CHAPTER 11
ABI
Fair
Evidently, the health fair is as much a social event as a healthful one. People started arriving at ten minutes to nine and some of them are still milling around at noon when I’m relieved of my childcare post to go and man the snack table where they’re taking blood.
I see that all but one platter of my cookies are gone and it becomes clear to me why Anna asked more than one person to bring cookies. Within minutes, I see people who aren’t giving blood taking a cookie or two and making their way to friends nearby. Some of them have been here for hours, standing around and chatting. It doesn’t help that Anna brought two stainless coffee urns that appear to be bottomless.
I’m just about to hunt her down and ask about Sam’s cookies when I hear what’s becoming a welcome and familiar little voice.
“Miss Abigail! Miss Abigail!”
Through the crowd, I can see Noelle making her way between people, one hand extended as she drags someone along behind her. I follow the thin hand up a thin arm to a woman’s face. This must be Mrs. Samuel Forrester. Sara, the saint.
She’s beautiful. Not that I expected anything less. Sam is a gorgeous man. Smart. Successful. Charming. He probably had his pick once he hit college.
And this is the one he chose.
Sara Forrester. She’s blonde, her hair every bit as pale as her daughter’s, and her skin is like translucent porcelain, only a shade or two darker. Her eyes are a deep green and they dominate her thin face. Her very thin face.
“Hi,” I say when I’m worried I’ve been staring. “You must be Noelle’s mom. I’m Abigail. Abi. It’s so nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine,” she replies, her voice a whisper. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Noe can’t stop talking about the woman with eyes the same color as her favorite doll’s dress.”
I laugh, noting the nickname with a pang of envy. Noe, pronounced like “know” with a long E sound at the end. It seems that mother and daughter have as good a relationship as father and daughter do. Fitting. And perfect.
Of course.
I smile. Although it stings a little in a way I’d rather not think about, I’m happy for Sam. He deserves all this goodness.
“I’m famous, huh?”
“You are. I’m Sara Forrester, by the way. Sam’s wife.”
As she smiles, I wonder about her clarification. I wonder if it’s habit to introduce herself as Sam’s wife (since most people probably know him), or if it’s pride.
I decide it doesn’t matter. Either one would be understandable.
“I figured. Noelle looks just like you.”
Sara glances down at her beaming daughter, satisfaction evident in every sharp angle of her face. “That’s the best compliment you could ever give me.”
“Tell her what we brought, Mommy,” Noelle pleads, tugging gently on her mother’s hand.
“More cookies,” Sara supplies.
“Cookies!” Noelle is ready for another sugar high, no doubt.
“More cookies? Did you help make them?”
Her eyes are wide with enthusiasm as she nods. “Yes. I handed Daddy the eggs and helped him stir.”
“You did? What a great helper you must be.”
“I am, I am!”
“And modest, too,” Sara quips lovingly. “Sam is bringing the cookies. Noelle just wanted to help put them out. Do you mind?”
“No, of course not. I can always use a good helper.”
Noelle releases her mother’s hand and comes around the table to stand beside me. She’s nearly a foot taller than the tabletop, and I wonder if I’ve underestimated her age.
“How old are you, Noelle?”
“I’m three,” she responds, holding up three fingers.
“Do you know when your birthday is?”
“September.”
“So you’ll be four in September?”
“Uh-huh,” she nods.
She’s tall for her age, and seems developmentally advanced, although I’m not really surprised. Her father is tall and brilliant, and her mother probably is, too. Sara’s a bit taller than me, and I can’t see Sam falling for a dummy.
“I bet you’re going to be tall like your mom and dad, aren’t you?”
“I wanna be as tall as daddy.”
“That’s pretty tall for a girl.”
“It’s very tall.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be tall like your mom instead?”
Noelle looks across the table at her mother, who is standing quietly, watching and listening to us, and smiles. “I wanna be pretty like mommy and tall like daddy.”
“You’ve got it all worked out then, don’t you?”
