I always wondered if the Evanses had any thoughts on their two very different little girls. Petunia and Lily didn't seem to have much in common, aside from the fact that they were sisters and, deep down, must have loved each other. This is just one take some of Mrs. Evans' observations of her daughters and their assorted friends. I can see her perhaps reading some sort of article about childrearing in a magazine similar to Ladies' Home Journal or Good Housekeeping and writing a letter to the editor. Imagine how she might have reacted when she saw it was published!

Francois Mocuriac is the source of Mrs. Evans' quote.

'Heather' and 'Violet' are, of course, assumed names used to protect the privacy of the author's daughters. I'm sure you can figure out who these names refer to.

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, not even the peanut butter sandwiches and chocolate cookies Mrs. Evans makes for her daughters' guests.

The Miracle of Friendship

The research library was quiet, save for the sounds of pages turning. It was exam time, and the place was full of university students studying for their exams and searching for the materials they needed to complete long research papers. Samantha Everett, student of psychology, shuffled through the pile of old magazines, pausing for a moment in her work to tuck an errant lock of hair behind her ear. She had been at it for hours, every minute of her search deadly dull. What possessed me to choose 'the impact of changing child rearing practices on children's temperment' as a paper topic? I bet no one else is stuck reading ladies' magazines from a million years ago! She flicked impatiently through the housekeeping magazine she had in her hand, looking halfheartedly for archaic parenting tips she could reference in her paper, when something caught her eye.

It was a brief article, entitled "The Miracle of Friendship," squashed in under a caption explaining that it was submitted by a reader in response to some other feature the magazine had run the previous month. Samantha settled herself on the floor to read it, hardly knowing why. Something about this article just drew her in.

A wise man once said, "No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever." As a mother of two daughters, it has become quite apparent to me over the years that a child's friendships and the manner in which they cultivate them are better signs of a child's personality, character and temperament than any other indicator. They shape a child into the adult they will someday become and allow them to develop their own values. I am no psychologist, no expert on children's behavior, but I do have experience in this field from watching my own two girls bring home their friends. I offer their experiences as proof of my theory.

But first, let me offer a little background. My daughters—whom I shall refer to as Heather and Violet for the purposes of this article—are close in age, but as different in looks as they are in personality. I love them both very dearly, but I do not love them both the same. I know, you're probably thinking, "What kind of mother does not love all of her children the same?" Allow me to explain: I love my girls in equal amounts. But I love them in different ways, and for different reasons. You see, they are different people, and it would not be right for me to want them to be exactly the same. It takes, pardon the metaphor, all sorts of blossoms to enliven a bouquet (yes, I am an avid gardener).

The differences between my two girls can be seen most clearly in their interactions with their friends, in the types of friends they bring home and the quality of those friendships. I must confess I sometimes find myself spying on them—good-naturedly, of course—simply to see what they talk about with their friends, and how they spend their time together. Any stranger could use this knowledge to learn quite a bit about my daughters, the kinds of girls they are and perhaps even the women they will someday become.

Heather is the older of the two sisters, and she is a classic 'girly girl'. When we once painted the girls' bedroom, she insisted on pink and white; she is also the one who is literally counting the days before I allow her to buy her first pair of high-heeled shoes, her first lipstick, and the like. My Heather is very concerned about appearances—I would not call her vain, but maybe a bit insecure. She cares very deeply about what her peers think of her. Judging by the endless parade of giggling, gossiping girls Heather has invited home over the years, I can see my daughter as being a bit of a social climber, to some degree. Of course, she seeks friends who she gets along well with, who share her interests and can make her laugh, but all of these friends have something in common. They, like my daughter, wear the 'right' styles, gossip about the popular boys and watch all the trendy television programs. To Heather, fitting in with everyone else is the royal road to true happiness.

My younger daughter Violet is very different. Though she is pretty and sweet and, in my opinion at least, easily likeable, many of the 'cool kids' consider her a bit odd. Violet never cared much who the cool kids are or what they think. She has always been the type to make her acquaintances easily and plentifully, but to choose her friends with care. Whereas her sister brings home a new girl who she swears is her 'very best girlfriend' every few weeks or so, Violet has only one 'best friend', to whom she seems attached at the hip. They play around and laugh like any other children, but at times I come across the two of them, clearly engaged in some very serious discussion. They are, in short, very different from the other children I regularly come into contact with, courtesy of my elder daughter. Heather's friends are very much like Heather herself—carefree, living a comfortable life with loving parents and a secure home. Violet's best friend is a boy from a bad part of town, who is obviously not well cared for and probably doesn't have any other friends. His mother is perhaps the most defeated-looking woman I've ever seen and his father is a heavy drinker with a reputation for having quite a bad temper. Unlike Heather's friends, who fill my house with uproarious giggling and loud music from the latest records, Violet's friend is very quiet and, to tell the truth, seems rather frightened (or at least apprehensive) of my husband and I. I can only assume he doesn't trust adults very much, which confirms many suspicions I hold about Violet's friend's home life. This is so typical of Violet—she tries to bring home stray cats and feed them; of all the children in town, she would befriend the one who clearly needs her the most.

