I’m thwarted, forced to admit I want to learn what happens next in this girly book about…sisters. What do I know about sisters? Which is why it’s entertaining, a whole new world as Abby used to always insist. Dammit.
“Come on. One more chapter.”
Abby opens the book, a happy smile in her voice as she says, “Now I have to find the spot again.” I wait until she’s located it, and as soon as she says, “Okay…” and takes a breath to begin, I snore and fall to the floor.
She cracks up.
I win.
For the next week Abby reads to me. We sit outside when the warm sun chases away the chill of morning. Lounging on an old wooden bench with the love of my life reading to me a book she adores, makes the days pass by in the most amazing way.
Now that I’m no longer living, purely dictated by feelings and instinct alone, I finally grasp what love really is.
I want what’s best for her.
It’s on my mind at all times.
Watching Abs get upset when Laurie is heartbroken by Jo, and the tears that fall down her face when Beth explains their differences in ambition, I feel such love for Abby it’s almost painful. I keep it to myself, because I know she’d just tell me she’s as in love with me as I am with her.
When she sleeps I stand watch, like a guard making sure nothing will happen. I still keep vigil because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
As I accompany her on a hike down a natural staircase of light grey stone that spans the width of four houses, I broach the obvious question, “So what are you going to with yourself now that you’ve quit your job, Abs?”
“Everyone keeps asking me that.”
I offer, “You could open a restaurant.”
Abby snorts, “What do I know about restaurants?” and lowers herself to the next plateau.
She doesn’t cook well.
But I’m trying anything.
Can’t shake the feeling I’m meant to help her. “You could learn.”
“If I wanted to, I would.” Abby hops to another level. “But I don’t.”
“You could work out of your home, helping people grow their businesses? Use the marketing skills you have.”
“No way. I've left that behind me.” She sits down on the stone, about to jump to the next level, and looks up at me. “You saw me at the office, right?”
“It was too boring to stay long.”
She hops down. “Exactly!”
Unable to argue, I mutter, “Right.”
“You know uh, that check-stand lady?”
“Wanda?”
“Yes, Wanda! She said something about gardening.” Abby shrugs, “That didn't sound terrible,” and jumps down to the next plateau.
These steps are never-ending.
I mutter, “We never had a plant we didn't kill,” and don’t add that it’s why we hire a landscaper. If Abby were to keep up our property, it’d be brown.
She leaps to another one, reminding me, “We weren't home enough to take care of them.”
God, so true.
Would she be good at gardening? I sigh, “What a waste of time.” Meaning all that work. Not plants. That kinda sounds pleasant, albeit odd coming from a city girl like her. “We should have had kids.”
She spins around, faces me, shocked.
“We always agreed: there are enough people on the planet.”
“And we wanted to enjoy our lives. But did we?”
Abby stares at me. “We did!” She lowers herself down, correcting the mistake. “We do.”
“But now…”
“No! No. We wouldn't have spent…” Abby closes her eyes, stopped on the same stone as she collects her anger. “We wouldn't have worked less if we'd had kids. We just would've gotten a nanny.” She holds my gaze, assuring me it’s a fact. Stepping to the next lower tier, she adds, “And then they'd have gone to a therapist and said we didn't love ‘em.”
Sure I get her logic. Abs and I were rarely home — ambition plus our active social life would’ve equaled bad-parenting.
But…
“You'd have someone to love now that I'm gone.”
Abs stops again to face this argument, head on. “Okay, A.) That's a terrible reason to have a child. And…A.5) What children stay near their parents when they become adults anyway? And then B.) I have you now.” Her voice becomes softer. “So why are we even talking about this?” She steps down yet another layer, adding, “Especially when we can't do anything about it.”
Don’t wanna argue anymore.
No enjoyment in it.
This doesn’t feel good.
But I can razz her, so I follow Abby onto a large, flat slab of rock to make a very important point. “Now, granted, I'm no longer among the living so how can I split hairs…” Abby turns around to hear me out. “…but I don't think there's any such thing as an A.5.)”
She grins, “I made it up.”
Coming closer, I wish I could kiss her. “You made it up. Of course you did.”
Abby backs away, teasing me, “I get to make things up if I want to!” and suddenly she drops over the edge with a terrible scream.
Just like that she’s gone.
I look down stunned to see Abby hanging from the edge.
Trying to pull herself up.
Gasping.
Elbows bent, shoulders tight, knuckles white.
“Abby!” I pant, “Hold on!” shouting at the top of my lungs, “HELP! SOMEONE HELP!” because I can’t grab her, help her up, save her.
But I don’t have a voice anymore.
As she grips the rock, struggling, feet scraping the mountain, I see just how far we’ve hiked. Hikers are few on weekdays. Nobody is going to save her.
“What if I just let go?”
I beg her, “Abby, don’t!”
“I could be with you!”
Part of me thinks that sounds perfect, and yet, “No!”
“It would be so easy!”
I plead with her, feeling like her soul depends on it, and I have no clue why I feel that way. “No, Abby don't do it!” But the urgency is so powerful in me, she has to stay as she is. Human.
