Abbi chuckled wryly, masked her face in her hands and shook her head. “It’s no big deal. Trust me. I’ve thought a lot worse about you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You can’t be sorry for my self-righteousness.”
“I’m sorry I acted in a way that made you think badly of me.”
“Enough of the apologies already. You’re sorry. I’m sorry. Done. All right?”
Janet nodded. “Are you sure you don’t want some pie?”
“Well . . . since you twisted my arm.”
They sat and talked between forkfuls of too-dry crust and too-sweet filling—Janet telling of growing up with nine siblings, and small crumbs of her faith journey Abbi hadn’t heard before. Abbi recounted a few of the struggles between her and Benjamin, a few of the graces the Lord had shown her. And when Abbi went to leave, she felt a tapping in her spirit, like an annoyingly persistent woodpecker outside her window, hunting for grubs when she wanted to nap.
Tell her,
the knocking said.
Tell her.
But that’s mine,
Abbi thought.
It’s not for anyone else.
“Thank you for coming over,” Janet said.
“No biggie. Oh, if you didn’t notice, I baked the pie in your pan, so you don’t have to worry about returning it.”
“My nana always did that. ‘Don’t ever send it back empty,’ she used to say to all us girls.”
Tell her.
“Well, I’ll see you, then,” Abbi said, and she stood on the flagstone path as Janet closed the door, the tapping now more of a poke, stronger with each step she took toward home. “Okay, fine. I get the point.”
She rang Janet’s doorbell, and the woman looked out with concern. “Did you forget something?”
“No. Well, yes. I just . . . I wanted to tell you I understand. I can’t have children, either. I know, it’s not exactly the kind of thing people discuss at parties around the punch bowl, but if you ever want to talk, well, you know where I am.”
“Thanks,” Janet said, swiping her thumb under one eye. “Not yet. But sometime.”
And Abbi nodded, inhaled, filling like a balloon, an unexpected buoyancy overtaking her, and on her way back to the house she played hopscotch on the umber stones, her toes nimbly avoiding the cracks.
They were getting ready for worship, running late as usual, though they couldn’t use Silvia as an excuse anymore.
How hard is it for two
adults to get out of the house on time?
That was the issue, both of them underestimating the time it took to ready themselves, and then snipping and shoving each other as the minutes ticked down—half of Benjamin’s face smeared with Barbasol, Abbi still undressed and, with no time to iron, trying to find something unwrinkled to wear after leaving her laundry half folded in the basket all week.
“We need to remember to do all this Saturday night,” he said, and they both snorted, knowing neither of them would. “I need coffee.”
“Sorry. Didn’t make any.”
Abbi did remember it was Communion Sunday, but she refused to fast. She wouldn’t again, not until she could do so without thinking of her weight. Or at least control those thoughts. Right now, food still held too much power over her. Without the laxatives to fall back on, she did battle with every bite—
Do I need it? Why do I want it? How
much will I gain from it?
—sometimes thinking of nothing else but the two pear muffins on the counter for hours at a time, until she either ate them and felt miserable about her lack of self-discipline, or threw them out and berated herself for wasting food.
Not that she hadn’t eaten from the trash before.
They were getting shorter, though, those obsessive times, and fewer. Most days she didn’t let the internal arguments go on for more than a few minutes without turning to prayer, but it was nowhere near automatic yet. She trusted it would become easier, as she reached upward for help first, not into the refrigerator.
The announcements were over when she and Benjamin slipped through the church door, he easing it closed so it wouldn’t slam accusatorily behind them, and they took their seats in the back row. Benjamin sang and prayed and nudged her with his elbow when she stared out the window. When the Communion tray came around, he didn’t partake, but they stood together at the benediction, arms around each other’s waists. Benjamin started it, as a reminder to go out as one, and work to stay one during the week.
