by Robin Talley
Act normal! Abby thought at them. Act like parents! Regular parents!
“I missed you,” Mom said, after a silence that went on a few seconds too long. “You, too, Ethan. It’s so good to see you both.”
Her parents were talking as if this was any other day. God, this family was so messed up.
Maybe Abby could use the homework excuse again. Or college applications. She would start her college applications right this minute and submit them all by dinnertime if that would stop this from happening.
“Please, Abby, sit down.” Dad gestured toward the empty armchair next to where Ethan lay on the couch. Mom and Dad had already perched on the chairs facing him.
And with that, it was too late. The escape window had officially closed.
Instead of taking the empty chair, Abby went to the couch and picked up Ethan’s ankles. He lifted them into the air and Abby sat next to his still-prone form, settling his feet into her lap and crossing her arms over her chest. They used to sit this way when they were kids, only then it had been Abby who stuck her feet in Ethan’s lap.
He was her little brother. He was a brat a lot of the time, but they were a team. If this was going to happen, at least it would happen to the two of them together.
“Ethan, could you sit up, please?” Mom asked, fingering the gold chain around her neck. Ethan grumbled but slowly climbed up, swinging his feet to the floor. His face was red where it had been pressed against the couch cushions, and he turned to stare down at the rug.
Maybe Gladys and Henrietta could have a misunderstanding. Gladys could get a letter from home, and Henrietta could find it. She could think the letter meant Gladys had cheated when she was visiting her best friend in Michigan earlier that summer, and Henrietta could try to—
“You know your father and I have been having some problems,” Mom said.
Abby slumped down until she was almost lying on her back.
What would Henrietta do if she thought Gladys had hooked up with someone else? How would she react? Would she feel betrayed first, or would the anger take hold right away?
“We’ve both been trying,” Dad said, “and we’ve realized—”
“Are you getting divorced?” Ethan interrupted.
Henrietta would probably be angry at first. Henrietta was really a pretty angry person, now that Abby thought about it.
“We’ve tried to fix the situation, but we’re afraid it isn’t working out.” Dad was obviously reciting some script he must’ve found on the internet. “We love you both so much, and we’ll always be here for you, but—”
Ethan slapped his hands over his ears and started screeching “LA LA LA!” so loud Abby wanted to cover her own ears, too.
It occurred to her dimly that covering her ears and humming was basically what she’d been doing anyway. Only she’d been doing it for months. Maybe years.
“Ethan, please,” Mom said. Abby could barely hear her over Ethan’s screeching. “We need you to listen to us.”
“So this is why you don’t give a shit what we do anymore, right?”
Ethan fell silent, and every face in the room swiveled toward Abby. Dad’s eyes grew wide, and Mom’s mouth fell open. Ethan didn’t take his hands off his ears, but Abby knew he’d heard her.
“The principal told you I’m barely doing my homework.” Abby’s voice sounded bizarrely calm even in her own ears. “Ethan got into a fight. He threw a water bottle at a teacher. I went to Philadelphia by myself last weekend and I didn’t tell you. Dad, I took your credit card out of your wallet. Neither of you even noticed I was gone!”
“We noticed.” Dad barely glanced at her. “The credit card company called me. Fortunately, you were already home safe by then.”
“You didn’t say anything.” Abby stared from him to Mom. “You didn’t punish me?”
“Well, it was pretty disappointing.” Dad sighed. “To be honest, Abby, we’d thought you were mature enough by now that we wouldn’t need to—”
“Bob.” Mom cut him off, and he fell quiet.
Why wasn’t Mom mad at her? Didn’t she understand?
“We knew the two of you might—act out on occasion.” Mom bit her lip, still running her fingers over the clasp of her necklace. It was the beaded one Ethan had given her for Mother’s Day a couple of years before. Abby had helped him pick it out at the National Gallery gift shop. “It’s only to be expected. We didn’t want to be hard on you during a tough time.”
“You’re supposed to be hard on us.” Abby’s voice was rising. It felt bizarrely good to be loud. “You’re our parents.”
“Well, the good news is we’re finally winding down with all the legal work,” Mom said, as though she hadn’t heard her.
They both sounded so calm. So reasonable.
None of this could possibly be real.
“We’re grateful for that,” Mom went on, “because it means we’ll have time to focus on being parents again. I’m sorry we’ve been somewhat distracted recently.”
Distracted? Abby wanted to laugh, but found she couldn’t.
“It’s important for you to understand that this isn’t anyone’s fault.” Apparently it was Dad’s turn in the script. “Our marriage simply isn’t working.”
Abby’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She reached for it automatically.
“We’ll always be your parents.” Dad wasn’t even bothering to put feeling in his voice. Had he practiced this in front of a mirror in some generic hotel room somewhere? “But we won’t be married to each other once we’ve finished the divorce process.”
Abby should try to remember what this felt like. She could use it in her writing someday.
Except she wasn’t sure there was a word for what she was feeling. It was as if she was hovering over the room from above, watching this happen. She could see herself sitting on this couch, hearing these words, and feeling—whatever it was you were supposed to feel when terrible things happened.