“Abby! Don’t!”
My wife is stubborn. I have no idea what she’s going to do. All it would take is for Abby to lift her fingers. I would watch her fall to her death. “Abby, don’t.” At the last second, she grunts, and tries harder I hear her sneaker finding purchase on something — the root of a tree, I don’t know. I’m too stricken, and I back away to give her room.
She hurls herself up, rolls onto her back, panting, sweaty, hair matted to her face as she leaps up, locks eyes with me, furious. “I should have done it!”
She storms off in the direction we came.
I call after her, my voice calm. “That's not your decision to make.”
Whirling around, Abby demands, “What's that supposed to mean?”
“I don't know. It just felt wrong.”
“Then whose decision is it?!”
Abs climbs the stone staircase, and I look behind me to where she hung over the edge.
It would have been so easy…
Chapter 23
Abby
Lorna, you picked the worst time to visit me. Which is so you.
I’m lugging her suitcase into the cabin — what did she pack, all of her demons plus the state of Vermont?
I want a shower. I’m sweaty, hair a frizzy mess, and I need to talk to my husband as soon as I gather my wits again because I was so close to ending this breach between Max and I for good, and he said that bizarre thing!
It would have been an accident.
It would have looked like one.
I hadn’t planned to slip.
At first I was terrified.
Then…not so much.
Now I’m just furious.
Lorna isn’t great company for this mood. More than even a shower, I want to talk with Max, force him to tell me what he meant by all of that.
“What happened to you?”
/> “I almost fell off a cliff.”
My sister barks, “What? You okay?”
I mutter, “No. Yeah. I don't know,” and drop her heavy promise of an uninvited stay just inside our front door, quickly crossing to our kitchen sink. I’ve gotta clean the scratches the ledge engraved in my skin.
I’m waiting for my sister to launch into me, and when she doesn’t say a word, just walks around our kitchen table in a casual way, I relax. Is she going to skip the questions? That would be amazing.
Lorna comes to stand beside me, leaning against our counter top that stretches in an L-shape. She’s got our coffee pot to her right, Max to her left, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, hands tucked. She walked in front of him to get here.
I see a tote hanging from her shoulder and, snatching a dish towel, dry off while pointing with my chin. “What's in the bag?”
Lorna shrugs, looking friendly, “Some wine, bread, cheese. Sandwich fixings. Good stuff like that.” She sets the tote on our kitchen table and turns to ask, “What do you mean you fell off a cliff?”
Dammit. Here we go.
I set down the towel, shrug it off like this is a normal day for me, “I was hiking and I slipped.”
“You're not supposed to hike alone, Abs.”
I exchange a look with my husband and Lorna catches it, looks around and right through him. “What are you looking at?”
“I was just making sure the place was tidy for you.”
Lorna smiles, “It looks great,” scanning the cabin again, but quicker this time, again looking right through her brother-in-law. “I was expecting a disaster.”
Max smirks, “She knows you.”
I mutter, “Funny,” and Lorna doesn’t realize I’m commenting on what he said, not what she said. I’m so used to talking with him I forget I can’t in mixed company. “What's been going on in the world?”
She crosses her arms, and looks as if she were twelve. “Same old, same old.”
“Lorna...what's with the face?” Pretty fucking comical her feigned innocence, so I have to hold back a laugh as my hip leans on the counter.
She tries to keep it up, but can’t. “I’ve been seeing someone.”
“You have?” I grin, shocked. “The last time you had a boyfriend was Sean.”
“Eck. Don't remind me. You hungry?” She goes for the bag.
“I’m starving. But let me do it. You just tell me all about it!”
As I pull a wine bottle from her tote, she says, “You know him.”
My eyes widen as I remember our genius, musical friend wanted to ask her out. I told him to when he wasn’t scared by her. This is wonderful news, and I’m so excited for her and, “Arthur?!”
Lorna laughs, “Arthur? Really?” rolling her eyes, “I would terrorize the guy. Eat him alive. Come on.”
“You probably would. Then who?”
We stare at each other.
My grin flatlines.
“Now let me explain.”
I whisper, “No way.”
She steps close to me. “He's been sober ever since, Abs. Goes to meetings. Takes service commitments.” My head is shaking in denial as I stare at my own flesh and blood breaking my heart. “He's not the same guy you knew—”
“—Not Barry.”
She steps even closer to me, when she should back the fuck off. “It turns out he was really in love with me this whole time. And I treated him like shit and he drank more and tried harder and — it's a vicious cycle of crap!”
My rage smashes the wine bottle in our sink. Lorna leaps away
I cry out to Max, “Can you believe this shit?” and switch my focus to her. “He is the reason my husband is dead!”
Lorna whispers, “Abby…”
Max says, “Come on.”
I explode at him, not her, “If he hadn't gotten drunk, you wouldn't have been hit by that car!”
Lorna gingerly steps closer. “Who are you talking to?”
Helpless, hurting, I’ve got no answer for her. I need space. Now.
I storm out, lost in grief and regret.
