The Matchmaker's Gift(5)
Once they were outside, Abby’s father changed the subject. “I have a surprise for you,” he said. He led them past the boxy brick building where he’d been renting an apartment and strode confidently in the direction of Central Park West. Next, he sailed them through the elegant marble lobby of an imposing prewar building. Behind a mahogany-paneled desk, a uniformed doorman tipped his hat in their direction. “Good evening, Mr. Silverman,” the doorman said, and Abby wondered how the man knew her father’s name.
On the eighth floor, Abby’s father opened the door to 8D and flicked on the lights. Though most of the windows faced the side street, one overlooked the avenue and Central Park. Abby and Hannah pressed their foreheads against the glass and stared at the treetops a hundred feet below. “Oh,” Hannah whispered. “It’s beautiful.” Abby pulled herself away from the window to investigate the rest of the room. An enormous white carpet covered the glossy wooden floor, and a dozen gold-framed mirrors filled the walls. Identical couches in smooth, cognac leather faced each other in the center of the space, divided by a coffee table made entirely of glass.
Their father interrupted. “Want to see the rest?” He led them both down the carpeted hall, past the marble bathroom and the master bedroom suite. At the end of the corridor was a smaller bedroom for the girls, decorated from floor to ceiling in a jumble of competing florals—bedspreads and curtains in mauve and peach, a seafoam-green carpet, a Lucite chair. “Isn’t it terrific?” her father insisted. “Tanja helped me put it all together.”
Abby wanted to say that the room gave her a headache. She wanted to say it was all too much—the floral bedspreads, her father’s hair. But he was beaming, and her sister was giggling, so Abby decided to stay quiet.
On Sunday morning, over bagels and cream cheese in his kitchen, their father told the girls about his new promotion. He was making more money—a lot more, he said, which was how he had purchased his new apartment.
Abby exhaled in obvious relief. “Now Mommy won’t have to worry so much.”
Her father stopped chewing. “My new job has nothing to do with your mother.”
Abby wasn’t sure why he sounded so angry. Her mother needed money, and he had plenty to spare.
“I don’t understand,” Abby said. “You said that we were still a family.”
“It’s my responsibility to take care of you and Hannah and to pay for your necessities. Any money your mother receives will be calculated by the judge, based on my salary from when the two of us were married. I got my new job after that. Understand?”
But Abby did not. It seemed unfair that her father should wake up to a Central Park view while her mother lay awake at night, worrying about ballet shoes. Suddenly, Abby didn’t want to sit at that table, in that sparkling white kitchen that felt nothing like home.
The table wobbled when she pushed back her chair, and her father’s cup of coffee toppled to the floor. He jumped from his seat to reach for a towel—anything to stop the steaming liquid from staining the brand-new, pristine tile. Her father saw only the mess she had created; he would never acknowledge the one he’d made himself. Abby felt her face go red with rage.
“If the divorce isn’t official yet, aren’t you still married?”
“That’s not how it works,” her father insisted. He said it dismissively, as if it didn’t involve her, as if the choices he’d made had no impact on her life. He said it as if she didn’t deserve an explanation, as if she was too young and too stupid to understand.
“How does it work then? I want to know.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.
He stood from the floor and frowned at the spots where his coffee had seeped into the narrow lines of grout. His voice, when he spoke, was jagged and hard. The words he spoke next fixed themselves in her mind and clung to her for the rest of her life.
“Damn it, Abby, get off my case! You want answers? Be a divorce lawyer, for God’s sake!”
* * *
Abby was still crying when her firm’s senior partner opened the door to her office without knocking.
“Abby, what’s wrong? My God, what happened?” Diane Berenson swept into the room and raised a perfectly penciled eyebrow. When Abby didn’t answer right away, Diane smoothed the skirt of her elegant knit suit and sat down in the chair across from the desk.
Abby wished she didn’t have to say the words out loud. How could death take someone who was so alive? Even at ninety-four years of age, Sara still lived on her own. She still did her own shopping, ran errands, cooked meals. “My mom just phoned. My grandmother … passed away last night.”
“Oh, Abby. I’m so sorry.” Diane clasped her hands together in her lap. “Tell me, what can I do to help?”
Abby had heard that tone before—it was the voice Diane used with her most distraught clients. Divorce was a passionate business, after all, and Diane was a master at triaging emotion. She made sure that tissue boxes were placed on every desk, every table, and every credenza in the law offices of Berenson & Gold. When her clients wept and shouted and cursed, Diane waited patiently until they wore themselves out. Tell me, what can I do to help, she said then.
The question snapped Abby out of her torpor. She didn’t want to be managed like one of Diane’s hysterical clients. “Thank you, but I’ll be okay. Really.”