and he loves beer and chatter. He’s pushing sixty so his hair has faded to pinkish orange. His skin bears the fragile pallor peculiar to aging Northern Europeans: vein-translucent unless flushed. His fingernails are clean but a little too long. He earns money without ever seeming to have a job. He’s always networking but never really busy. I’ve been told about services as diverse as helping others buy used cars, providing neighborhood mediation, and negotiating with anybody’s home contractors. I’ve also heard about hours spent in coffee shops and packs of cigarettes smoked, and a high-maintenance, often grumpy man.

Jessica is three months older than herself. She was the result of a surprise pregnancy after years of disappointing tries, followed by several miracles of neonatology when she cut her own gestation short. She was born almost three months early. She didn’t come home to live with her parents until she was a month beyond her originally scheduled birthday. That’s when Evie and Mike started attending the local Lutheran church, but I don’t think it was about premature birth. It was about birth in general, the same theme that impelled them to buy the suburban house and the hatchback car we then liked to call their starter station wagon.

I’m not proud of it, but I never could resist comparing my life to Evie’s. I know it’s a fruitless exercise – what can it produce but feelings of either smugness or inadequacy in me? – but I think everyone has a tendency to look around at what others are doing, and I’ve always been enticed by our proximities.

We’re the same age. We work together in the same small office. We were pregnant at the same time. In fact, I was due before Evie. David should have been almost two months older than Jessie and instead he’s nearly that much younger.

I remember that time well. We planned for our maternity leaves by bringing in extra help, but we figured I’d go out first. Evie’s premature delivery disrupted more lives than hers. My own leave was cut short. I was never able to quantify the damage, but I know David would have been better off if I hadn’t had to rush back to work.

(continued Wednesday)