there.” No other words were needed. I would be there for Toby, because Toby was always there for me.
I remember once when I was ten and Toby was eleven. We were walking in the woods across from our houses. By the time we started for home, it was dark. I was afraid to be in the woods in the dark but Toby kept telling me that there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Even at that age Toby made me feel protected. That was until we were out in the open, and I saw my house. There were cops everywhere but the worst part was seeing Dad’s face. He was mad… beyond mad.
“Where have you been young lady?” he stammered.
I didn’t know what to say, but it was Toby who answered for us. “We were thinking of running away and joining the circus but we forgot our rubber noses.” I had to laugh and so did Dad. I was still in trouble but like always Toby made me feel better. Yes that’s what friends were for.
I grabbed my sweatshirt as I headed out the back door remembering when Toby’s dad and mine built the tree house. I must have been around seven.
The tree house was a special place. It sat in the small grove of pines in the backyard. It took our dads a month to build it, and every year, they would repair or upgrade it. It was a place where dreams and fantasies came true. But as I opened the door and walked in I only felt sadness. In the corner sat Toby with his head down, his arms wrapped around his knees.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I sat down beside him. Of course he wasn’t okay, I knew that much, just looking at him. But I didn’t know what else to say. “What’s wrong Toby?”
“Just caught a little off guard, I guess. Just unprepared… for some old feelings.”
It took me a few minutes to put together what he had just said. I leaned my head against Toby’s shoulder and noticed his eyes were about to tear up.
“Toby what happened?”
“I had everything ready for senior pictures. New T-shirt, jeans, even shoes, everything was ready, until Mom saw what I had picked out.”
“Your mom likes your style.” Toby’s mom always liked the idea of him being an individual. She always said there was something special about him.
“It’s not that, she liked the new T-shirt. She even liked my checkerboard shoes. She was talking about how things had changed from when she was my age. Girls always wore dresses, guys wore suits.” He paused, “Hope… I wanted to surprise her.”
As he spoke I saw the sadness in his eyes.
“I’ve always seen the pictures of the two of them, before they met each other. They were dressed up in prom pictures and senior pictures. I wanted to do something special for her. Did you know, when my Dad passed away, she had most of his things packed up in boxes in the attic?”
“No… ” I said softly, as I touched his face and he looked back at me. “Maybe it’s her way of hanging onto a little part of him.”
“I wanted to surprise her by dressing up a little. I thought it would look cool to wear a suit jacket, like in one of Dad’s photos. Something special for my Mom, and my grandfather. I went through the boxes, until I found one. It was jet black, with satin lapels, and looked great.”
“Then why do you look so sad?”
“It was when I was standing in front of the mirror. For a split second, it was as if my Dad was standing in front of me. I miss him so much. I used to dread the father-son talks. Now there are so many things I wish I could ask him.”
As I sat beside Toby with my head on his shoulder there were so many memories of his father still here in the tree house. The benches he built wide enough to sit on or even stretch out our feet as we read books. A funny little table was part of the trap door and the crooked windows. Our dad’s had spent a lot of their time off building it for us.
“I’m sorry Toby,” I said quietly.
“Don’t be… at least I had fifteen years of memories. I wish you had memories of your mom.”
My mom died when I was born and didn’t have any memories of her. Like Toby I had photographs and a few of her things in boxes that Dad thought I might want when I got older. But I couldn’t close my eyes and remember her laugh or smile.
“Thanks for listening to me.”
With a smile I looked at him, “What are best friends for?”
“Hope you’ve been more than a best friend. You’ve been around for every part of my life, the good and the bad. If it weren’t for you I’d still be laying in bed, with the blinds down, not thinking about tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, I have a test.”
“I wasn’t talking about that. Hope when my dad died, you were there for me. When I wanted to lock myself in my bedroom, you literally dragged me out of it.”
“Kicking and screaming, the whole way,” I added.
“Maybe… okay quite a bit. But still you were there determined as usual. Sometimes I don’t know how you do it.”
“Do what?” I wondered.
“Be there for everyone. You’ve been like a leader to us. You’re one of the strongest willed person I know.”
“I am?”
“You make us feel important, you always do. You got us to dream of what we could be, and one day what we may become.”
“I did?”
“I know you can say more than two words at a time.”
“I know I can.” I said sarcastically. “Honestly Toby, I never thought of myself that way.”
“I know and that’s what makes you special.”
As I thought about it, I didn’t feel special. Weren’t people always supposed to be like this? I looked around our tree house as I continued to reflect. So many things seem to change, or maybe I was just growing up. I noticed the paint underneath our pictures and posters was starting to peel away from the walls. I remembered a few years ago when Toby and I painted them. We couldn`t decide on a color, so the walls were painted half one color for him, and another for me. I could recall all the adventures we had and all the practical jokes we played on each other. Which reminded me.
“Toby, what did you do to my phone?”
“I customized it.” he said with a smile, as he tried not to laugh.
“When?”
“Now you’re only speaking one word at a time.”
“When?”
“The other day, you handed me your purse and all your other stuff to hang onto while you talked to one of the teachers. It was vibrating in your purse. It was quite annoying, so I answered it.”
“You what!” shock streaked across my face as I wondered what he could have said.
“Don`t worry, it was a salesperson but I did have a little fun.”
With a smug smile on his face, I began to feel sorry for the salesperson.
“You were taking so long, I got bored. And your ring tone was boring enough. So I decided to change it. A good drum solo is like a heartbeat.”
We stayed in the tree house like that joking and laughing at each other until it was so dark that the only light that illuminated the tree house was from the back porch.
“So, how is the boyfriend thing going?”
“Dad!!! ”
“You know the look on your face always makes me laugh.”
Great,