Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,56
Kate washed a chicken, patted it dry and seasoned the cavity. Abby cut limes into quarters and stuffed them inside. They tied the legs with twine, covered the dish with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. Kate went outside to clean and light the grill, and Abby snapped the fresh green beans Kate had bought that morning.
“There’s enough here for an army,” Abby said when Kate returned to the kitchen.
“We can make green bean sandwiches for breakfast,” Kate said.
“Layer them with a fried egg.” Abby grinned.
Kate put her hands together. “Add grated Swiss cheese, slap it all between two pieces of wheat toast and voilà.”
Abby laughed. They’d used to do it on purpose, see who could come up with the most outlandish breakfast sandwich combination. Pulled pork barbeque on day-old waffles layered with coleslaw, meatloaf and bacon on a croissant. Peanut butter and sweet pickles sandwiched between pancakes. The air was thick with their silly memories.
Abby said, “Sometimes everything feels so ordinary, you know? As if they’ll walk in the door and everything will be the way it always was when we came for a visit. Jake will be hunting through the pantry—”
“Foraging.” Kate had no trouble following Abby’s train of thought.
“Lindsey will have straw in her hair from playing with the cats in the barn.”
“That kid would live in the barn if we let her,” Kate said.
Abby pressed the backs of her wrists to her eyes, and Kate came and circled her shoulders. She bent her head until it touched Abby’s.
“Sometimes I let myself drift—” Abby resumed breaking the beans, stem end, blossom end “—way up. I go higher and higher until the earth is just a tiny glowing speck, and it’s as if it never happened.”
Kate brought a small mesh sack filled with new potatoes to the sink and started washing them.
Abby leaned her hip against the counter, giving her room. “What was Nick really doing in Bandera?”
“I told you.”
“I want to know what you think, what exactly you saw.”
“Him. I saw him on the courthouse sidewalk. That’s all.”
“I don’t believe you. I know you think you’re protecting me, but you aren’t.”
Kate scrubbed a potato vigorously, flushing away bits of peeling under the running tap, and then, abruptly, she shut the water off so hard, the pipe knocked in the wall. “He was never the man you wanted to believe he was, Abby.”
“He was too experienced for me, right? Little sheltered Abby Carter and Big Bad Nick Bennett. Miss Mouse and the Wolf.”
Kate groaned. “Let’s drop it, okay? It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Why? Because you think he’s dead?”
Kate jerked on the water taps and again shut them off. “You have to accept it,” she pleaded. “You’re killing yourself and I can’t stand it.”
“Well, it isn’t about you, is it? For once. This isn’t some college romance, Kate.”
“You think I don’t know that? God, Abby, can you give me no credit?”
Abby didn’t answer. She waited for Kate to finish scouring the potatoes, and taking Kate’s place at the sink, she rinsed the beans and put them in a pan. She added water and seasoning and set them on the stove to cook. Somehow they got through dinner and the rest of the evening. Abby went to bed early and, lying sleepless, thought of going home. It wasn’t as if she was accomplishing anything here other than wearing out her welcome waiting for a return fax that would likely never come. Curled on her side, she pictured herself going through her own back door, and it was a relief when she didn’t feel the customary wash of horrible dread. She could do it, she thought. She could go home. Try and start over. It was the right thing to do, and she felt better for having made the decision.
* * *
The next morning, once she was showered and dressed, Abby scooped her belongings from the chair in Kate’s guest room and stuffed them into her canvas tote. She got clean bed linen from the closet in the hall, stripped the bed and remade it. Kate was already in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a mug of coffee, immersed in reading the morning newspaper. Abby hesitated in the doorway, holding the bundle of sheets. The bowl that held the leftover green beans was out on the counter, along with a loaf of wheat bread and the toaster. All they needed were the eggs to make the sandwiches they’d planned. Abby’s mouth watered. She’d have hers slathered with real