Lorna shouts, “Wait wait! Don't go in there yet!”
Looking up I catch sight of the ultimate betrayal.
Barry is on our porch.
No warning.
Just a preface of sandwich fixings.
And wine?
I spin around, “You have got to be the most selfish person I have ever met! Are you kidding me?!”
With zero apology in her tone she fights back, “I am so sorry, I didn't realize you were going off your rocker!”
“I’m not crazy!”
Max passes us into the living room where he can get a better look at his still-breathing best friend.
She points to where the wine is a memory. “You were just talking to thin air! Tell me you weren't just talking to your dead husband.”
“Don't call him that!”
“Abby! Stop it! You're acting crazy!”
“Do I look fucking crazy to you?”
“Yes! And pissed.”
“Oh, I'm pissed alright because if anyone's crazy here, it's you! How dare you bring him here!” I storm to the couch, sit down so I don’t slap her. “You didn't call me to warn me! Nothing!”
“You're the one who said, 'Poor Barry.' Think about someone besides you for a second.” I blink, stunned my sister is saying these horrible things to me. She is practically shouting, “Max was his best friend! He's been dying over this.” My head rolls like I might bite hers off. From my glare, Lorna realizes her poor choice of phrase and as she hears herself say, “Do you have any idea how much it killed him that—”
She blinks.
Sheepish.
Regretful.
Self-aware.
Finally.
Max mutters, “There are a lot of ways we absently use words connected to death in common conversation.”
Now that she’s no longer shouting at me, I exhale to explain why I’d said those things about ‘poor’ Barry, “I was trying to forgive him, Lorna.”
My sister melts, voice quieting, even tender as she approaches me. “I know! I should have called and warned you.” She drops to her knee and clasps my right hand in both of hers. “Maybe you need to talk to him. Maybe it would help you move on.”
Give me a fucking break.
“Tell him not to come inside.”
Cautious knuckles rap on the glass, and Max grumbles, “Too late,” as I lock eyes with Barry who’s silently asking me if he can come in.
I know he grew up here, and it’s practically his second home, too, but I really don’t care. His name is not on the lease, it’s on the police report.
I look at my sister.
She’s here for her, not me.
And suddenly it sinks in that Lorna hopes for my approval. No, she needs it. Knew it wouldn’t come without a fight.
Hence the ambush.
When our parents died in the fire, I stepped up from role model to mother. Never having to look out for anyone else, she’s got no practice. Lorna’s closed heart has worried me for years. I love her so much and I want her to find someone.
But Barry?
Why couldn’t it have been Arthur?
No matter how much it hurts me as my baby sister says, “I will do whatever you want, but think about this. You both need to heal,” I understand what I must do. Put her broken heart before my open one.
“Go get another bottle of wine from the store. Then come back.”
She nods a tentative, “Okay,” and releases my hand to stand up, motioning for Barry to go around to the other door, closer to the driveway so they can leave quickly.
Max and I watch until they’re gone.
Falling off the cliff.
Her unwanted, uninvited visit.
And the final punch in the heart of her not only with Barry, but forcing me to face him before I’m prepared.
I whisper, drained, “She couldn't see you.”
Facing t
he door, Max says, “Nope,” as if it’s not a surprise.
For the first time it dawns on me.
Is he even real?
I stand up, asking myself, and the ghost of my husband, “What if I’m crazy?”
Max turns around, shocked. “I’m real.”
But can I believe the figment of my grief?
Chapter 24
Max
Abby won’t look at me.
While she cleaned herself up as best she could knowing they were returning any minute, I kept trying to talk to her.
My wife all of a sudden believes I’m not real, purely her grief-stricken imagination, and it’s all because of Barry and fucking Lorna.
If I could touch Abby, it would be proof. We’re both too aware that I can’t.
She averted her gaze every time I tried harder, made jokes, got mad. Nothing worked. With pain behind her eyes, Abs just brushed her hair, washed her face and put on some lipstick, a bit of mascara to be less naked than she feels.
Lorna really outdid herself this time. I’ve always been patient with her ‘quirks,’ knowing why Abby’s kid sister was such a fucking bitch, but this stunt!
Seeing him out there. Uninvited on our property. I could feel how uneasy Barry was, all of our history in his eyes.
For both of them I felt rage.
Dark emotions aren’t my thing.
Not in my blood.
Doesn’t feel natural.
And I don’t even have blood anymore.
He’s the reason for that.
Lorna hurt my wife, and made her doubt me.
Unforgivable.
The broken bottle is cleaned up with a new one to take its place. Air thick with silence. Barry and Lorna stand in our kitchen watching Abby set down coffee cups.
Three of them.
Barry reaches for the bottle, and she snatches it, holds it away from him. “I thought you were sober.”
“I am! I was just being chivalrous.”
Abby looks as if she might bite his hand.
She pours, and hands Lorna a cup. Her eyebrows rise in a challenge as she hands Barry his.
“Come on, Abby,” warns Lorna.
“What?” She glances between the unwelcome lovers. “I’m just acting out of habit.”
Barry almost took that cup.
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