Friends and fear

 

Mother’s Instinct by Barbara Abel is spare and controlled with a cruel conclusion. Two couples, next door neighbors, have sons who soon become the best of friends. Tiphaine and Sylvain rent their home and have close family.  David and Laetitia, enduring struggles as young adults, have no close friends, but eased into a comfortable life, enjoying a friendship they regard as priceless. 

“Friendship is a source of strength no one can live without. Everyone needs friends as much as sustenance and sleep. Friendship is nourishment of the soul; it cheers our hearts, feeds our minds, fills us with joy, hope, and peace. Friendship is life’s treasure and the guarantee of a certain kind of happiness.” 

Not always and a friendship can vanish as quickly as it began. One couple has a dark side, their marriage predicated by a dark secret around how they met and the loss of her job as a pharmacist. After her son dies in an accident witnessed by the neighbor and closest friend, she cannot forgive or forget. 

As the two couples struggle to sustain the friendship, the mother of the surviving boy wonders about the sincerity of friendships built around children. Granted, the relationship predated the children’s births, but all they had ever talked about was the boys. 

The friendship deteriorates and the surviving boy’s mother feels tremendous loss:  “she realized that that the tragedy that had befallen her friends had created an unbridgeable gulf between t hem. And the gulf would always be there. Forever.”

Meanwhile, the other woman plans a perfect murder, eliminating neighbors who irritate her and offer a replacement for her dead son.   

Abel transforms a series of ordinary little domestic routines and scenes  – pizza nights, playful children, ordinary disagreements over a hedge border – into a stunning warning. Pay attention to a mother’s instinct. Assess circumstances carefully before trying to overcome a strange fear. The plot calls to mind the 1998 non-fiction book “The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect US From Violence” by Gavin de Becker. He writes: “Context is always apparent in the start of an interaction and usually apparent at the end of one, but too many details can make us lose sight of it. Every type of con relies upon distracting us from the obvious."