Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,29
Dennis said. “It was pretty amazing. She’s eighty something, did you know? She and her husband Lloyd are coming up on fifty-four years together.”
Abby stared into the welling darkness, and she was silent so long that Dennis finally asked if he’d upset her. “No, it’s fine,” she said. “Amazing, like you said. A miracle, right?”
“More like a fluke. Abby? You shouldn’t—”
“I’m not assuming anything, Dennis. Honestly,” she added.
* * *
Outside of Dennis and Louise, who called weekly, Abby had almost no contact with anyone. She had thought she wanted to be left alone, and it surprised her how much it hurt. She could understand why her neighbors didn’t make the drive into Houston to see her, but they could have picked up the phone, couldn’t they? And then there were Nick’s law partners. Only Joe Drexler, the most senior partner in the firm, had called, and one or two of the other partners’ wives had made the effort, but the conversations were brief, perfunctory, and gave Abby a bad feeling. As the summer wore on, their avoidance of her began to feel deliberate, somehow ominous. Her mother excused it. She said they didn’t know what to do or say. They were waiting for a sign from her.
To accept what was obvious, Abby thought.
Louise put it bluntly one day at the end of August. “We need to move on, dear,” she said. “It’s what Nick and Lindsey would want us to do. They would want us to get on with our lives.”
“Why do people always say that?” Abby asked. “As if they know what the dead would want.”
“Well, surely you don’t think they want us to grieve forever, do you? I mean, I know we will, always, on some level. It’s difficult, but it isn’t as if you’re alone, dear. Neither of us is.”
“What do you propose, then? What is your advice for how I should get on with it? I don’t play golf or bridge.” Abby referenced Louise’s two favorite pastimes, and she regretted her sarcasm; she hadn’t really meant to be flippant. In fact she was glad Louise had these routine distractions to occupy her time; they kept her in Dallas. Otherwise she might have been here, driving Abby crazy.
Louise had fallen silent; something she almost never did, and Abby slid from her mother’s kitchen stool, sensing trouble, disapproval, an argument, she didn’t know what. A knot of rebellion tightened beneath her breastbone. She put her knuckled fist there. “Louise?” she prompted.
“I’ve been talking to Joe, Abby, and he thinks we should plan a memorial service. Now I know what you’re going to say—”
“No.” Abby paced to her mother’s kitchen door and looked out.
“But, dear, think of Nick’s clients, his associates, they would like to pay their respects. We need to give them a way to do that.”
“Why? What do we owe them?”
“It’s what people do, what they expect. It’s what convention calls for.” Louise’s voice quavered with her conviction, her belief that this was so.
“You’re worried about what people will think, your church friends. But I don’t care what they think, Louise, and I don’t intend to give my family up for dead simply to satisfy someone’s notion of what’s acceptable.”
“It isn’t only about you, Abby. I want to lay my son and my sweet granddaughter to rest. I want to see them in heaven with God. Please, will you consider it?” Louise’s voice broke.
But Abby said, “No,” and she might have felt a sharper pang of remorse for how hard she was on Louise, if she had not been so furious at Joe Drexler.
Abby didn’t bother calling him. She didn’t want to give him the opportunity to refuse to speak to her. Instead, she went that afternoon unannounced to the office, determined to make him talk. Even though she knew neither he nor the other partners would appreciate her barging into their domain; they wouldn’t expect it from her. Sweet, quiet, amenable Abby. That was how they viewed her, how everyone saw her. She was compliant. Soft. A creampuff. She hadn’t minded before, but it was different now. Everything was different. She’d lost her family, lost herself.
She stepped off the elevator, and her head went swimmy; she felt faintly nauseated. From anxiety, she guessed. The half-panicked state she seemed to live in these days. She pushed open the glass doors to the reception area. Deserted. She found her way to Joe’s office, and ignoring his assistant’s squeal of protest, she flung open his door.