She nods enthusiastically, and I can’t help thinking if only it were that easy—to pick and choose who we get to be like, what our life gets to look like, how it all works out. But we don’t have that luxury. Sometimes what begins as the picture of perfection ends in disaster on all sides. And often we have no idea what we want, or what we need, until it’s too late.
Or until we lose it.
“Did someone order cookies?”
“We did! We did!” Noelle shouts at Sam when he appears at his wife’s side in front of the table, four platters balanced on each palm. Seeing them together, Sam with his fabulous wife, makes me catch my breath. They are dark and light, strength and beauty, each one the ideal complement to the other. It’s no wonder they have the ideal child and the ideal life, too. Some people are just lucky enough to have it all.
Sam sets down his tower of cookie trays, and Noelle immediately stretches across the table in an attempt to grasp one with the tips of her fingers. Instinctively, I reach out to keep her from tipping over a stack of trays. Sam does the same. Our reactions were equal and simultaneous, and we laugh in unison.
“Good reflexes,” Sara observes. “You must be used to being around kids.”
I say nothing, only smile up at her. She returns my smile, tilting her head to watch me. For not more than a few seconds, we remain that way—smiling at one another, Sara examining me it would seem—until I look away. Her blatant curiosity, for whatever reason, makes me a little uncomfortable. It’s like she’s searching for something, and I can’t imagine what that might be.
Taking one tray off the top of a stack, I set it in front of Noelle, loosening the lid enough that she can get it off. “Why don’t you take the lid off this one and slide it all the way down to the end? Can you do that for me?”
She nods, already on the task. I’m guessing she watched her father—or maybe her mother—put the lids on last night.
I hear the low tones of Sam’s voice as he speaks to his wife. I make a point not to pay attention to the words until he says, “See ya later, Abi.”
I glance up and wave, quickly turning my attention back to the stacks of cookie trays and the little girl.
From the corner of my eye, I see Sara step closer to the table. “So, you and Sam went to school together, is that right?”
“We did.”
My stomach draws into a tight ball. Is she going to cuss me out for being a woman from her husband’s past? Does she think I have designs on him now?
“When Sam and I first got together, he was still kind of hung up on someone else. Someone he dated in high school. That wouldn’t have been you by chance, would it?”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen or talked to Sam since I left, almost twenty years ago. Maybe it was someone he met after I left.”
“But you did date, didn’t you?”
Oh, God! How do I get myself into these sticky situations? How do I always seem to trip and fall into a hornet’s nest? And, at the moment, there’s nothing I can do about it. Running isn’t an option. I can’t even make a hasty retreat. I’m stuck here, manning the cookie table for another few hours, unable to escape.
“Briefly.” I try to make my reply as breezy as possible, even though we dated for nearly three years and I’ve always considered Sam the first—and maybe the only real—love of my life.
“I thought I’d heard him mention an Abi before. Surely he wasn’t involved with more than one.”
I laugh a bit too loudly. “With Sam, who knows?”
Her smile turns conspiratorial. “Why? Was he a wild child? Spill. A woman can always use some dirt on her husband.”
“Who’s dirty, Mommy? Daddy?” Noelle asks, still on task, lining up cookie platters as I set them in front of her. Apparently, she can do more than one thing at a time. One can never underestimate the power of little ears.
“Nobody, baby. It’s just an expression.”
“What’s an espession?”
“Ex-pression. It’s a way of saying something, but it doesn’t mean exactly that thing. When I said ‘dirt’, I didn’t mean dirt from the ground.”
Noelle stops to look up at her mother, her mouth slightly agape and her brow puckered as she processes that. Finally, she scratches the side of her nose and asks, “Like daddy calls me ‘little bee’ but he doesn’t mean I’m a real bee?”
“Exactly.”
Good grief, she’s sharp! I know enough about growth and development to realize that Noelle is extremely intelligent for her age. Sam and Sara must be the proudest parents on the planet. I know I would be.
“Her mind never ceases to amaze me,” Sara remarks as though reading my thoughts.
