Ripping Abigail, a Quilted Mystery novel

by Sullivan, Barbara

  I wasn’t interested in helping Eddie Stowall, but she didn’t need to know that. He frankly gave me the creeps. I frankly haven’t made up my mind about the disturbed and disturbing Eddie.

  “And if they ever catch the bastard that rear-ended you and gave you that pain in the neck Jason might could help you with that, too, honey.”

  We were down. I smiled.

  Over her tall shoulder I noted that Abigail was wending her way toward us. Her face lit up as she spotted me and waved. She had no idea why I was here.

  The social services woman saw her happy greeting and said, “Okay then, it seems everything is in order, Rachel. If you need any further help on this matter you just call me. I really can help Abigail and her family if need be. But it looks like you may be able to help her family work things out just fine, at least I hope so. It was a pleasure meeting you. You keep up the good work, you hear?”

  A thought popped into my head. What had turned Latisha into a “sister” of mine?

  “I will. You too, Latisha.” She walked away, slinging her large pocketbook over her shoulder and swinging her heavy briefcase as if it only weighed an ounce.

  Maybe she changed her feelings about me because of my obvious brilliance.

  Maybe she liked the way I dressed.

  Maybe she just bonded with me because the Prince was such a fool.

  Whatever.

  I returned my attention to the pony-tailed Abigail, who had just about caught up with us, and quickly decided where we might best discuss what was about to happen with her.

  “Hi, Abigail.”

  “Hey, Rachel! How are you doing? How’s your neck?”

  I directed her out the front door of the school, making small talk as we went. The lunch crowds were still milling around in groups, some of them eating outdoors despite the threat of rain again today.

  “What’s going on?” Abigail asked, as realization dawned on her that I was here to see her, not the other woman I’d been talking to.

  “I like your hair that way. Makes you look really cute. Why don’t we sit for a minute over here?”

  The redirect wasn’t going to work. Her face fell to anger.

  Abigail was my height, five foot eight, and had flawless alabaster skin. Her thin blond brows questioned me over her dark green eyes. Her Betty Boop lips were threatening to protest. I moved quickly.

  We took a vacant cement table among the other students eating lunch. I was thinking we might be able to talk more calmly with others around us. Her face changed to stone.

  “Your mom is scared for you, Abigail,” I said as quietly as I could. “She wants me to retrieve you and deliver you to Mrs. Fillmore’s house. She said you could direct me there.”

  Abigail just stared at me, a wild array of emotions at play just beneath the hardened surface of her porcelain face. I changed my mind about sitting among other students.

  “Would it be better if we just went to my car?”

  “Yes.” She bit the word like it was a sour lemon.

  “Okay.”

  We rose and walked in silence across the grassy lawns of the school. Another lunch bell rang and the kids on the grounds filtered back inside while others streamed out. My heartbeat stepped up a bit.

  “I’m going to be late for my next class.”

  Abigail had stopped in her tracks. She was thinking through her options and I didn’t like the one she seemed to have landed on.

  I quickly looked away and unlocked my car thinking for sure she would turn on her heels. But no, she slowly began walking again and finally slid into the passenger seat a minute after I did. And then I saw why.

  I started my engine and risked another look at her face. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “Oh, hon…”

  “Don’t! Just get me out of here!”

  Right. Don’t play with my emotions. “Okay. But I want you to understand I’m on your side on this issue, Abigail.”

  “Oh, sure!” She choked back a sob.

  I decided not to take her directly to the Fillmore home—where she was supposed to be schooled today, and pulled off the road into a local dog park instead.

  Chapter 10

  I parked and turned toward her again.

  “Let’s take a minute to calm down. Maybe a walk?”

  “No! What did she do, hire you?” She wiped furiously at her face, very embarrassed.

  “Yes.”

  “I have rights, Rachel!” She was speaking barely below a shout. I could hear the constriction in her throat as she fought to control her anger and humiliation.

  Abigail was feeling a complex soup of emotions—not only frustrated and thwarted by her mother, but also betrayed by me. After all, I had met her first at the Quilted Secrets bee and had gotten to know her there before I’d ever met her mother, and now her mother had waltzed in and hired me to forcibly remove her from school. I could understand her emotional firestorm and I worried that this errand would jeopardize our friendship.

  “Of course you do. And this will be resolved to your satisfaction. What we’re in right now is what’s euphemistically called a “process”. It’s not a bad word, really, for how this will all play out. It’s just…well, in my own experience with processes I’ve come to dislike the word. It’s really just another word for a timeout for adults, like you might give children who’ve lost control.”

  “I’m not a child!”

  “Of course, you are, Abigail. Legally. But that doesn’t mean you are powerless. It doesn’t mean your needs aren’t real. And we are playing a very adult game now. Besides, in some ways we’re all children here, you, me and your mother. Because this is new to us and we’re learning as we go.”

  She quieted--still swiping at her leaky eyes angrily.

  I continued. “Emotions demand immediate gratification. What we need here is careful thinking.”

  She took another ragged breath. I had to get through to her, get her to open her mind to an honest discussion with her mother. So I appealed to her love of history.

