Evidence of Life - By Barbara Taylor Sissel Page 0,67
different schools. He sits in on classes. There’s almost no way to avoid it.” Abby rubbed her forehead. “This is ridiculous. I’m going back to work, that’s all. He’s just being kind.”
“I doubt it, Abby. Now that you’re eligible, still very attractive, an experienced woman...ooh-la-la. Who knows what can happen?”
“Ooh-la-la yourself.” Abby glanced down to her bare feet. She was still in her blouse and skirt, but she’d taken off her jacket and peeled off the hated pantyhose the second she’d cleared the backdoor. She had ignored the message from Nick’s office, too. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, let alone Joe and Nina.
“I thought you were mad at me the way you took off the other day,” Kate said.
“Did you send Dennis after me?”
“No.”
“But you told him about the fax.”
“I was worried. I wanted his opinion.”
“He offered to check into it.”
“Better Dennis than you. I don’t want you to call that man.”
“You think Nick was up to something, don’t you?”
“I never said that.”
“But you think it, and you talked it over with Dennis and with George. Don’t say you didn’t. You’re speculating, which is what you’ve accused me of doing, and you don’t know any better than I do.”
“No. But I don’t think that guy who wrote that fax knows anything either. You aren’t going to call him, are you? The world is full of kooks, Abby.”
“I threw his number away. I cleaned. I shopped for groceries, I called a plumber. I’m going back to work. I’m trying to get on with my—aaagh—” Abby groaned.
She looked out the window past her reflection to the barn. “I wonder if I’ll ever know,” she said.
“You might not, as hard as it is.”
“The mystery is what’s so hard to take, Katie. Can you understand that? It’s why I can’t lay it down. I want an answer.”
“What if there isn’t one?”
“So, is this a test, then? Is this God or the universe or whatever doing this to see how tough I am?” Abby pulled the pins and the rubber band roughly from her hair and shook it out with her fingers. “It seems cruel. I keep wondering, why me?”
“I tell myself that at some point, we’ll find the answers.”
“When?” Abby flung her arm wide.
“Oh, Abby, I don’t know.” She paused as if to consider, then said, “Maybe this won’t help, it’s not the same as what you’re going through, but when I found out I couldn’t have children I was devastated. I felt so hopeless and furious, too, because it wasn’t my choice.”
“No.”
“So I could hate, be full of anger, and for a time I was, but then what? I had to get past it.”
“How? How did you get past it?”
“I don’t know exactly. I remember waking up one day not long after I met George, and I had this burning in my gut, you know? I was just shaking and furious. I was that way all the time then, and it was getting worse. There George and I were, seriously in love, everything perfect, except I would never have our children.
“There was no end to my hate for that man. George said we could adopt, but I didn’t want someone else’s child. I wanted our child. He suggested we could find a surrogate mother, whatever I wanted, he would have done it, but I couldn’t have what I wanted, and I wouldn’t see reason. I’m surprised now that George put up with me.”
“He adores you.” They shared a silence before Abby continued. “You never told me how bad it was,” she said, as if that were entirely Kate’s fault, and Abby knew better. The truth was she didn’t want to hear Kate’s woes. She didn’t want to hear how badly Kate had been hurt. What about my hurt, Abby thought.
Neither of them spoke, then Kate said, “Remember how skinny I was when George and I married?”
“I remember I was worried about you.”
“How much have you lost? Ten pounds? Fifteen?”
“Twelve,” Abby said.
“I know it’s hard to eat when you’re sad, but try, would you?”
Abby said she was getting better about it.
Kate said, “We could write a diet book.”
“What will we call it? Sob Your Way to a Slender You?”
“Cry Off Those Thighs You Hate.”
“How to Grieve That Gut to Death.”
Kate laughed. “It would be an overnight sensation.”