The Breakaway(70)

She sighed, rubbed her eyes, and uttered words she rarely had occasion to say. “Let me go talk to my mother.”

Ten minutes later, she knocked on Eileen’s door.

“Mom?”

“Just a minute,” Abby heard Eileen say. The bedroom door swung open, and Eileen was standing on the threshold.

Abby hadn’t seen her mother in bedclothes in the past several decades. Her imagination had filled in the blank with silk peignoirs, or crisp cotton pants-and-top pajama combinations, styled like menswear, just oversized enough to make Eileen’s petite frame look even more dainty. But instead her mother was wrapped in a ratty bathrobe that was the opposite of chic. There was a stain on the collar, and one of the sleeves was coming unraveled. Abby was pretty sure the garment dated back to her mother’s first marriage, and, while it might have once been a pretty pale pink, at this point in its life it was a washed-out absence of color, a dingy grayish-white. Abby saw her mother’s bare feet underneath it, small and pale and fragile. She saw her mother’s hands, clutching the lapels, the nails perfectly manicured, without so much as a ragged cuticle or a chip in the gel polish, even though she’d been riding her bike outdoors for eight hours a day… but the hands were age-spotted and thin-skinned, with bulging veins. It occurred to Abby that not all the dieting in the world could stave off death. No amount of exercise could keep Eileen young forever. Someday, her mother would die. And leave a beautiful, skinny corpse, Abby thought.

“What is it?” asked Eileen. Without the usual three coats of mascara, her eyelashes were wispy, and her lips, without liner and lipstick, were the same color as her skin.

“Can I come in?”

Eileen looked puzzled, but she opened the door, then stood aside, sweeping her arm to indicate the neatly made bed. Abby perched on its edge and said, “Morgan has an appointment at Planned Parenthood this morning. We’re trying to find a way to get her there without her mother finding out.”

“Oh.” Abby watched Eileen absorb this news. She walked across the room slowly to the wooden desk, settling herself into its spindly chair, a piece of furniture Abby wouldn’t have attempted herself. Eileen crossed her legs, pulled the lapels of her robe to overlap more tightly, and looked at her daughter, head tilted, eyes narrowed.

“Is she going to Planned Parenthood to get birth control, or is she going because she should have gotten birth control a few months ago?”

“The second thing,” Abby said.

Eileen nodded, looking thoughtful, not judgmental. “Who else knows?” she asked.

“Morgan told Andy. Andy told his mother. Kayla told me. Morgan and Andy were going to hang toward the back when we started riding, then go to the clinic, and catch up at the end of the day. Except…” Abby gestured toward the window just as an especially vigorous gust of wind sent a sheet of rain slapping at the windowpane. “We aren’t riding today. So now the plan is for everyone to get in the sag wagon, or catch a ride in the RV, and head to Seneca Falls.” She rolled her eyes. “Except that dipshit Sebastian is insisting that he wants to ride, so I’ve got to ride with him.”

“You’re riding in this?” Abby heard the pulse of alarm in her mother’s voice. She found herself unexpectedly touched. “Is that safe?”

“I didn’t know you cared,” she said dryly.

“Well, that’s being a mother,” Eileen said, matching Abby’s tone. “You never stop caring.” She turned back to the window, looking out at the rain. “Do you really have to ride?”

“It’s my job. And I need to get Morgan squared away before I go.”

Abby watched as her mother smoothed her robe, tapping her tongue against the roof of her mouth. A familiar gesture, accompanied by familiar sounds that sent Abby right back to her childhood: sitting at the kitchen table, watching her mother poach eggs, or smear the thinnest layer of apple butter on her single slice of whole-grain toast.

“Can Morgan reschedule her appointment?” Eileen asked.

“I think,” Abby said carefully, “that time is of the essence.”

Eileen smoothed her hands over her legs. “How can I help? What do you need me to do?” she asked. Abby felt a rush of gratitude toward her mother, an upswelling of warmth as sweet as it was unfamiliar. Eileen wasn’t asking a bunch of questions, or making Abby repeat herself, or offering suggestions, or digressions, or her own take on the morality of the matter. She’d immediately grasped the problem and had offered to help just as quickly, and, in spite of the dislike that sometimes felt bone-deep and ineradicable, Abby could acknowledge that, sometimes, she and her mother were perfectly in harmony. Sometimes, Eileen got it right.

“If you could make sure Lily gets in the sag wagon for the first run, that would help,” Abby said. “Tell her you’ll take her shopping, or have a spa day in Seneca Falls. Keep her busy.”

Eileen nodded. If she’d heard any judgment in Abby’s suggestions about a spa day, any sense that Abby thought her mom was frivolous and vain, her expression didn’t change. “I’ll do my best,” she said. “Only…” She plucked at the robe’s belt. Here it comes, Abby thought.

“What?” she asked.

“Honestly, I don’t feel wonderful about helping a child lie to her parent. If it were one of my daughters—or my son—I’d want to know.”