“No, not that daughter. What I mean is … what I’m trying to tell you is that your daughter is here. Abigail.”
“What?”
“Abigail is here. She is fine. She’s having a snack right now. She got here about twenty minutes ago. I thought you should know.”
“What the hell is she doing at your house?” The tone was still short, but confusion was the key undertone now.
“Well, I am not entirely sure. It’s not like I was expecting her,” Cynthia replied, trying to sound cheerful and smiling slightly at Abigail, wishing she had made the call in the other room so that she didn’t have to temper her annoyance for the sake of the girl.
“How did she get there? She’s supposed to be at school.”
“Yes, she mentioned that. It’s my understanding that she took a taxi.”
“Are you telling me that they let a ten-year-old get in a cab?” His voice was rising.
“Well, I’m no star witness here, Counsellor Tom, but I am under the impression that the school is currently unaware of her whereabouts as well.”
“Oh my god. Okay. Well, what do we do about this?”
“I am not sure what your plan should be. Again, may I remind you that I didn’t orchestrate this little get-together.” Then, looking over at the dark curls hung low over the plate, the treats untouched and getting cold, “As pleasant a surprise as it may have been. Perhaps you could come and pick her up, Tom.”
“Right sorry. Oh so … right. That’s probably … sorry.” Presumably not knowing what to say next, Tom said nothing, silence burning up the line between them for an interminable few seconds. She could see him now, a hand running roughly through his hair as he tried to come to a plan of action … something he was infuriatingly bad at. Tom had built a life on the uninspiring combination of reaction and inaction.
“Ah, Cyn. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m really sorry about this. I know it must be awkward for you.”
The sound of her name from that voice, tinged with sympathy, a reminder to both of them that she had been the loser in what had transpired, that tone of victim empathy, it was not something she was willing to tolerate on this particular morning.
“Just get over here, would you Tom?” she ordered sharply before hanging up.
“I guess he’s pretty mad,” Abigail said from underneath her sheath of hair.
“Maybe a little. He’s on his way to get you.”
It was evident to both of them that neither was looking forward to this. Dropping into a chair at the table, Cynthia pulled the plate into the middle and grabbed a tart. Breaking it in half, she passed a piece to Abigail, who accepted, her face unreadable as she nibbled on a corner, though the thrill seemed lost. They sat in silence for a while as Cynthia tried to process some of what had happened in the short time since she’d opened her eyes only an hour before. Looking over at the glum little face taking her in from the corner of those big blue eyes, Cynthia decided she might as well try to cheer her up a little, because she was probably in for a rough ride when she got home.
“So you were saying you’re a Dorothy Parker fan?
“I adore her,” Abigail said, some animation returning.
“So how did that … come about?” Cynthia asked, fishing for a way around asking “isn’t that a little old for you?” with little success.
“You think I’m too little to like grown-up books?”
“No, no. Just wondering where you might have come across her.” She did not add, Considering your dad can barely stand to read the paper and I’m pretty sure your mother is illiterate.
“I found it in Matthew’s room. You know, his room at our house. I am going to read all the books he left behind. I’m allowed. He said so.”
“Ah,” said Cynthia, prickling a little at the mention of her son’s second home. “Fair enough.”
Her eldest son had opted to spend the summer before his final year at his father’s place. It was a bigger space closer to his summer job and had its own entrance, which, at twenty, she had been told was an absolute necessity. She had resisted the idea, and Matthew had accused her of bordering on the ridiculous, requesting that she not to get all “mom” about this. But none of his valid reasoning had made it any easier for Cynthia to take, and she had not handled the situation with that much grace … or any, really. She remembered with embarrassment hovering in the doorway as he’d packed up an impressive number of boxes full of those books. Some of them had been hers, and she had said so, removing them from the pile even though she didn’t want them, hadn’t even thought about them in years.
She could see Matt slowly extricating himself from the routines and traditions of the family since he started away at school, shedding her influence as he tried to figure out who he was going to be and treating her care and advice like some sort of poisoned apple. That hurt her, even though her friend Ellen assured her that it was natural and absolutely necessary to ensuring he could function as an adult. That had been cold comfort, and she’d remained a little petty and distant after he left, leading to a chill between mother and son that hadn’t thawed entirely before he left to go back out west.
At the moment, if she were honest she could admit that she was 0 for 2 in relationships with her oldest kids, and with Ben gearing up for a season of hockey with Tom filling the role of ultimate hockey parent, she had been feeling a little usurped of late. It struck her as funny that while her kids were flocking to their father, his daughter was risking a backlash at home and at school for the chance to hang out with her. She looked at the clock only to realize that Tom was at least a half an hour away. Getting up to fill her coffee cup, she spied the Hemingway-approved notebooks she’d been handed earlier. Picking up the first one and selecting another tart from the pile, she nudged the plate back towards Abigail with an encouraging nod and flipped open the book.
“Well, we have some time to kill, kiddo. Let’s take a look-see, shall we?”
2
The roses on the nightstand gently bobbed their over-bloomed heads, lulled by the steady vibration of Jennifer’s foot tapping on the hardwood floor. As angry as she was, it still registered somewhere in the back of her mind that she’d need to be replacing them soon. She could never seem to turn it off, her eye for order, though she found it exhausting.
“So she just hopped in a cab and went over there … all on her own? This is what you are saying to me?”
“Yes. For the fortieth time, yes. That is what I am saying to you,” Tom replied in that infuriatingly patronizing way of his. Lately there had hardly been a conversation where he wasn’t either badgering her like a hostile witness or treating her like some sort of dim-witted charity case who’d garnered his sympathy.
She knew the story backwards and forwards, at least as much as he had been willing to share. She’d memorized every fact and minute detail, looking for any change in the timeline, any added snippets of conversation, and for hours now they had all been rolling around in her head like billiard balls on the felt, but she just couldn’t sink one. It simply made no sense. Abby going AWOL from school — God knows what could have happened to her — and ending up at his ex-wife’s house. And then, after a decade of Cynthia basically ignoring her existence, Abby was invited right on in for breakfast, no problems. Tom racing over to pick her up and then deciding it would be great to catch up over coffee like all of a sudden everyone had just decided to make up, everything forgiven and best of friends? And finally the whole stupefying idea of sending Abby over there again for some sort of bizarre after-school writing workshops? Who the hell suggested that? And why had the other agreed? Jennifer had heard it all, but she could not accept what