Abbie Warner looked at her steadily, and her expression was sad.
“It seems like a very hard way to live your life, Hannah. To go through this world so alone, believing in no one. Tied to no one.”
“I didn’t say that,” Hannah said, stung. “I didn’t say I didn’t believe, or that I wasn’t tied.”
“Oh?”
“I believe in . . .” She let her voice trail away, suddenly lost for words.
“What? What do you believe in?”
It took her a moment. “I believe we choose our people. That we choose them and we love them and we do everything we can to protect them and keep them safe. And that’s it.”
“You’re talking about family,” Abbie said. She considered Hannah, head tilted to one side.
“I guess.”
“So why the Project, then?” Abbie asked.
“Sorry?”
“I understand what you’ve said to me,” she said. “What you’ve explained. I’l tel you that I don’t agree with it. As a philosophy, I think it stinks. I think it’s a dangerous, self-defeating way to think. If everyone in the world thought the way you did, we’d descend into some sort of anarchic tribalism, wouldn’t we? But let’s say you real y believe everything you’ve said to me tonight. Why the Project? Why are you there? I’m not sure I buy your work experience thing.”
From anyone else the words would have seemed hostile, confrontational, but Abbie gave off a different vibe. Like she wanted a tough, but mutual y respectful debate and assumed Hannah would want to give it to her. Stil , Hannah was thoroughly thrown. She stared back at the other woman, aware of the flush in her cheeks, feeling that her wineglass was suddenly too heavy. She put it down on the coffee table. “It’s complicated,” she said.
“I think I’m a pretty smart person,” Abbie said. “Why don’t you try me?”
“Wel , why does Sean work there?”
“Oh, Sean’s easy. He’s a romantic. He believes that he can save the world. Righting one wrong at a time.”
Hannah raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t believe me?” Abbie said.
“No, I do. I mean, I could see that about him. I just think . . . I mean, Sean’s so smart . . .”
“You think smart people can’t be romantic, or idealistic? Sean’s the best kind of romantic. He has a romantic’s soul and the mind of a pragmatist. He wastes no one’s time with fantasies, least of al his own. He sees the world as it real y is and then he sets out to make it better.”
Hannah studied Abbie. “You make him sound like a saint.”
Abbie laughed. “God no, far from that. Just a boy. Just a good and decent boy.”
Sean arrived back in the living room just in time to hear the end of Abbie’s comment. “Who’s a good and decent boy, Mom?” he asked, smiling.
“I was talking about the dog,” Abbie said. She leaned forward and rubbed the sleeping retriever behind the ears. “He’s the only one who gives me any love in this house.”
Sean rol ed his eyes and Hannah smiled politely. She was feeling the effects of the wine, but more than that she was feeling as if she had just been very thoroughly smacked down.
“More, Hannah?” Sean asked, gesturing to her glass, which was stil a quarter ful .
“No, thank you,” Hannah said. “I think the day has just caught up with me. Do you mind if I go to bed? I’m exhausted.”
Hannah sat on the bed and pul ed out her phone. She cal ed Laura’s number. It rang for a while before Laura answered.
“Hannah? It’s so late.”
Hannah glanced at her screen and started guiltily. It was after eleven P.M. “I’m sorry, I lost track of time. I’l let you go, cal you tomorrow.”
“No, no.” Laura yawned. “It’s fine. It’s just . . . I’m exhausted.”
“Of course you are. You’ve had a hard day.”
“Yes. It’s always hard without you.”
“I know, Mom. I’m sorry. Why don’t you tel me what you did today, and then you can go to sleep while I stay on the line for a while. That wil make it a bit better, right?”
Hannah lay back on the pil ow and closed her eyes and listened to her mother tel her about her day spent at home, reading, taking a walk in the garden and a long bath, while Jan cleaned and cooked.
She told herself she was glad that Laura was safe and cared for. She told herself that she and her mother had a strong, healthy, loving relationship. She told herself a lot of things. And then she slept.