It was just that Abby wasn’t sure she actually felt anything at all.
She slipped her still-vibrating phone out of her pocket. The caller ID on the screen said Smith.
Something stirred in Abby’s chest.
“Abby, please put your phone away while we’re talking.” Mom finally sounded impatient. “This is important.”
“But, Mom, it’s—”
“I’ve gotten an apartment in Bethesda.” Dad cut her off, looking back and forth from Abby to Ethan. “It has a room for each of you. You can set them up however you want. We’re still working out the details but for now, we’ll plan for you to stay here during the week and come out to my new place every other weekend. We can adjust that when we need to, since, Abby, we’ll be going on college visits pretty soon, and, Ethan, we—”
“You aren’t here every other weekend,” Ethan interrupted. “You’re in New York all the time.”
“Well, I won’t be traveling as much moving forward,” Dad said, as though that should’ve been obvious.
“Neither of us will,” Mom added.
“You have to.” Ethan frowned. “For work. That’s what you always said. That you wouldn’t be away so much if your jobs didn’t make you.”
Their parents exchanged a glance.
“Well, I’ll make sure not to schedule any trips when the two of you are staying over.” Dad tilted his head to one side, as though the kids should’ve known that already. Even though he’d ignored Ethan’s actual question.
Abby’s phone stopped vibrating. She watched the screen to see if a voice mail alert would pop up.
The “friend” of Marian Love’s. Hadn’t Claire said her name was Mrs. Smith?
That would be an impossibly big coincidence, though. Half the country had that last name.
Marian Love’s ex-girlfriend from sixty years ago couldn’t actually be trying to call Abby on the p
hone during the worst afternoon of her life. Could she?
“It’s normal to feel upset when you hear something like this.” Mom brushed a light finger across her cheek. As though she were scratching an itch. “A lot of kids in your position might feel sad or angry or scared—”
Ethan hurled himself down onto the couch again, burying his face into the pillows.
“I have to go.” Abby stood up. “I might have an important voice mail.”
“Abby,” Dad said, “you can’t—”
Mom interrupted him. At least that was closer to how things normally worked. “We need both of you to listen to us. Abby, please sit down. Ethan, please get up.”
Abby didn’t sit, but she didn’t leave the room, either. She turned away instead, staring at the empty foyer. At the world on the other side of the glass front door. And, opposite it, at the creaking wooden steps that led up to the empty quiet of her room.
It didn’t matter where she went. This would be happening there, too.
“You have to understand.” Dad was back to his trusty script. “This is our fault, not yours. We’re still your parents, and we’ll always be a family.”
“Will you still come to my winter recital?” Ethan lifted his head. He’d started shaking.
Maybe Gladys and Henrietta could have a sex scene that turned into a fight. Or maybe Gladys was the one who suspected Henrietta of cheating, but it turned out she was wrong.
“Yes, of course we’ll both come to all of your shows,” Dad said.
“Your events, too, Abby,” Mom added. “We’re not so far from your graduation, of course, and—”
“May I please go to the library?” Abby interrupted.
Dad was watching Ethan, but Mom said, “Honey, we’re still talking.”
“We’ve talked. I get it. I understand. I don’t want to hear any more. Can I please just go? I just really want to be—not here. Please, Mom, Dad, I’m begging.”
Ethan’s shaking was getting worse. Abby looked away.
“Abby, I understand that you may like the idea of being alone right now, but—” Mom began.
Dad stepped forward and bent over Ethan. “I think it’s all right. She needs space to process everything, right, Abby?”
“Right.” She would’ve agreed to anything Dad said if it meant she was allowed to get out of that house. “Space to process.”
“I’ll drive you to the library, honey.” Mom started to get up. The idea of getting back into that car made Abby instantly nauseous.
“No, I want to walk.” She started to reach for her jacket on the peg, then realized she’d never taken it off. “Okay, um, thanks. Bye.”
She yanked the front door open and stumbled down the steps. She was already breathing hard by the time she reached the sidewalk. She turned around to see if her parents were watching her through the front window, but they were both kneeling over Ethan.
She pulled her phone from her pocket. There was a missed call alert, but no voice mail. Abby slid her phone back into her pocket and started walking, slowly, up the hill to Wisconsin.
As she passed the burger place, Abby’s stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten lunch that day, and she didn’t remember if she’d had breakfast. Oh, well. She didn’t have her backpack or her wallet, so buying food wasn’t an option. Besides, she’d probably just throw it back up.
She’d known this was coming. Obviously. It was only—a thing. It wasn’t even a big deal. It happened to a lot of people.
Abby climbed the hill, staring up at the library’s glass walls. She should try to write. She didn’t have her laptop, but that was okay. She could write on a public computer. She could use the feelings she was experiencing to draft a new scene and figure out what to do with it later.
Pain was good for creativity. Most of the poetry submissions they read every week for lit mag were all about pain.
The problem was, Abby didn’t feel pain. She still didn’t feel anything at all.