  “A process is a democratic invention--and you are in a democratic disagreement right now, a political arrangement with your mom where you two can’t agree on an outcome. Democratic disagreements take time to work through.”

  She looked at me, a little more thoughtfully. I was also appealing to her exceptional intelligence. Something Gloria couldn’t do at the moment because she was feeling too threatened by her daughter’s rebellion. But then she used her intelligence to argue my decision.

  “Okay, fine, a democracy. I vote we turn around and go back to school, now.”

  “And your mom has voted no.”

  “So, we have a stalemate--you think? And I’m not telling you how to get to Mrs. Fillmore’s because I’m not going back there—ever.”

  I began to wonder if something had happened within the homeschool group.

  But at the moment she had the upper hand and I debated whether I should call Gloria for the directions to this Mrs. Fillmore. Gloria’s work at the ICU often made her difficult to reach. And I needed to connect with Abigail.

  “So, what? Are you going to break the tie vote between my mom and me?”

  “No. I don’t have a vote in this issue. Matt and I are just involved to hopefully bring the disagreeing parties to a calmer place where they might be able to find a solution that meets both their needs.”

  I was thinking about the divorce cases Matt and I were often involved in. I was using the same kind of language. The thought scared me a little. Children and their parents shouldn’t be on the brink of divorce.

  “Oh? Like what? War or peace? My way or the highway? Do you have any idea who my mom is?”

  “Don’t go there, Abigail. That’s not necessary. You’ve already selected an ally for your side of this argument, the school administration. Now your mom has hired us. But I want you to understand, we are not really her ally in this matter. We’re neutral. We’re just bringing two disagreeing parties to the same table…to discu
ss their differences.”

  Maybe I was copping out. Maybe I was a little too afraid of what this difficulty might do to my relationship with one of the Quilted Secrets members.

  “You think you can change her communist mind?”

  I stifled a smile. Communist. I thought we’d killed off that word. Switched it for a softer sounding term. Another euphemism, socialism.

  ”What I think is that things have gone beyond her simply being able to tell you what to do anymore.” I paused, letting her digest the thought. “She hasn’t necessarily come to realize this yet but the ball is in her court, and this is because you’ve lobbed it back to her successfully. Can you see that?”

  “So now it’s tennis.” She turned to stare out the side window.

  I sighed. “So now it’s patience. Step back, slow down, let…things continue at a safer pace and see how long it takes your mom to realize she must work through this problem with you in a way that makes you both feel safe.”

  A couple of students drifted by. The thirteen acre neighborhood dog park was popular with the students during lunch break. It was a short half block away from the school. I was wishing we could stroll through the park too.

  Abigail muttered, “I’ve been talking peacefully with her for months! And why wouldn’t she feel safe? I’m the one whose whole life is being…”

  “Emotions,” I murmured, then instantly regretted it. That was a caution I should reserve for a client. Abigail was not my client.

  She stopped herself. Breathed deeply and wiped the tears off her cheeks.

  “I know what you’re saying, Rachel, but humans are at least half emotions. And we both know at my age emotions hold sway. I’m not wrong here just because I have emotions. I’ve tried to reason with my mother, but…but she was born and raised in an Eastern Block country, for crying out loud. She can’t relate to me. She thinks all she has to do is put her foot down and what she wants will be done. The discussion with her so far has been all one-sided!”

  “And she left that formerly communist country so she could be free. Somewhere inside her is the…rebel, if you would, who ran away from her native country at a very young age.”

  A couple of raindrops hit my windshield. Maybe telling me I was in dangerous territory. But I couldn’t seem to stop from going there.

  “What you need to think about is your endgame, Abigail.”

  She looked at me with cold eyes. Thirteen-year-old cold eyes are a frightening sight.

  “I have.”

  Chapter 11

  Suddenly a group of boys raced around the edge of the parking lot from the direction of the high school. The boy leading the pack was running as if for his life. It wasn’t until he was brought down almost directly in front of us, and three of his pursuers proceeded to pin him down while a fourth straddled him and began whaling away at his face with his fists, that we realized what was happening.

  “It’s the Pintos!” Abigail said. “They’re the baddest gang in Pinto Springs High. Gangsters. Bastards.”

  She spat the word out as if it was poison.

  Her vehemence startled me, but never for a moment did my eyes leave the awful sight on the ground no more than twenty feet away.

  I almost missed Abigail’s reaching for the door handle—almost missed her opening the door.

  “Hey! Stop that!” I heard her yell as I finally broke free of the spell and lunged for her. I caught hold of her arm and pulled her back into my car just on time.

  Three of the boys turned their attention on us. A nasty grin slowly spread on the lead boy’s face as he took a few steps toward us.

  Abigail was opening the door to confront him!

  “Abigail! You can’t stop them. They aren’t thinking right now.” I locked the car doors. “It’s probably some kind of gang initiation.”

  I was punching numbers on my phone, calling the Pinto Springs police, starting my engine, throwing my car into reverse, and trying to turn my vehicle so we could get out of there.

  Then I saw the look on Abigail’s face.

  “Now you’re a coward?” she yelled.

