"Friend" is not the best description of Annie Pécher's relation to Jeanine Deckers.  It might explain her repeated visits to Jeanine in the convent, but scarcely her taking care to get herself a shack (een kot) near where Jeanine lived when studying in Leuven, her falling into a deep depression and attempting suicide when it seemed that Jeanine was going to be sent to a mission country, and, above all, Jeanine's making it clear to her, when they went to live in the same house, that she did not wish to enter into a relationship with her and wanted simply to live together as friends.