The Matchmaker's Gift(26)
“Yeah. She left me a box of them—not journals exactly, more like notebooks. Or files. I don’t know what to call them. It’s kind of difficult to explain.”
“The two of you must have been really close.”
“We were. She retired to Florida, but she came back to New York to help my mother after my parents’ divorce. She lived with us for the first year, but after that she stayed—got her own apartment a block from ours so my sister and I could walk over after school. She kept the condo in Florida for a few weeks in the winter. I’d go with her sometimes, on school vacations.”
“She sounds like a special person. You must miss her.”
“More than I ever thought possible. It’s like…” Abby felt a catch in her throat, as if she’d choked down an aspirin without any water. She coughed a few times, and then grew silent.
“Abby? Are you okay?”
Her voice returned, smaller than before. “Yup. Sorry about that.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. Thank you for telling me about her. Do you … want to maybe talk some more, over dinner? If Saturday doesn’t work, Sunday’s good, too. Our office is closed on Monday for the Fourth. I’ll probably go in, but not until late.”
Abby laughed. “I’m planning to work on Monday, too.”
“I guess we really are the biggest losers in New York.”
“You said it this time, not me,” Abby said.
* * *
After she and Will made plans, Abby packed her bag and left the office. Normally, she liked having the place to herself—she did her best work when it was quiet—but she was dying to take off her suit and her stockings, and she desperately needed something to eat.
July in the city was never pretty—the air was too sticky, and the streets smelled like garbage. That evening, however, the air was cool and pine-scented, as if a breeze had blown in from somewhere else. Abby put away her MetroCard, ditched the bus, and began walking up Sixth Avenue from Fifty-Second Street. Just before entering the park, she stopped to buy a soft pretzel from one of the carts that was plastered with photographs of hot dogs and Coke bottles. She carried the warm twist of dough in her hand and wound her way northwest in search of a bench.
* * *
Abby had been thirteen when her father announced that he and Tanja were getting married. Continuing his habit of breaking awkward personal news in highly public eateries, he told Abby and Hannah over brunch at Isabella’s. They were sitting outside, behind the forest-green barriers that shielded diners from the bustling Columbus Avenue traffic, when he pulled two velvet boxes from his pocket.
When she saw the boxes, Abby knew. Hannah was as clueless as ever, of course—her face full of wide-eyed girlish enthusiasm as she pried open the lid of their father’s offering. He’d upgraded this time, from silver lockets to slim gold rings encrusted with tiny sapphire chips. Hannah gasped and shoved the ring on her finger before jumping out of her seat and hugging him. “I love it, Daddy! Thank you! Thank you!”
He turned to Abby, who hadn’t moved. “Don’t you want to open yours?”
At the table closest to them, a waitress set down two steaming plates of eggs Benedict. Abby stared at the runny mounds of hollandaise sauce and felt a wave of nausea stir her stomach. “You’re marrying her, aren’t you? You and Tanja are getting married.”
Her father brushed a few nonexistent crumbs from his lap before flashing his anchorman smile at his daughters. “Remind me never to throw you a surprise party, Abby. But yes, Tanja and I are getting married. She’ll be your stepmother. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Abby could feel Hannah holding her breath. If Abby pretended the news was good, she knew her little sister would follow her lead. Abby didn’t want Hannah to be upset, but she couldn’t control the burst of anger that burned its way through her lungs and up to her brain. She bit her lip until she tasted blood, then scooped up the black box with her fingers.
When she did not answer, her father pressed on. “Aren’t you happy for me?” he asked.
Without speaking a word, Abby rose from her chair and hurled the velvet cube into the middle of the street. The last thing she saw before she pushed past the tables was a steady stream of wheels running over the jewelry box. She ran to the corner and down Columbus, then west toward Broadway, to her grandmother’s new apartment. Only when she was safe in her grandmother’s arms did Abby finally allow herself to cry.
She hadn’t cried when her parents announced their divorce, or when her father’s daily phone calls slowed to once a week. She hadn’t cried when she’d had a bad case of strep throat and her father’s secretary wouldn’t interrupt his meeting—not even when she had carefully explained that her mother was out of town. Of course, Grandma Sara had been there to take care of her, but Abby had wanted to hear her father’s voice. She hadn’t cried when he didn’t call the next day, or the day after that, to see how she was feeling. She hadn’t even cried at the restaurant when he’d said he was going to marry Tanja. Abby hadn’t cried for such a long time that she wasn’t even sure she remembered how.
But cry she did. The tears fell fast on her grandmother’s shoulder as Abby shivered through her sobs. She cried for the carefree childhood she’d lost. She cried for the heartache she knew lay ahead. She cried for her mother and for her sister, for the family of four that they would never be again.