My father told me I was not to talk about it, but one day, I’d found a shoe box tucked behind my father’s bowling ball in the hall closet. In the box had been a little blue cap and a little blue blanket and a pair of little blue booties. There was also a picture of a perfectly white newborn baby boy with bright red lips. At the bottom of the picture, someone had written Joseph Andrew Leoni.

So I guess I had a little brother Joey, but he had died and my father had been working and my mother had been crying ever since.

Juliana thought about this. She decided we should have a proper mass for baby Joey, so she got out her rosary beads. She showed me how to loop the dark green beads around my fingers and say a little prayer. Next, we needed to sing a song, so we sang “Away in the Manger,” because it was about a baby and we sort of knew the words. Then it was time for the eulogy.

Juliana did the honors. She’d heard one before, at her grandfather’s funeral. She thanked the Lord for taking care of baby Joey. She said it was good he did not suffer. She said she was sure he was having a great time playing poker in heaven, and looking down upon us all.

Then, she took both of my hands in her own, and told me she was very sorry for my loss.

I started to cry, big noisy sobs that horrified me. But Juliana just patted my back. There, there, she said. Then she cried with me, and her mom came up to check on us because we were making such a racket. I thought Juliana would tell her mother everything. Instead, Juliana announced that we needed emergency chocolate chip cookies. So her mother went downstairs and made us a batch.

Juliana Sophia Howe was that kind of friend. You could cry on her shoulder and trust her to keep your secrets. You could play in her yard and count on her to give you her best toys. You could stay in her house and depend on her to share her family.

When I went into labor all alone, I pictured Juliana holding my hand. And when I finally held my daughter for the first time, I named her in honor of my childhood friend.

Juliana, unfortunately, doesn’t know any of these things.

She has not spoken to me in over ten years.

For while Juliana Sophia Howe was the best thing that ever happened to me, turned out, I was the worst thing that ever happened to her.

Sometimes, love is like that.

In the back of the ambulance, the female EMT administered intravenous fluids. She had produced a pan just in time for me to vomit again.