My Friends Planned a Weekend Away. I Found Out While Holding Their Coats.

My friends were discussing who would drive to their weekend rental while I stood there holding their coats. There were four of us. Apparently only three were going.

I thought I’d missed a message. I actually took out my phone and checked before I asked.

“Oh,” Linda said. “We were going to tell you.”

That is not a sentence that has ever made me feel better.

I’m 67. My husband, Ray, died two years ago. These women have been my friends for a long time. We worked together at the county office before we retired, and we still meet for lunch most Wednesdays.

They were good to me when Ray died. Linda brought food. Sue sat with me while I went through paperwork. Pat called in the evenings, when the house felt the worst. I haven’t forgotten any of that.

Which is probably why I didn’t say much outside the restaurant. I handed over the coats, told them to have a good time, and drove home.

The trip was three nights by a lake. Nothing extravagant, but there would be the rental, gas, meals out. I’d gone with them twice when Ray was alive.

I could afford a short trip if I planned for it. I couldn’t go away every other weekend, and I wasn’t buying the kind of shoes Linda buys. But I wasn’t asking anyone to pay for me.

At home, I heated leftover soup and kept thinking about the conversation.

Maybe I’d been difficult the last time. I know I wanted the television turned down. And I’d gone to bed before everybody else. But Sue falls asleep in a chair by nine, so I didn’t see how that disqualified me.

Then I felt childish for keeping track.

Linda called that afternoon. She started by saying nobody wanted to hurt my feelings. I asked why I hadn’t been invited.

“We didn’t think you’d want to spend that much.”

I said they could have asked me.

She said I’d mentioned how expensive everything was getting. I had. So had everybody at the table. We’d all complained about groceries for twenty minutes the week before.

She said she knew things were different now that I was on my own.

I didn’t know how to answer that without either discussing my income or sounding ungrateful for their concern. I told her I had enough sense to decide whether I could afford a trip.

She said, “Please don’t make this awkward.”

I nearly laughed. It was already pretty awkward from where I was sitting.

Instead, I asked if there was room for four. She said they’d booked a smaller place and would have to check.

I told her not to bother. That came out before I thought about what I wanted. She said all right, and we got off the phone.

The next morning Sue called. I was watering the plants, and I let it ring longer than I needed to.

“I need to tell you what I said when we were booking,” she told me. “It wasn’t just about money.”

I put the watering can down.

She said the last time they’d suggested staying overnight somewhere, I’d told them I couldn’t leave the cat. Before that, I’d said a drive was too far. Before that, I’d canceled lunch twice.

I said the cat had been taking medicine. Sue said she remembered. She wasn’t saying I’d invented it.

“But I started thinking you didn’t want to go with us anymore.”

I told her that wasn’t true.

She said she hadn’t known. Every time she’d asked how I was doing, I’d said fine, then turned the conversation back to her.

I sat down at the kitchen table. There were things I wanted to say, but I didn’t know which one to start with.

Leaving the house overnight had been harder since Ray died. I worried about coming back to an empty house after a nice time away. I worried about being the only one without a husband to call. I also worried about becoming the person who made every conversation sad.

So I’d used the cat. And the drive. And a headache once, although I had actually had a headache that day.

I told Sue some of that. Not all of it came out neatly. At one point I said they should have kept asking, and then I felt unfair for saying it.

She said she’d gotten tired of asking and feeling turned down. That hurt to hear. It also made sense.

I still didn’t think leaving me out without saying anything was okay. I told her that. She said she knew it hadn’t been handled well.

Then she asked whether I wanted her to see about changing the rental.

I said I didn’t know yet. I needed to think without trying to make her feel better about the call.

After we hung up, I called my sister. She lives two states away and doesn’t know these women beyond what I’ve told her.

She asked if I wanted the trip or wanted them to prove they still wanted me.

I said that was an annoying question. Then I said probably both.

I looked up the town. There was a little bookstore, a place for breakfast, a walking path that didn’t look too ambitious. I could picture myself there. I wanted to go.

I called Sue back and said yes, if changing things wasn’t going to cost everyone a lot more. She said she’d ask and tell me the actual amount, then I could decide.

That was all I’d wanted from the beginning. Well, most of what I’d wanted.

We found a place with two bedrooms and enough beds. My share was more than I’d usually spend on a weekend, but I’d had time to work it out. I said yes.

Linda and I had another conversation before we went. I told her I didn’t want my finances discussed unless I brought them up. She said she had been trying to save me embarrassment. I said I’d been pretty embarrassed standing outside the restaurant.

She apologized for that. I apologized for telling her not to bother when I hadn’t meant it. Neither of us enjoyed the conversation, but lunch the following Wednesday was easier.

The trip wasn’t some wonderful cure for being lonely. I cried in the bathroom the first night because Ray would have liked the ridiculous fish lamp beside the bed.

When I came out, Pat asked if I was okay. I said I was missing him. She said she was sorry and moved her bag so I could sit beside her.

We watched a bad movie. Sue fell asleep before the ending. Nobody seemed to need me to be cheerful every minute.

One afternoon, they wanted to spend two hours in a store I wasn’t interested in. I went to the bookstore instead. Before, I probably would have gone along and been irritated afterward.

On the way home, Linda started talking about another trip. She looked at me and asked if I wanted to hear the dates.

I said yes. I haven’t agreed to go yet. The cat’s fine, but I need to see what the weekend will cost. This time I just said that.

A fictional story inspired by everyday family situations.