It isn’t pretty, acknowledging an old cow elephant, but there’s huge relief when it’s over. By the time Sandy confronts Jill, a week has passed and the matter has gone from shades of elephant gray to crisp black-and-white. She knows they can’t continue without a clean conversation.

“It’s time, Jill,” Sandy begins. “We have to clear the air about Rick. You know I’ve been seeing him again, and I know you don’t want to hear about it, and I’m confused about what the rules are here.” She pauses too briefly so Jill doesn’t talk in, and then Sandy rushes on. “It’s only in the last year I’ve realized that back when it first started, you weren’t done with Rick even though you told me you were. But now I’m hearing that you lied about me to Rick five years ago.”

“Lied?” Jill whisper-croaks the word as a question. Her face pales.

“Gaah! There’s so much murk around here…” Sandy moves her arms back and forth and looks around like she’s overwhelmed. “Look: one question. Why don’t you want me to spend time with Rick now?”

“It’s not about you spending time with Rick. Go ahead. All you want. I just don’t want to be included. And I’m not particularly interested in hearing about it.”

“There’s something going on that I don’t understand, Jill. Please explain it to me.”

Jill is silent for a moment. “Shit, San,” she says then. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.”

“I did lie five years ago. I led Rick to believe that you and Keith were still together. More than that: I said you were happy.

“I told myself I did it because it was best for you. But I know now I was still jealous. I knew I shouldn’t but I still loved him back when you took him. Five years ago I was over it, but I didn’t want you to have him. I mean, I couldn’t imagine me visiting the two of you as a couple: no way. So I told him you were married and happy. And then I watched him act regretful that he wasn’t Keith, heard him talk about how he wished he’d left Peggy for you. Boy did I feel boxed in. I wanted so badly to say, ‘Hold on, asshole. Get a clue. She and Keith were torn apart by guilt at what they’d done to their first spouses. As you would have been. Idiot.’ But of course I couldn’t say that without telling him the truth, so I just had to swallow it.”

Sandy clears her throat and acts like she wants to say something, but Jill rolls over that. “So guess how I felt when you found each other again anyway? There I’d gone to all that trouble, lying and murking myself. I couldn’t stop it from happening. But I didn’t have to like it. That’s why I now object, or refuse, or act uninterested. The whole subject makes me feel ashamed.”

“Sweetheart, it’s okay.”

Jill stops talking, looks at Sandy.

“It was the wrong thing to do and don’t ever do it again, but it’s all right. Just as well he didn’t know. Rick and I would have been a mistake. Mostly, it’s great to be able to get this out.”

Jill and Sandy go back thirty years but they aren’t big huggers. Now they rise simultaneously and move into each other’s arms. The elephant moves as well. Jill and Sandy get a little weepy, feel a big catharsis. Without even a creak of the old oak floor, the elephant leaves the room.

***

Sandy brought in coffee for her and Chris the following afternoon. They brewed good stuff in the lab but appreciated the occasional addition of steamed milk and spice dusting. The current helmet was a thicker design than the last one they tested, but with a less regular shape. They stirred foam for a minute.

“I saw Rick last week,” Sandy started. “We had a fine time but it’s no grand passion. He’s getting romantic/corny in his dotage. Talking about the sum being greater than the parts. Shit, he’s about this close…” and she held her right hand up between them, thumb and forefinger about two inches apart, “to buying us matching leisure suits.”

Chris smiled below a milk mustache. “That’s not okay. You may have to end the relationship right now.”

“It’s crazy, but I’m more interested in how my friendship with Jill is affected than anything about actual Rick. I don’t want him, but I sure want to figure out what happened with her.”

They attached strain gauges to skulls for a few silent minutes. Walking to the trigger, Chris then said, “Go for it. You and Jill have been through so much and you’ve always found your way back to each other. Talk to her.”

“Oh I did.” And Sandy told all. “We cleared the air but I didn’t achieve clarity.”

Chris fired at the helmeted skulls. “Maybe the clue is ‘shame.’ Jill used the word herself. It sounds like she might have unacknowledged shame about her own early promiscuity. You know? Apparently there were repercussions.”

Sandy looked up with awe. She wondered how many roles Chris could fill in her future. “Well at least we made the elephant walk.”

They moved together to examine the targets.

“Oh honey,” Chris concluded, “there will always be elephants. The floor may crack, but I think your foundation can bear the stress. Like this helmet.”