The sun shone bright on the library’s glass exterior. It hurt Abby’s eyes, but it was strangely mesmerizing, too.
She climbed higher up the hill, until she reached the library’s front doors. Then she passed them and kept walking.
She sped up, until she was practically running. She ran for another five minutes. Then another ten, and another after that.
Her calves burned. It felt good. She reached the house and rang the doorbell.
What time was it? Abby had forgotten to check. Was it late enough in the day that other people’s parents would be home? Normal parents, who kept regular schedules and did other normal-parent stuff?
The curtain behind the window in the front door rustled. A pair of wide brown eyes peeked out. A moment later the door swung open.
“Abby?” Linh’s mouth was already forming a small, worried O. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“I...” Abby heard the tremor in her voice. She was shaking, she realized, just like Ethan. “I’m sorry I’ve been weird lately. It’s just that everything is terrible.”
“Hey, no, I’m sorry. It was asinine of me to say what I did on the train. Here, come in.”
Abby blinked, trying to remember what Linh had said on the train, as she followed her toward the living room.
The cat was purring in front of the fireplace, but Abby didn’t want to go any farther. She didn’t want to step into that wide-open space where they’d spent countless hours watching corny shows on the big-screen TV and frantically trying to scrub crumbs off the spotless linen sofa before Linh’s mom got home.
She’d loved Linh then. She was sure of it.
When you loved someone, really loved them, that feeling lasted forever, didn’t it? Because otherwise...what the hell was the point?
Abby didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think at all. She only wanted to matter to someone.
So she closed her eyes, leaned in and kissed her.
Linh kissed her back, the exact same way she always used to, and Abby tried to lose herself in it. She focused on the physical sensations. The smoothness of Linh’s hair as it threaded through her splayed fingers. The softness of Linh’s palm resting, light as air, on the back of her neck. The weight of her own breathing, growing heavier as the kiss went on.
She tried, frantically, not to think. Still, she couldn’t stop the idea from swimming into her head.
This isn’t what you want. Not anymore.
Abby hated that idea. She wanted to purge it from her mind, but it wouldn’t go.
She pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” Linh whispered. That pitying expression was back on her face. The one Abby hated more than anything. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
She couldn’t tell if Linh was sorry for kissing her back or for something else. She didn’t care, as long as that pitying look went away.
“Don’t.” Abby swallowed, fighting back tears. “Please, don’t.”
Linh nodded and didn’t say anything more. She stepped out, her arms outstretched, as though to hug her.
But Abby shrank back, covering her face with her hand. She turned and stumbled blindly through the front door and out into the cold afternoon, ignoring Linh’s voice calling out behind her.
18
Saturday, August 6, 1955
Everything moved faster in New York.
Janet had come to the city before, but never alone. She’d never had to read the street signs, or figure out which direction was downtown and which was up. As she stepped out of the crowded bus depot and tried to determine which way to start walking, two men in suits with umbrellas tucked under their arms nearly knocked her down, but it would take more than a few impatient businessmen to dim Janet’s excitement.
She’d made it all the way here, leaving before dawn on her rickety bus with blurry scenery flashing past her eyes. She�
�d tried not to think about Marie, or her family, or anything else from the world she was leaving behind, and focused instead on the mix of anticipation and dread bubbling in her stomach.
Now, surrounded by the towering buildings and honking taxis of 34th Street, she was determined to start her new life.
“Pardon me.” Janet stepped up to a well-dressed lady pushing a baby carriage. “Could you please tell me, which direction is Greenwich Village? I’m looking for West Fourth and Charles Streets?”
The lady glanced up from her handbag, eyeing Janet without a smile. “Now, why would a nice girl like you be looking for that sort of place?”
Janet began to sweat. Surely this prim-and-proper mother wasn’t familiar with the Sheldon Lounge.
But a moment later the lady pointed south, and Janet thanked her.
It was a perfect day for a walk through the city. It felt good to stretch out after all those hours cramped on the bus, with no one but the fictional characters in her head to occupy her. Janet’s luggage wasn’t heavy—she’d only packed a few things in her overnight bag, since she’d need new clothes for her new life anyway—and it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon. It wasn’t quite as hot here as it was back home, though she couldn’t quite see the bright blue sky here with all the tall buildings blocking her view.
Janet followed the crowd on the sidewalk for a few blocks, breathing in the smells of car exhaust and cigarette smoke and greasy food that made up New York City, before ducking into a Walgreens. There she bought a map of Manhattan, sat at the counter and ordered a hamburger and Coke. Her express bus hadn’t stopped for lunch, and she was famished.
She studied the map while she ate, memorizing the route. West Fourth and Charles, it seemed, was only a mile or so down Seventh Avenue. New York was less complicated than Washington. At least when it came to navigation.
Yet as she pushed back her plate, paid her bill and left the drugstore, the lady who’d called her a “nice girl” lingered in her mind. Janet hadn’t come to New York to be a “nice girl.” So when, three blocks later, she spotted a fitted skirt and men’s-style shirt on the mannequin in a secondhand clothing store window, she paused and went inside.