It’s late afternoon on August 18, 2018. My friend Sandi and I have escaped her pre-fab house and her unstable caretaker, who is out running errands, but we cannot escape her stage IV cancer. That sits with us in the car. Sandi fancies we are the movie friends Thelma and Louise, trying to outrun it all.

Fifteen minutes earlier, I’d come to show her the quilts I’d finished piecing before taking them to the machine quilter. She’d started them for her son and grandson but was too sick to finish them. As I was leaving, she said, “Wait, I’m coming with you.”

A dazzling sun hangs in a spacious cloudless sky. I wear sunglasses because the tinted windows in my van aren’t dark enough to subdue the afternoon’s harsh glare. I don’t ask if I’m Thelma or Louise – I’ve never seen the movie – but my sunglasses are similar to the ones Louise wears in the promotion stills. The movie is one of Sandi’s favorites.

Sixteen days from now Sandi will die, but today she’s full of mischief and life, if one doesn’t look too closely. She refused more chemo, so she has hair. She’s thinner, but far from frail. She’s quick with a smile and a laugh, but moves slowly.

During the drive, we joke and laugh, making light of our escape from the caretaker, whom we call Nurse Ratched.

My friend taps her perfectly manicured and sparkly-red painted nails on the console between our seats and says, “I wish I could take you with me.”

I stop talking. Silence mingles with the cold air blowing from the vents on the dash.

I have no words. But within one beat of my heart, I know that her words are the most profound expression of love I’ve ever received. And, I have no words.

She speaks first. “But your husband wouldn’t like it.”

Still, no words.

We both know she doesn’t want me to die.

I truly believe she has said this to no one else. Yet, I have no words.

Ordinary chitchat begins again.

After dropping off her quilts, we return to her home. The caretaker is back, silently seething. We left her a note, but that didn’t matter. The caretaker believes if she controls all of Sandi’s end-of-life decisions, Sandi will live longer.

My friend settles into her easy chair. I kiss her cheek and whisper in her good ear, “I’m going to go.” The caretaker, a dark cloud, will become a thunderhead if I stay.

“That’s probably best.” Sandi whispers too.

I kiss her cheek again, and murmur, “I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I love you too,” she says.

I tell myself I’ll watch Thelma and Louise after Sandi is gone, but I don’t believe I ever will. Thelma and Louise drove off a cliff together. In sixteen days, Sandi will leave without me, a Thelma without her Louise. Or perhaps a Louise without her Thelma.

I never asked her, “Which one am I?”

[This flash essay was originally published by Persimmon Tree in their “Short Takes” section in Summer 2023. I’ve posted it here because while I think about Sandi everyday, there are certain times of the year when she plays in my memories throughout the whole day. ]