In retrospect, she was almost grateful for it—and even for that uncomfortable call with Scofield—because they were now in a better place, with a small but legitimate circle of support.
Abe had two friends, if you counted Colin. He had Dr. Shapiro and Nan and the Kingdom School, which had its faults but was a good fit.
And Jen had the women of book club, not the Hitchcockian murder of crows she had imagined in darker moments, but more a circle of clucking mother hens.
As she turned into their driveway, Jen realized that the spot between her scapulae, usually rock-hard, was relaxed. Her entire body felt warm and content.
There were less complicated children out there, but there were also parents who might have handled it all better. In the name of protecting Abe, Jen had lost nuance, self-awareness, her career: everything that had made Jen Jen.
Almost everything. When Maxine Das had recalled Jen as the tigress from graduate school, Jen hadn’t initially recognized herself because all of that fire and drive wasn’t channeled toward the pursuit of tenure anymore.
It had all been repurposed, focused on Abe.
Jen had been stuck in tigress mode for years. But there were reinforcements now. Maybe the beast could finally loosen her hold.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Annie found the spools of thread exactly where Lena had directed her, in a large wicker basket, lined neatly and color-coordinated in rainbow order. She scooped up all of the ones that might be construed as pink.
The upstairs hallway smelled like Lena’s perfume and fresh paint. Annie remembered more on the walls, which now seemed stark. Rachel’s room was only a few feet down the hall. Annie walked toward it, keeping her footsteps soft and slow. She pressed her weight against the doorknob, and twisted it open.
It was still a teenaged girl’s bedroom. Mint-green duvet and oversized pink fluffy pillow shams. The same giant giraffe in the corner. On the bedside table was Rachel’s eleventh-grade summer reading: The Great Gatsby, The Taming of the Shrew. A gray sweatshirt was folded over the back of the desk chair, like Rachel was about to shrug into it, plop down on the bed.
Over the desk was a giant posterboard collage. Images of Olympic medals, swimmers diving into pools and standing on winner’s podiums. Excellence, Rachel had cut-and-pasted. Champion. Winner. 100 Fly.
Annie had had no idea that Rachel was so obsessed with swimming. What else didn’t she know?
She wanted to rifle through the desk drawers, spread everything out on Rachel’s bed and spend the rest of the evening poring through it, but she forced herself to leave before Lena would notice she’d been gone too long.
* * *
“Could these work?” Annie said.
She had returned from upstairs mellowed, and she carefully lined up the pink spools, and inexplicably a red and two purple ones, next to the sewing machine, for Lena’s examination.
When Lena heard the ascending scales of her ringtone, she looked around the sewing-machine table for her phone.
“It’s over here.” Annie darted to the shelves across the room, picked up the phone. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”
“What?” Lena said.
“Oh. My. God. It’s Rachel!” Annie’s face flushed pink and she hopped in place like a sweepstakes winner. “Rachel would like to video chat!”
In a clumsy rush, Lena rose from her stool. Her knees jostled the sewing machine, and the caftan slipped to the floor along with the seven unraveling spools of thread.
Lena had the sensation that she, too, was falling, head over heels over head. Her feet tangled in the caftan’s silk and she watched helplessly as Annie reached out a fingertip to press Accept.
“Well, hello, Rachel Meeker,” Annie said into the phone. “How are you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Jen found Abe alone in his room, stretched out on his bed with his computer on his lap. He was so absorbed in his programming that he didn’t notice her in the doorway.
She smiled, watching him type, chuckle at the screen. “What’s so funny?”
He slammed shut the top of the computer. “Nothing.”
“Where’s your Foxhole buddy?” Jen pointed to the beanbag chair.
“Do you mean Laurel Perley?” Abe said. “She’s not my Foxhole buddy.”
“Oh? What’s her title then?”
“Either a nullity”—Abe tilted his head—“or an enemy.”
“But, but, but,” Jen sputtered, “she was just here, debating which takeout place to order from.”
“Everyone needs fuel,” he said flatly. “Sharing a physical location does not confirm friendship.”