Carrie Newsome

Carrie Newsome is Brett Bohlinger’s childhood best friend, the girl who first drew her out to play and later became the keeper of her most intimate childhood nickname. Their friendship is broken after Carrie moves away, but her return to Brett’s life becomes an act of generous reconnection: she welcomes Brett without demanding an account of the past, helps reopen a trail to Brett’s biological father, and ultimately joins the family life Brett builds. Carrie’s presence makes a childhood promise—staying friends forever—feel less like a wish than a bond capable of surviving years of silence.

Identity and Early Friendship

Carrie grows up two blocks from Brett and her family on Arthur Street in Rogers Park. The girls are opposites in Brett’s recollection: Carrie is a spunky tomboy, while Brett is a skinny girlie-girl. Their friendship begins when Carrie, carrying a black-and-white ball, invites five-year-old Brett to play soccer. Brett proposes playing House instead, but Carrie persuades her to go to the park, where they climb monkey bars, swing, and giggle through the afternoon. The encounter establishes their closeness through difference: Carrie’s energy draws Brett into an activity she would not have chosen, and the two become inseparable.

Carrie also gives Brett a name that belongs specifically to their friendship. When Brett complains that her name sounds like a boy’s, Carrie tries out alternatives, including Bretchen, Bretta, and Brettany, before they settle on Bretel. The nickname stays with them as a private marker of intimacy: everyone else calls her Brett, but Carrie calls her Bretel. Later, Carrie’s affectionate use of that childhood name makes clear that she remembers not just Brett, but the shared world in which their friendship began.

Brett’s childhood list includes the wish to stay friends with Carrie forever. That aspiration carries unusual weight because their eventual separation makes it seem to have failed. Their bond is not maintained by a smooth, uninterrupted history; instead, the story returns to the list as evidence of how deeply Brett valued Carrie before distance and hurt unsettled their friendship.

Separation and Estrangement

The rupture begins when Carrie’s mother takes a job at the University of Wisconsin and the family moves from Rogers Park to Madison. Brett remembers the announcement as a sudden end to her familiar world. Dressed in plaid kilts and white blouses, the girls walk toward Loyola Academy when Carrie tells her that she is leaving. Brett experiences the news as the loss of the person who could read her thoughts, challenge her, and laugh at her jokes. Five weeks later, she stands on Carrie’s porch and watches the moving van pull away.

For the first year after the move, the girls write to each other faithfully. Then Carrie returns for a visit, and afterward the two stop speaking. The account does not explain exactly what passed between them during that visit; it emphasizes Brett’s lasting sense of responsibility instead. Brett describes herself as having abandoned Carrie and says that, despite all her efforts to atone, she has never forgiven herself. New friendships do not replace this one: Brett remembers never loving another friend as she loved Carrie. The enduring force of the separation lies partly in what remains unsaid, with Brett carrying guilt long after contact has ended.

Reconnection and Forgiveness

As an adult, Brett searches online for Carrie and finds a photograph of her in a Wisconsin sweatshirt. Carrie looks remarkably unchanged—still athletic-looking, wearing glasses, and smiling. The image turns the search into an encounter with Brett’s own history: guilt comes quickly, and she recognizes that she loved this girl even as she fears she has no right to expect renewed friendship. Megan, who is beside her at the computer, helps her look, but Brett’s feelings are not reducible to nostalgia; she is confronting the person she believes she wronged.

Carrie reaches out with warmth rather than accusation. In a Facebook message, she remembers Brett fondly, says she has missed her, and mentions that she will be in Chicago for a National Association of Social Workers conference at McCormick Place on November 14. She invites Brett to lunch or dinner. Brett answers using another intimate name, Care Bear, apologizes, and accepts the invitation. Carrie’s reply confirms the same open welcome: she is excited to see Brett and says she has missed her. She makes no mention of Brett’s disloyalty. Her forgiveness is not presented as a dramatic declaration; it appears in the simple fact that she offers a meeting and lets the friendship resume without requiring Brett first to resolve every old wound.

The planned dinner does not happen as expected. When Brett calls Carrie at her hotel, Carrie is gracious and says she had worried Brett might have been in an accident after hearing the news about the conditions outside. Brett admits that she nearly wishes she had an accident as an excuse, but Carrie laughs with the same easy friendliness Brett remembers from their youth and reassures her that she has had a pleasant evening. The missed meeting leaves the two without an in-person reunion that night, but their conversation is already a meaningful reversal: Brett’s shame meets Carrie’s patience rather than rejection.

Adult Life and Shared Community

When Brett and Carrie speak more fully, Carrie tells her about the loves of her life: Stella Myers, her partner of eight years, and their three adopted children. Brett recognizes that she once considered Carrie’s way of life abnormal and odd, while now Carrie’s life seems more conventional than Brett’s own. The comparison marks a change in Brett as much as it describes Carrie: the old assumptions separating them have lost their authority, and adult experience gives Brett a different view of the person she once knew.

Carrie invites Brett to the Newsomes’ annual Christmas brunch in Madison, suggesting that Brett bring her boyfriend. She recalls the family gathering as a cherished tradition. Brett remembers Carrie’s father, David Newsome, with a camcorder and a glass of scotch, and her mother, Mary Newsome, playing Christmas carols and old folk songs on guitar. Carrie says her parents would be delighted to see Brett and that David has videos of the girls from their childhood. The invitation extends beyond a private reunion: Carrie offers Brett a place again within the family whose home and traditions formed part of their shared past.

On December 11, Brett drives to the brunch with a trunk full of gifts. She arrives exhausted and queasy, finds a snowy yard and a sign reading ANOTHER FAMILY FOR PEACE, and is met by Carrie rushing down the walk. Carrie slips, Brett catches her, and the two burst out laughing before Carrie cries out the old nickname, Bretel. The physical comedy of the greeting turns the reunion into something lived rather than merely remembered: the old familiarity returns in movement, laughter, and a name that has survived their separation.

Carrie’s support later becomes tangible when she sends Brett a package from Wisconsin as Brett prepares for the baby she intends to raise. Inside are stuffed animals, hardback books, cotton sleepers, bibs, blankets, and booties. Carrie explains that when her own family first welcomed children, they had no idea what they would need, and she recommends the Moby Wrap. Her response is grounded in the practical knowledge of an adoptive parent, not only in affection for Brett. When Brett tells her that Sanquita’s mother wants the baby, Carrie falls silent for a moment and then expresses sympathy. The exchange shows that their renewed friendship can hold fear and uncertainty as well as celebration.

A Lasting Place in Brett’s Life

Carrie’s return also changes the course of Brett’s search for her biological father. Carrie’s parents once lived on Bosworth Avenue and knew Johnny Manns; after telling Brad Midar what she has learned, Brett recognizes Carrie as a gift in more than one sense. The connection does not make Carrie responsible for solving Brett’s family history, but it gives Brett a lead she would not otherwise have had. Their revived friendship thus links Brett’s childhood past to a question about her origins that has shaped her adult life.

By the later family gathering at the Astor Street house, Carrie is no longer a distant name or a hoped-for reconciliation. She arrives with Stella and their children, and she, Stella, and Brett prepare lasagna for fourteen while Carrie’s parents talk with Johnny about old times in Rogers Park. Carrie’s children play hopscotch with Zoë in the courtyard as Austin watches from her swing. The scene gathers people and histories that had once been separated: Carrie’s family, Brett’s new family, Brett’s biological father, and memories of the neighborhood where the girls began as inseparable children. Carrie’s enduring role is not simply to restore what was lost, but to take her place in the fuller, changed community Brett has made.