It Felt Like Fate: A Guest Post by Corey Ann Haydu

Bonded in childhood. Torn apart by a dark secret. When desire and destiny collide, two expectant friends are reunited in this gripping tale. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Corey Ann Haydu on writing our April Book Club pick, Mothers and Other Strangers.

About six years into my career writing for children and young adults, I gave birth to my first daughter. Right at the end of my pregnancy, my childhood best friend let me know she, too, was pregnant with a daughter. It felt like fate—in our years since meeting in preschool, we’d gone on different paths, were living in different cities, navigated different careers and relationships. But here we were, back on the same path, entering something together. Having her become a mom in tandem with me felt safe. Right.

It was in that conversation with my very oldest friend that I started imagining how something that was so lovely for me—the meeting up of my path with my childhood best friend’s—could be fraught and uncomfortable in the world of a novel. The idea of an adult novel was always somewhere in my mind as a remote possibility, but in becoming a mother, the urgency grew. I’d been writing about mothers and daughters for so long. I’d been fascinated by girlhood friendship in all of my books. But I couldn’t say everything I wanted to about motherhood and friendship in the world of young adult and children’s books. So that spark of an idea—childhood best friends, meeting up as they become mothers themselves—kept poking at me.

I started writing. Not with much of a plan. I started with a scene of two little girls becoming fast friends at preschool. I found myself fascinated by their mothers, unlikely companions who were watching their daughters develop a relationship before their eyes. So much of early motherhood is about these unlikely friendships—the ones that find their footing while you watch your kids take turns on the swings or fight over a ball. This was a different kind of friendship than that of childhood best friends—built on a kind of sudden intimacy and forced proximity.

Once I found the friendship between the mothers, Joni and Beth Ann, I saw how dynamic it could be, lined up against the friendship of their little girls, Mae and Sydney.

The story started to take shape. There would be Joni and Beth Ann and the entanglement of their families as they watched their daughters become best friends. And then there would be their daughters, Sydney and Mae, all grown up, reconnecting when they themselves entered motherhood. And of course there would be the space in between those two timelines, the wondering what has happened in the intervening years, the piecing together of what has torn Sydney and Mae and Joni and Beth Ann apart.

The book is about motherhood, but it’s maybe about friendship even more than that. Mom-friends and childhood friends, profoundly intimate friends and surface level friends. Friends you have forever and friends you have to let go of.

I’ve had all those kinds of friendship, over the course of the seven years it took me to complete this book. And in some ways these characters have helped me understand each one of those relationships more fully. And helped me understand myself—as a mother, as a friend, and as a writer—too.