Paperwork

Eric once tried to convince me that I should retain complete ownership of my company - that I didn't owe anything to anyone and that most business "partners" will inevitably turn on you or damage your interests. Why, he wondered, would I give over any part of my work and my company - half, in fact - to Eve?
Of course the business hasn't made money and I explained this to him. But it would make money, he insisted. At some point, there would be a profit and I would be foolish to give half of it away.

How could I explain to him that I trusted Eve as much as I would ever trust anyone in the world? Most people will never understand what it is to tread water at the edge of an abyss and to feel a friend reaching with both hands through the darkness, trying to pull you back. 

There was once a hot July afternoon, lying by Lago Miseno with Eve, as I prayed that the morning-after pill had not destroyed what it was meant to destroy. She lay quietly beside me on the dock, listening to the lapping water, feeling my panic and pain and trying to calm me. 

"There's a chance," she said. "There's always a chance." 

A month later, when the conference in Tanzania and my work had drawn to a close,  I stood in my hotel room and cried and shook. 

"It's dark," I told her. "I don't know why I can't get over the pain. I worry I'm slipping into depression."

"It isn't depression," she reassured. "Its grief and it all has to come out. You don't know the volume of the grief so it will just take some time for it to all come out."

A month later, on the beach in Boa Vista, when I looked at her and lied, "I'm just going to go for a run. Go ahead to the hotel without me." 

I saw the concern in her face, and I felt guilty, knowing what I intended. How much did that stop me, knowing she would have to see the result? 

Later that winter, when the depression was so deep and impenetrable, she took me with her family on a Christmas trip to Venice and we walked together along the dark streets of Murano, carrying candles in paper bags after the Midnight Mass. The wind blew my candle out. Irrationally, I panicked. It felt keenly apropos. What did it mean that my light was gone? 

"Here," said Eve, giving me her candle. "Use mine to relight it."

Then we accidentally lit both bags on fire and nearly burned down the neighborhood and laughed so hard we could hardly breathe. 

There are a thousand moments that comprise our friendship and in moments like this, when I find myself, once again, being forced to walk away from everything I've built, I give it all to her with open hands. She's carried me more times than I care to count - why wouldn't I trust her to carry this? The rest is just paperwork.