Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,57
mayonnaise, she thought.
Kate looked up. “What are you doing with those sheets?”
Abby carried them into the laundry room. “Want me to fry the eggs?” she asked, retracing her steps into the kitchen.
“I thought you’d have coffee first.”
Abby filled her mug and sat down at the table. “I’m going home. I need to take care of the house, start looking for a job. I think I’ll teach again. Maybe junior high this time. How bad could it be?”
“You’re angry at me.”
“About—?”
“I don’t know. Any number of things, I guess.” Kate spread her fingers, knuckled them over her mouth looking puzzled, anxious, some combination.
“You keep secrets, Kate. You always have.”
Kate’s eyes widened. Abby rarely lost her temper,.
“Ever since college, I’ve never known whether I can trust you. Even before—” Abby broke off unwilling to get into it, how she had always felt the ground between them was wormed with Kate’s secrets. She found Kate’s gaze. “You lied about Baylor. How do I know you aren’t lying now about Nick?”
“You don’t. But I’m not this time, Abby. I wouldn’t—I learned—” Kate looked away, blinking, and in a moment, her cheek was limned in the silvery light of her tears.
Abby bit her lips, angry still and rueful, too, because she knew what it cost Kate to cry, and she’d always hated being the cause. “I’m sorry,” she said, wobbly voiced.
“No, don’t. Don’t say that.” Kate wiped her eyes, sniffed. “What I did was terrible, and I’ve never said how lucky I feel that you forgave me, that you let me back into your life, let us be friends again.”
“You went through so much.” Abby hesitated, remembering how fragile Kate had looked the first time they’d met after Kate had returned to Houston. She’d been horrified to hear the suffering Kate had endured at Baylor’s hands.
“You felt sorry for me.”
“I felt sorry about all of it,” Abby said truthfully.
“Think what I saved you from,” Kate said wryly.
Abby ducked her chin. She had thought about that, and she had been relieved and then felt shame for it, and for all the times she’d wished Kate ill. She said, “I would have been there for you, if I’d known.” Abby had said this before, and it was easier every time she repeated the words. But buried in her mind was a sharp sliver of wonder. Would she have listened if Kate had called her about Baylor’s abuse? Would compassion have warmed itself in the bitter fire of her hostility? Abby wanted to believe she would have been there for her friend, but she had her doubts.
“How could I come to you?” Kate asked. “When Baylor hit me, I was convinced I deserved it. I felt like I was an awful person and not only for taking him from you the way I did.”
“No, Kate. No one deserves that kind of treatment and the truth is you couldn’t have taken him if he hadn’t wanted to go.”
Kate found Abby’s gaze and held it. “I have been so jealous of you, so filled with envy each time you were pregnant, holding your babies. Baylor took that from me.” Kate’s eyes filled again. “I lost my baby, my little girl. I’ll never have children because of him and he—he—” Her voice broke.
Abby bent forward, grasping Kate’s forearms, swiping at her wet cheeks, murmuring, “Kate, Katie, hush now, it’s all right....”
She bowed her head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this now when Nick and Lindsey are—but I’ve wanted to say it for so long. I’ve always felt as though we never talked it through, never worked it out between us.” She looked at Abby. “I don’t think I can ever make it up to you.”
“That’s ridiculous. There’s nothing to make up.” Abby went for a tissue and handed it to Kate.
She blew her nose. “I’m sorry I ever said anything to you about Nick, as if I was an expert with my track record.”
“Look at George. He’s one of the kindest men I know.”
“I got lucky. Don’t ask me how.”
Now in the silence that fell, in the wake of Kate’s honesty and tears, the air seemed to ease, and Abby was swept with gratitude. She felt lighter somehow and less burdened by doubt. She shook her head slightly. “It’s weird that neither of us saw that side of him.”
“When we first married and he acted jealous, I thought it was cute. I had no clue the sort of monster he would turn into.” Kate went to the sink and filled a