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BUILDING BIKES AND FRIENDSHIPS

Hugh

MARCH 17, 1997

A FTER THE S T . P ATRICK’S D AY PARADE IN TOWN THIS AFTERNOON , C ATHERINE Y OUNG invited us to Old Hall House to play. The weather was too good to stay inside, so the five of us decided on building a treehouse.

While Gibs, Feely, and Claire snooped through the stables for potential materials we could use, Liz and I combed through the storage sheds on the other side of the property.

However, all plans of building a treehouse went clean out the window when we spied a cobweb-infested bicycle at the back of one of the sheds.

“Can you hold that?”

“Yep.”

“You got it, Liz?”

“I’ve got it, Hugh.”

“Good job.”

Nodding my approval, I greased up the chain links on the rust bucket of a bike we’d found. Pulling the chain into line, I readjusted the links until I was certain the chain would stay on. “I think we’re all set.”

“It’s as easy as that?” Liz asked, sounding fascinated.

“Yep.” Kicking the stand up, I held the handlebars while she climbed onto the saddle. “Give it a test ride to see if the chain holds.”

Pushing off on the pedals, she flew down the gravelly driveway, pedaling like a demon to pick up speed.

“Switch up the gears!” I called out with a laugh, attention glued to the blond-haired girl whizzing off on the bike. “See if it holds?”

“It’s holding,” she called back, voice laced with excitement. “You did it.”

Smiling with satisfaction, I wiped the oil from my hands with a cloth and watched my best friend cycle. “Careful, Liz, the brakes are seized to shit.”

“I don’t care,” she called back, laughing as she whizzed past me. “I don’t want to brake, Hugh. I want to go faster!”

“She looks happy,” I heard someone say, and I turned to see Lizzie’s mother at the front door. Her smile was almost as wide as her daughter’s. “Look at her go.”

“Yeah,” I chuckled, walking over to her. “She’s a daredevil, that one.”

“You’re a good friend to her, Hugh.” She turned her attention to me. “Thank you.”

“She’s a good friend to me, too,” I replied with a shrug, eyeing the frail woman. “How are you feeling, Catherine?”

“Aren’t you a sweetheart,” she chuckled, eyes filled with emotion. “I’m feeling much better these days.”

I smiled back at her, feeling relieved, because I liked Catherine Young a lot. She was a really nice lady, and it sucked that she spent so much time in the hospital. I understood why—my own mother had explained her illness to me—and I was rooting for her to get better. I even said a prayer for her before I went to bed at night. Every night. I made sure to never skip. Just to be safe.

“Liz is feeling a lot better these days, too,” I decided to tell her, because I knew she wanted to ask me but never would. The relief in her blue eyes when I told her that had me quickly continuing, “She’s laughing more, and she’s cracking jokes like she used to.” It was the truth. Liz was doing so much better since the New Year, and while she never spoke about her actual diagnosis, she didn’t try to hide it from me anymore.

Trusting me to keep her secrets, she told me all about the medicine she had to take every day, the one that made her feel steady , and how it didn’t make her feel as tired anymore. I knew all about her therapy sessions and the doctor who looked like Santa, that she had to visit every second month.

She still had her quiet days, and when she was sad, she wasn’t just sad, she was devastated, but it didn’t happen as often these days. Everything about my best friend seemed more balanced.

“You’re a good boy, Hugh Biggs.” Catherine patted my hand. “Your mother is very blessed to have a son like you.”

Several hours after repairing the old bike we christened Rust Bucket and after a painstaking trek through the meadow with planks of timber, the treehouse we originally planned on making was starting to take shape.

We found the perfect oak tree in the meadow and had the floor laid down on the strongest branch. We would have had the walls erected, too, but Gibsie decided to throw a fit when Feely accidentally smacked his thumb instead of the nail and launch our only hammer into the field below. All five of us had searched through the knee-high grass to no avail. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

“Gerard said he was sorry, Hugh,” Claire said, defending him for the hundredth time. “He’ll find another hammer. You’ll see.”

“Where?” I shot back, still annoyed. “In his ass?”

“Hugh!” Claire scolded, while Lizzie snickered beside her. “Don’t curse.”

“It’ll be dark in an hour, Claire,” Feely offered calmly.

“Exactly,” I snapped. The evening was setting in and we were losing light. “Even if he finds another hammer, we won’t have enough time to put the walls up.”

“Let alone the roof,” Feely chimed in, in agreement.

“Oh my God, guys, look!” Liz laughed, pointing toward something in the distance.

Claire and I turned our heads in unison to see Gibsie dragging a sledgehammer toward the treehouse. “I found one, lads!”

“Ahh,” Liz continued to howl laughing. “He looks like Thor with his hammer!”

“Did you hear that, Gibs?” Feely called out with a chuckle. “Lizzie thinks you look like a superhero!”

Grinning wolfishly up at us, Gibsie winked and immediately starting flexing his nonexistent biceps.

“Oh yeah,” Liz encouraged, cheering him on. “Show us those guns, Thor.”