Heather's friendships show her desire to be admired and her affinity for social situations; Violet's shows her somewhat unconscious need to be a caregiver. Sometimes, I don't think they notice these things themselves. Of course, Heather doesn't realize that when her friends go home, she becomes sulky and bitter—a distinctly different incarnation of herself that I'm sure her friends never see. Likewise, I doubt the thought has crossed Violet's mind that the peanut butter sandwiches and chocolate chips cookies she has me put out when she has company are probably the only substantial meals her little friend will get for an unspecified amount of time.

To be young is a beautiful and terrible thing. I see the beauty whenever Heather comes home in tears, sobbing about how her best friend betrayed her and she'll never leave her room again, because I can always comfort myself in knowing that the girl in question will be sitting with Heather on the front steps by the next day, licking ice cream cones and trading secrets. Children are nowhere near as fragile as we think they are. Sometimes, though, I see the horrors of childhood as well. I see it so clearly on those days when Violet's friend doesn't make it over. She looks at me questioningly, wondering if perhaps he forgot her, or otherwise doesn't want to see her, wondering if she did something wrong, and in my mind all I can think about is tomorrow, when he'll be giving Violet some far-fetched explanation for some oddly-shaped bruise. Unfortunately, I realized long ago that I cannot protect my children from all the heartache life has to offer.

Friendships are an irreplaceable part of childhood. They teach our sons and daughters how to interact with their peers, how to trust and be loyal in return, how to show compassion and empathy. They give our children a safety net for those times when life throws them too much to deal with alone. Friendships also allow our children to face, in miniature, some of the trials they will face again as adults and explore the men and women they wish to someday become. I have learned more about my daughters by watching them with their friends than I have in every conversation I have ever held with them. Sometimes, seeing is believing., I challenge all of you to really see—to take a good look at the ways your daughter or son interacts with his or her friends—and get a better idea of the child you have raised and the adult taking form before your eyes.

Samantha walked out of the library with the magazine still clutched in her hand. She knew at that moment that she had found a completely original and undoubtedly fascinating topic for her paper. 'Children, Friendships and the Development of Character,' I'll call it, she thought to herself. If only I could find the woman who wrote this article…she'd make a great interview…

Over the next few days, she tried every means she could think of to locate the article's author. She called the magazine's editorial staff, who reluctantly combed through the archives of old issues' contributors before they could finally provide Samantha with a name—Mrs. M. Evans—and an address, located in some no-name industrial town up North. On a whim, she caught a train and a bus up and located, with some difficulty, the writer's house. Samantha liked to imagine that the neighborhood had been a lot nicer at the time the article was written, and had simply declined over the years, as so many neighborhoods had.

The woman who answered the door looked far too young to have been the article's author, a suspicion which was confirmed when she informed Samantha that the house's previous occupants—an older couple—had died several years before. Defeated, Samantha set off without giving much thought as to her destination, finally stopping in front of a decrepit-looking play park.

It was a rather dismal place, vandalized by teenage gangs and littered with rubbish and cigarette butts. Yet Samantha felt drawn to this play park in the same way she had felt drawn to the magazine article. It was something she couldn't explain, as though an invisible force had brought her here. She headed over to sit on one of the swings and plan her strategy, only to find that they had all been broken, so she compromised by settling herself under a large tree, set far back in a corner. She could see the river from here.

Why did I come here? Samantha asked herself. She should have known the article would be just another dead end, and here she had wasted an entire day she could've been working on her paper running all over the country, looking for a woman who was long dead. She wondered absentmindedly what had become of the children in the article—the woman's daughters and their friends. Surely they were grown by now, perhaps with children of their own. Had the woman's predictions come true? Had Heather married some nouveau riche, settled in the suburbs and devoted herself to a life of dinner parties, work functions and keeping up with the Joneses? And what about the younger daughter—had she embarked on a career path caring for the homeless, mentoring street kids or helping alcoholics and addicts get clean? Or perhaps her need to be the one to pick up the pieces, to rescue the hopeless cases had finally caught up with her and gotten her into some sort of trouble. Was Violet just another casualty of her own giving heart?

Samantha sighed and looked up to see that, without noticing, she had been running her finger back and forth, tracing a set of initials carved into the base of the tree where she now sat. L.E. & S.S., BFF she read two times over, before jumping to her feet. As she strode purposefully to the nearest bus stop, her head already teeming with ideas for her paper—brilliant ideas still on the same theme, that could make up for her lack of an interview—she made a mental note to call her best childhood friend, who she hadn't spoken to in a long time. Just to catch up, of course.

A/N: There's nothing like friendship when you're young, is there? I'd be glad to hear your thoughts—I've become very interested in the Evans girls' childhood as of late. I feel like there's a lot to be explored there, and we really only got a glimpse of it in the Pensieve.

Anyway, reviews are not only highly appreciated, but cherished and should therefore be encouraged!

Yours until next time,

Delilah