After the service, they chatted for a while, people asking how they were managing without Silvia. Except for that afternoon with Janet McGee, no one had made any direct references to the past year, and that was fine by Abbi. She wasn’t looking for anything other than what was already happening—the congregation folding in around her and Benjamin, making it easy for them to reattach to the body without fanfare or guilt. They followed the Yates family home for lunch, but before getting out of the Durango, Abbi reached across the armrest and touched the corduroy cuff of Benjamin’s jacket. “Hey, you good?” she asked.
He nodded. “I didn’t feel ready today. I’m still a lot more angry than I’m willing to admit.”
“The table is for sinners, you know.”
“I know. And I don’t. If that makes any sense.”
“Perfectly, and not at all,” she told him, and laughed.
“I love you,” he said.
At home, Benjamin paced the house. He opened all the kitchen cabinets, organizing measuring cups and colanders, washed down the stove. “The hinge is broken in the pantry.”
“It’s only been like that for five months,” Abbi said, embroidering a napkin on the couch. She’d found a set of the cutest vintage Swiss-dotted cloth napkins at the Baptist church’s white elephant sale, and planned to give them to Janet for Christmas after she stitched teapots on each of them.
“Hyperbole.”
“Nope. It happened the day after my birthday.” She stuck her needle into the fabric and went to him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Right. You always rearrange cabinets and wander aimlessly in eight hundred square feet for hours on end.”
“I think we should ask Matt to come live with us.”
“Well, maybe that would work if we weren’t both—um, what’s the word?—completely avoiding him. And he avoiding us, it would seem.”
He burnished the crown of his skull with his palm, like a child rubbing a balloon on his hair, trying to make it stick to the wall. “I’ve been planning to go over there.”
“You said that three weeks ago. Anyway, he’s still staying with the Larsens.”
“Why should he be there when he could be here?”
“Why should he be
here
when he could be
there
?”
“You don’t want him to come?”
“I didn’t say that.” She opened the bread box, snagged a slice of raisin bread. She thought about taking a bite, stopped.
Stop me, Lord.
I’m not hungry.
Instead of eating it, she plucked out each raisin, crushing it against the butcher-block counter with her thumb. Benjamin covered her hand. “He’s not a replacement part, Ben.”
“I can’t believe you’d even think I’d be thinking that.”
“Then what are you thinking? I mean, where is this even coming from?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You’re right. I haven’t been able to go see him. I’ve tried. I’ve driven past the Larsen place every day since we first talked about it. But I can’t stop. I don’t want him to think I blame him at all, but I’m still worried about what I might say to him, how I might look at him. Which is why I don’t think this is my idea. No matter how I try to shake it off, it won’t leave.”
“He might just come because he thinks he owes us something. The kid is already pulled in a thousand directions. I don’t want us to add to that.”
“Maybe, then, we could pray about it.”
She balled up the tattered bread and pitched it into the trash. “I can do that.”
“Together. Now.”
Benjamin kneeled in the middle of the kitchen floor, holding out his hands to her, and she took them, crouched down so their kneecaps touched. And as he made his request known, by prayer and supplication, Abbi’s eyes filled with tears and ran over with thanksgiving. She had her husband back.
Ellie’s mother wouldn’t let her drive all the way to Lester, so Matthew decided to take the bus. He could have asked Jaylyn, or Pastor Larsen, or anyone else at the church, but he wanted the time alone. It had nothing to do with burdening someone. He didn’t have use for the money now anyway. He wouldn’t be traveling to New York to see his father.
He wasn’t playing the martyr, still wanted the transplant. But right now he wanted it more than his father’s love. He wouldn’t go there feeling the way he did. So he prayed, waiting for God to change his heart.
At the bus station, Ellie hugged him and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want me to go? I will.”
He shook his head.
“Well, okay. Have someone call me before you leave, and I’ll be here to pick you up.”
I will.
“Promise me, Matthew Savoie. I know you. I don’t want you hitchhiking back. I mean it.”
Yes, Mom.
“Promise.”
I promise.
She took both his hands in hers, their fingers interlaced. “Promise again, now, so I know your fingers aren’t crossed.”