“She’s exceptional.”
“That she is. I’ve been so blessed.”
Something in her voice draws my gaze to her face just in time to see a raw and bleeding wound, an achingly familiar pain in her eyes as she looks at her child. It’s the pain of loss, making me wonder what this woman has lost that I don’t know about.
We all have secrets, injuries. Scars. Some end up being invisible prisons that we carry with us wherever we go.
What keeps this woman prisoner?
Before I can think better of it, I’m asking, “Are you okay?” She looks as if she might burst into tears right here in front of the cookie table at the health fair.
At my question, she raises those tortured, watering eyes to mine and she nods, indicating that she’s fine. Of course, it’s a blatant lie. She is anything but fine.
“I-is there something I can get you? Or do for you?”
“Would you mind if I left Noelle here with you for just a few minutes? I’ll be right back.”
I resist the urge to prod her to open up, to offer an ear or a shoulder, whatever she needs.
None of my business. Don’t get involved.
“Of course. Take your time.”
Despite my intention not to get involved, however, I find that my thoughts wonder to Sara Forrester long after she’s gone. They turn through my mind like pages in a catalog of possibilities, each one more heart wrenching than the last.
Sara returns in less than fifteen minutes. She’s smiling and I have to admit that she looks better than she did when she left. Better, but still not really good.
“Thank you for letting Noelle help you, and for keeping an eye on her. Would you let us repay you with dinner? Sam is a magician on the grill.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary. Noelle is such a sweet little girl, it’s been my pleasure.”
“Please, Miss Abigail?” Noelle chimes in, tugging on the hem of my shirt.
“Abi.”
She’s not to be distracted. “Please Miss Abi?”
“I don’t think—”
“Pleeeease.”
“I really shouldn’t—”
“You can’t really say no to that face, can you?” Sara eyes me knowingly as she tips her head toward her daughter.
I laugh uncomfortably when I look back into the big green eyes that are pleading, quite successfully, for me to agree. Sara is right. I can’t say no. I’m helpless to resist Noelle.
“Pweeeease,” Noelle pleads again, this time with her cute speech impediment. It occurs to me that, as smart as she is, she probably understands how much further she can get with most people when she speaks in such an adorable way. I may be dealing with a budding con artist.
I remember a time when Sam could flash a cocky grin my way and get pretty much whatever the hell he wanted.
Like father, like daughter.
I sigh. “I’d love to. Just tell me when and what I can bring.”
“How about tomorrow night? If you don’t have plans, I mean.”
“Tomorrow night is fine. What can I bring?”
“Nothing. We’ll take care of everything. Seven?”
I nod, wishing I could find a graceful way to get out of it, but unwilling to offend Sara to do it. “I’ll be there.”
“You know which house is ours, right?”
“Uh, I think so,” I stammer, feeling uneasy answering either way. I don’t want to admit that I do, but I also don’t want to lie about it. “I’m sure I can find it with no problem.”
She gives me their address to be sure, citing, “We’re in the same cove as the house you’re renting.”
I nod again and smile. “Then I’ll see you at seven.”
Noelle wraps her arms around my legs and squeezes so tightly I can feel the tremble of her tiny muscles. I reach down to stroke her silky hair and a sharp pang shoots into my chest, spearing my heart. “What’s this for?”
“I can’t wait to show you my dolly,” she explains, face beaming up at me when she releases my leg.
“I can’t wait to see her.”
Before I can think better of it, I bend and press my lips to her forehead. It’s only as I’m rising that I realize I might be overstepping. Some mothers might be uncomfortable with a veritable stranger showing such affection to their child.
My eyes dart to Sara, who is watching us closely, her expression completely closed. I can’t tell whether she’s displeased or not, so I make a mental note to avoid such blunders in the future.
Quickly, I disentangle myself from Noelle and she races around the table to her mother. Sara takes her by the hand and leads her away without another word.
Dread settles into my gut like a box of cold stones. How the hell do I get myself into these messes?