The Four Musketeers

Courtesy flickr.com

The girls met the first day of kindergarten, peering out from behind our legs as we tried to pry them loose with reassurances and fake smiles. We clutched our daughters with one hand, Kleenex with the other. The teacher, soft and ample as a grandmother, coaxed the girls onto the rug for circle time, while the Parent Club coaxed us away with coffee and pastries.

Before long, we couldn’t pry the girls away from each other. Felicia, Rose, Shannon, and my Emma were inseparable, like a litter of exuberant puppies. Everybody called them the Four Musketeers.

Felicia, with her dark braids, spray of freckles across her nose, gap-toothed grin, and outgoing charm, was especially endearing. All the Musketeers sparkled, but Felicia sparkled the most.

The girls clamored for play dates and sleepovers, so we mothers had to check each other out. Felicia’s mom and I apologized as we carried out our mutual phone interrogations.
We knew we could not be too careful. Polly Klaas had just been snatched from her safe suburban bedroom by the man who would rape and murder her.

“Can you imagine?” Felicia’s mother asked in horror. “From her own bedroom!”

“We mustn’t let them out of our sight,” she and I agreed.

The foursome thrived until Rose and Shannon moved away at the end of second grade. At the goodbye party, the girls wore T-shirts emblazoned with a photo of them grinning arm-in-arm, practically melting together, under the caption “The Four Musketeers.”

Emma and Felicia remained, bereft but consoled by one another and promises to keep in touch. As always, the promises were kept at first, then broken. So was the bond between the two who stayed behind. Like most childhood friendships, it ended with drift rather than rift. Felicia dedicated herself to gymnastics while Emma pursued her artistic passions.

Over the years, I heard bits and pieces about the Four Musketeers through the grapevine. Felicia’s adolescent body type did not cooperate with her Olympic ambitions. Her parents divorced, as did Shannon’s. Rose’s family fell on hard times financially. Emma disliked art school. Just the usual broken dreams that litter so many lives.

Sometimes dreams—and lives–shatter hard. I learned recently that Felicia is addicted to drugs, bouncing between rehab and the streets. She weighs 80 pounds. Rumor has it that she is prostituting herself for meth.

I cannot fathom what monsters have broken into Felicia’s home and stolen her away.

I just pray that she makes her way back to that sparkle once again.