“I promise,” he said.
“Okay, I believe you. Matt, I . . . I think Skye will be glad to see you.”
We’ll see.
He found a window seat, waved to her from the bus.
She signed,
I love you.
He rubbed the glass with his sleeve, but Ellie disappeared into the building.
He tried to count cottonwoods on the ride, mostly scraggly clusters of no more than ten, all gnarly and half naked. They looked ancient, but the trees only lived sixty or seventy years. He couldn’t seem to keep the numbers in his head, though, because of Ellie, and her sign.
Did she mean it, mean it?
Taxis waited outside the bus station in Lester. Matthew chose the plainest cabbie, the one without tattoos or turbans or feathers hanging from his rearview mirror, and showed him the back cover of his pad. Then he scrawled
Central South Dakota Juvenile Service Center
on an inside page.
Nine minutes later, Matthew stood on the concrete sidewalk, staring at a choppy brick building, juts and boxes stacked together at various heights and depths. He asked the driver to wait.
“It’s forty cents a minute,” the cabbie told him.
Matthew nodded and walked to the door, counting each line he stepped over. The guard might turn him away; visitors under eighteen needed to be accompanied by an adult. Matthew had snuck into the high school office and stole a blank ID card, and at home he altered his birth date to add a couple of years and laminated the card with another photo using clear packing tape. He prayed quickly that the guard would be too lazy to press for more information, though he figured God wouldn’t hear any prayer involving lies and fraud.
He was on his own for this one.
I’m here to see Skye Becker.
The guard reached for his pad, but Matthew shook his head and turned it over.
“Brother?” he asked.
Cousin. But I have permission from the caseworker.
“Got ID?”
He searched through his backpack, untangling his card from a nest of tens and twenties, dropping several coins on the floor. The guard gave a disinterested glance at Matthew’s photo and typed his name into the computer. “Okay, sign here,” he said, pushing a clipboard across the counter. Matthew did, and clipped on his plastic visitor badge. “Bag in the coatroom, then step over here.”
After dropping two quarters in a locker, Matthew took the key and stepped through the metal detector. Another officer pat-searched him, and he was led into the visitation room—white cinder-block walls, round white tables, white floor—sterile and clean, as if the center were trying to wash away the crimes of those inside. The chairs were gray plastic with fat legs. Matthew sat with his back against a wall. Several teens in blue scrub-like outfits shared low conversations with family.
A guard escorted Skye into the room. She looked thinner, her hair pulled back into a rubber band.
“You came.”
Matthew tried to smile.
Jaylyn said she thought you wanted me to.
“I did. I do. I just wasn’t sure if you would.”
Why wouldn’t I?
“I figured you’d be home torturing yourself over all this.”
I’m okay.
“I bet. Anyone with you?”
He shook his head.
How are you?
“Okay, really.”
Five months in here. Not too bad.
“Better than a year, in some ways. In others, it seems like it should be a whole lot more.”
You’re just as good at torture as I am.
She dragged her middle finger on the table, toward her. “I told Ma none of this was your fault. She’d just rather blame someone else than her own sorry self for her part.”
It’s fine.
“You ever gonna go back there? To live, I mean.”
I don’t know.
“Maybe you could move in with Ellie.”
He rolled his eyes, crumpled a page from his notepad and threw it at her.
“I forgot. Good boys like you don’t do things like that.”
Skye.
“Oh, stop. I’m just messing with you.” She scratched at a scab on her elbow. “It’s weird. There really is something sorta . . . clean about the truth. I don’t think I would have been able to stay quiet forever. Then again, maybe I would have. I don’t know.”
Matthew bumped her hand with his.
I don’t think you would have.
“You have a better opinion of me than I probably deserve.”
They talked for a while, her about the daily routine, about some of the other girls, him about school. About Ellie. Finally, he wrote,
I should go
, jerking his head toward the clock on the wall.
I took the bus. Last one back is in forty minutes.
“Okay. It was good seeing you.”
You too.