  I shot back angrily, “Now I’m responsible for your safety. The authorities will take care of this.” We pulled away and back out onto the main road. I didn’t even think about the fact that I was breaking the law using my cell phone.

  Somehow I was driving my car, giving the details to a Pinto Springs PD dispatcher, and keeping an eye on Abigail all at once--with Abigail’s raving voice as a backdrop.

  “You’re a coward! You’re leaving that poor boy to be beaten to death!”

  Finally I closed the phone and put both hands on the wheel. I could hear sirens in the distance. The boy would be saved.

  “Where are we going? Where are you taking me?” Abigail cried.

  I couldn’t take it another minute and I pulled off the main road down a side street that I didn’t recognize as the street she and her mom lived on until later.

  “And now I supposed you’ll tell my mom about the terrible violence going on at the school, won’t you. Now you’ll give her another reason to fight this even more.”

  Frustrated at her continued anger, my own emotions at a peak because of the gang initiation I imagined was still continuing in the park behind us, I found my own angry tongue.

  “So now I’m not just a coward, I’m a snitch? Nice, Abigail.” I stared her down and she shrank into herself against the window and returned to sobbing.

  Great.

  Great, great, great!

  I’d just torn any and all hope of connecting with this young thirteen-year-old because my ego was hurting.

  This wasn’t about me.

  I calmed myself, and placed both my hands on the wheel again, looking around at where we were.

  At least I’d remembered to get directions to Gloria’s house before ending this morning’s phone conversation, and I finally realized I was heading toward there already. We were only a dozen houses away.

  The Pustovoytenko home was in the Pinto Hills Condominiums complex, perched on rolling hills southwest of Pinto Springs High.

  From the top step of the front porch Nana made brief eye contact with me I couldn’t interpret, and then closed the door silently between her crying granddaughter and me.

  Just wonderful.

  Now my taut neck muscles were on high alert. I drove home telling myself if it hadn’t been for Abigail’s presence I’d have taken on the whole rotten gang.

  Chapter 12

  Nine year old Abigail watched her mother Gloria drive away toward the hospital in the gathering dusk. She turned away from the front window and stared at her foreign–born grandmother, Nana. Her nine year old brow was wrinkling. She could feel it. She wanted her grandmother to see her continued displeasure.

  “Vona volia buty pizniy teper.”

  She will be late now.

  Translating the peculiar words and responding at the same time, Abigail said, “Speak English, Nana.”

  “Niyakyy. Vy navchaty Ukrayina.”

  No. You learn Ukraine.

  Even though she understood Ukrainian fine Abigail firmly believed she had to force her grandmother to learn English, so she never spoke the ancient language.

  Her Nana believed she should force her granddaughter to learn Ukrainian, so she never used English even though she knew enough to understand most of what was said around her and could probably speak it if she wanted.

  Abigail thought about how Ukrainian sounded, like it was a language spoken in reverse, as if it were being played backwards on a tape recorder. It was more than peculiar, it was magical.

  Abigail’s mother was going to be late to work because they had argued--again.

  She was bored, always staying at home, never spending time with other kids. Only occasionally seeing the other homeschoolers. And her tutors. Work, work, work, that was all she did.

  What harm would it do for her to attend a class or two at the local school? She could easily handle both. Her homeschooled f
riends could be interesting, but they were also kind of weird.

  Abigail didn’t want to be weird. It was Gloria who wanted her to be weird—only she called it special.

  Pooh. Abigail turned away in disgust and sat down briefly at her computer. Maybe Skywalker was online. He was the only cool guy in the whole bunch of their group. He was very cool. Really smart, and really cute.

  But Marjania liked him, too. Marjania the fake Albanian. Marjania whose real name was probably Mary Jane or something stupid like that. Marjania who had real blond hair, while Abigail’s looked like she’d been washing it in the pukey liquid left behind after doing the dishes.

  Behind her Abigail heard Nana take another noisy sip of her evening cup of tea, and then she heard her grandmother’s dress slipping and sliding over her underclothes as her grandmother moved toward her downstairs bedroom to watch her little television.

  That had been the room Abigail wanted for her studio. She turned to look at her retreating Nana—still wrapped up in the anger from the argument with her mother—and she watched as the ancient woman slid her door until it was almost closed, her small dark eyes sunken in the purple folds of her aged flesh, staring back at her from within a bright yellow light until the contact was finally broken by the swinging door. Leaving only a little light shinning out onto the foyer. A few strands. A glowing flow.

  From where she sat, facing the front window adjacent to the front door, Abigail saw that the little light sneaking out of Nana’s bedroom splashed up onto the first risers of the staircase like an ambitious brook trying to flow uphill. But it couldn’t. Rivers were supposed to flow toward gravity’s down. So after only a few steps up, the stairs moved on without the little light, climbing up alone into a dark oblivion that Abigail couldn’t see from where she sat. The dark oblivion held her father’s bedroom.

  But Abigail could see how the light changed colors in its attempts to defy the down gravity. The light slipped from a warm yellow to a charcoaled purple as it went, as if losing its strength, as if growing sickly with the effort to climb, as if her grandmother’s aging wrinkles had poisoned the light from the start.