Thinking of them now, she suddenly wanted to hear one of their voices. Abigail called the landline, her father picking up after three rings.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said.
“Who’s this?” he responded. It was an old joke.
“Mom must be out.”
“She is. Why’d you ask, because I picked up the phone?”
“I guess so. I expected her. Are you living back in the house?”
“No, I’m still above the garage. Your mother is out, so I’m sneaking back in to look for my copy of Shakespeare’s Imagery. You know, the Spurgeon book. You don’t happen to remember where it is, do you?”
“No.”
“I know that the last time I saw it, it was next to the sofa in the study, but it’s not there now. Your mother probably moved it somewhere.”
“Dad, I was thinking of coming home for a weekend before the wedding, spend some time with the two of you.” Abigail was surprised even as she said the words.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes, of course it is. Just thought it would be nice. What’s going on this weekend?”
“I work Saturday at the movie theater,” he said, stretching the word “theater” into three highly stressed syllables, “but that will give you some time with just your mother. No, please come. We’d love to see you. What about Bruce?”
“Bruce and I will be spending the rest of our lives together. Besides, he’s cramming as much work into his weekends as possible before the wedding and the honeymoon. It’ll be great to see you both.”
“Come up. I’d love it. We’d love it.”
CHAPTER 7
She took the train to Northampton, where Zoe picked her up. It was late afternoon, the second weekend of September, but the first weekend that actually felt like September. The sun was high and bright but there was a bite to the air. Zoe convinced Abigail that they should grab one quick drink in town before heading to Boxgrove.
“How was it seeing Bruce?” she asked Abigail, after they’d both ordered Negronis at the Tunnel Bar, a cocktail place built into an old railway tunnel.
“It was fine. Great. He’s very excited about the wedding.”
“He give you details about his bachelor weekend?”
“You mean, did I give him details about my bachelorette weekend?” Abigail said.
Zoe smiled, leaning back because their drinks were being delivered. “I guess,” she said.
“Yeah, I told him all about it. He said it was no big deal.”
“Really?” Zoe leaned forward again, incredulous.
“No.”
“Oh. But it was okay?”
“It was good to see him. I’m hoping to forget certain details of that weekend. I’m hoping you do, too.”
Zoe turned her fingers in front of her lips and mimed throwing away the key.
At six-thirty Zoe dropped Abigail off at her parents’ house. Walking from the curb to the front door, Abigail could see her parents through the bay windows of the living room, her father studying the bar and her mother moving back and forth in the open-plan kitchen area. She’d wondered if they were going to put on a united front during her visit, and it seemed that she had her answer.
She opened the door to the smell of roast chicken.
After dinner, Abigail’s mother went to bed first. It had been a perfectly pleasant evening, during which the most controversial topic was where to sit creepy cousin Roger at the wedding reception.
“Port?” her father said, now that Amelia was gone.
“Sure. Why not?”
He poured two glasses, then resettled on the plaid recliner that had always been his favorite chair.
“You and Mom are very chummy,” Abigail said.
“We get along still, so long as we don’t talk about certain topics, and so long as I remain in the guesthouse.”
“That doesn’t sound like a typical separation. I mean, you two might be able to find a way back to each other.” She tried to keep the hope out of her voice.
He frowned. “I don’t know. As far as your mother is concerned, we’re over. The reason I’m just in the guesthouse is because I don’t have the money to get my own place. We’re not mad at each other, but we just burned out, I think. It was all those years running a business together. We turned into business partners instead of husband and wife, and now that the business is poof, so is the marriage.”
He leaned back, his shoulders sloping, and Abigail caught a glimpse of what he was going to look like in his extreme old age.
Abigail almost began the conversation about Bruce resurrecting the Boxgrove Theatre with his own money, but it didn’t seem the right time. She’d decided before the weekend that that was a conversation for after the wedding. Instead, she said, “Have you thought about couples counseling?”
He shrugged. “It all costs money, and I don’t think it would make a difference. Abby, I think you should be focused on your own nuptials and not your mother and me. We’re not a project for you.”
“Ha.”
“You remember the campaign?”
“Of course I do.”
It was her father’s favorite story from her childhood. When Abigail was eleven, she’d overheard her parents talking about how ticket sales were down that summer. Without telling them, she’d created an ad campaign, handwriting flyers to advertise each of that summer’s shows, and handing them out from a table she set up on their front lawn. She’d worn a beret she’d found in the theater’s costume department because it looked “right for the occasion,” she’d said.
“You were such a fighter. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Did it do any good? You think I sold a single ticket?”
“I know you did. Pam Hutchinson from across the street told us she bought a ticket because of you. Unfortunately, it was for Lips Together, Teeth Apart and she never looked at us the same way again.”
“And I sold a ticket—two tickets, I think—to The Winter’s Tale.”
“You have a good memory.”
They both sat silent for a moment, Abigail wondering if she did have a good memory, or if it was just the repeated telling of the story that had lodged it in her mind. Her dad said, “We didn’t know where you’d come from. I mean, your mother and I were ambitious to a certain degree, but neither of us was a salesperson. You were a firecracker. We always used to say, ‘At least we don’t have to worry about her. Abby’ll be fine.’ And you are.”
“Dad, are you a little drunk?”
“A little bit. Just sentimental now that I’m in the winter of my years.”
Lying in her old bedroom that night, staring up at the stick-on stars that she’d put up on her ceiling years ago, Abigail kept thinking about what her father had said about her being a firecracker. The proof was right on her ceiling, where she’d spelled out her own name in the midst of the galaxy. Had she been that self-centered, or was it just confidence about her place in the world? She had had confidence for most of middle school and some of high school. She remembered being fearless, always up for a fight. That was how she and Zoe had become such good friends, despite how different they were in so many ways. Max Rafferty had spread a rumor about Zoe giving him a hand job after the seventh-grade dance, and the next day Abigail had snuck up behind Max while he was in line at the cafeteria, tugging down his pants, snagging his underwear along for the ride. She’d been friends with Zoe then, but not best friends. After that, they were inseparable.