CHAPTER 17
ABI
Starting Over
That one word—yes—seems to set fate in motion, beginning with the arrival of a child.
I hear Noelle calling my name long before I see her, long before she comes barreling through the glass door and onto the patio. I figure her father must’ve told her that was my car out front.
Decked out in a frilly blue dress with matching socks and tiny white shoes, she launches herself at me as though I’m her favorite relative, come for an extended visit. “Did you come to play hide and seek with me?”
“Well, no. I came to see your momma, but I can play a quick game with you before I go. How’s that?”
One would think, now that I’ve spoken to Sara about the situation, I’d feel much more comfortable. But I don’t. If anything, I feel more uncomfortable. It’s as though my love for Sam hangs in the air like a dense layer of dust, coating everything around us. It’s more noticeable than the trees or the grass or the birds. That’s why I find Noelle’s entrance and request to play a game of hide and seek quite the reprieve.
After this, I’ll make my exit. I’ll run.
Not far. I won’t run far. Not yet. I just need to run from here. I need to go home and hide, and squirm and writhe, and consider my options. But maybe running will be part of the plan eventually. Maybe running would be smart, getting away from this town before all of this can become any more real.
“Yaaaay!” She throws her arms around my neck then hops down and reaches for my hand. It’s the voice of her father that stops her in her tracks.
“Not in your church clothes, young lady.” Sam is using his daddy voice, a voice that causes a pang of regret to reverberate mournfully between my ovaries and my heart. It’s a phantom pain of what we never had, and what can never be.
Mere days ago, I was thinking that this should be my life. Here. With Sam. I was thinking that I should’ve had his beautiful child and I should’ve shared his beautiful home, but I didn’t want it like this. Not this way.
But I did want it.
And, God help me, a big part of me still does.
If only for a little while.
Noelle, unperturbed, races off toward the house, flying past her father. When she reaches the door, she looks back at me. “Help me change, Miss Abi.” She holds out her tiny hand, her eyes bright and shining, and agony swells in my throat. She’s so sweet and innocent, so vulnerable. She doesn’t deserve what’s coming.
As I make my way toward her, my eyes meet Sam’s. He’s watching me, something tender and something sad warring for control over his face.
I look away to smile at Noelle. I accept her hand and let her lead me away to the sanctuary of her bedroom. There, I can breathe again. Without Sam nearby, I can think straight again.
She flits from place to place, picking out pink shorts and a blue t-shirt. She stops in the middle of the floor and holds up her arms. I grin. Obviously, she’s done this many, many times before.
Obligingly, I help her out of her dress and hang it up, nestling it among an assortment of frilly, frothy little girl clothes in her closet. When I turn back to help her get dressed, she waves me off. “I’m a big girl. I can do this by myself.”
I say nothing, just stand back and let her. And she’s right. She does just fine without any help. She even gets her shirt on facing the right direction, arms and head going through all the appropriate holes. It’s when she gets to her shoes that she gets stuck. Lacing them up proves to be a little more than she can manage on her own.
“Here, let me help with those.” She doesn’t argue when I set her on the bed to let her feet dangle over the side, and I kneel in front of her. I take the laces to one shoe in my fingers, and I share the rhyme my mother used when she taught me how to tie my own shoes a thousand lifetimes ago.
“Bunny ears, bunny ears, playing by the tree,” I begin, keeping the movements of my fingers slow so Noelle can see what I’m doing.
Before I get to the next part, my antenna start to twitch. We aren’t alone. I can feel his presence as surely as I can smell rain or hear thunder.
Sam.
He is rain. And thunder.
Rain for my parched soul. Thunder in my veins.
He stands in the doorway, still and silent. He doesn’t have to move or speak, however, to generate the electrical current that snaps and crackles between us. Even in the quiet, it’s strong enough to make the hairs on my arms stand up. It brings with it a chaotic combination of emotions that I can neither describe nor contain. I just feel turmoil. Beautiful, painful, stressful, glorious turmoil.
When my pause drags on too long, he chimes in with the next part of the rhyme. “Criss-crossed the tree, trying to catch me.”
Obediently, my fingers go through the motions. They act on muscle memory alone, independently of my brain, which is still squarely focused on Sam. Automatically, I finish the rhyme. “Bunny ears, bunny ears, jumped into the hole. Popped out the other side beautiful and bold.”
Thankfully, it gives me just enough time to regain control of my breathing.
I’m able to smile up at Sam when he appears at his daughter’s side. I’m pleased that my voice is steady when I ask, “This is how you taught her, too?”
He nods. “Been trying. In most areas, she’s way ahead of kids her age, but this is still a hard one, right, little bee?”
She nods her head, beaming down at me where I kneel at her feet. There’s a tremor in my fingers when I move to repeat the process on the other shoe. I’m grateful when it’s done and her laces are tied. Sam’s eyes on me are untying my laces, unraveling the thin thread that’s holding me together.
The moment I finish, Noelle leaps down off the bed, steadying herself for a second before she runs out of the room as quickly as she ran into it. Almost as an afterthought, she tosses over her shoulder, “Come and find me, Miss Abi.”
Glad for a reason to retreat from Sam’s presence, I start off after her. Sam, however, isn’t quick to let me go. As I pass, he stops me with a hand to my arm. “Wait.”
I pause, but I don’t turn toward him. I keep my eyes trained straight ahead, through the empty door and beyond, where my salvation rests. I know instinctively that I need to keep my distance right now.
Sam’s thumb moves over the skin of my forearm in a soothing arc. At least it’s meant to be soothing. But at the moment, his touch is confusing and inflammatory. I crave it. I can’t lie to myself. I crave it as much as I did at seventeen. Even now, it’s as though every bit of happiness in life lies in the shelter of his arms.
But I also fear it. There’s so much more to our relationship this time, things that scare me in ways I don’t know how to deal with. It’s like we’re starting over, only…we’re not. We’re not even starting in the middle.
We’re starting near the end.
“Are…are you okay?”
I take a shaky breath and nod. “I’m okay.”
“Abi, I…”
He sighs. There is so much conveyed in that sigh. Frustration. Burden. Helplessness. Hopefulness.
In my peripheral vision, I see him lift his eyes to stare at the ceiling, as if he might find some help, some clarity there.
It’s several long, tense seconds before he speaks again. “I want to say something. I’m just not sure what that should be.”
“There’s nothing to say, Sam.”
Silence rushes in quickly, filling all the spaces around us and sealing us in the moment like two caterpillars in a cocoon. “Give me time. I’ll know what to say soon enough.”
I nod, tentatively moving forward to see if he’s going to stop me. He doesn’t. He lets me go. But I know he watches me until I’m out of sight. I can feel it.