options. “The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds,” she said out loud to no one. Her breath made little puffs of white in the winter air, and she sat in the car until it was too cold to bear, and then she walked inside the house.
“Mom, I’m not getting married,” Abby said as soon as she walked through the door. Her mother was reading a book on the couch, and she marked her place with her finger before she looked up.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m not getting married.” Abby made no move to take off her jacket or move farther into the room.
“Al right, then,” she said. “Why don’t you come on in, and we’l talk about it?” She put the book down on the couch and stood up. “Would you like some tea?” she asked. Abby nodded.
Abby’s mom didn’t even look surprised to see her. She’d driven al the way from New York, walked into the house unannounced, and her mom acted like she’d been expecting her. Abby had never been able to shock her mom. Once, in col ege, Isabel a had said, “Can you imagine if you had to tel your mom that you were pregnant?” She shuddered after she asked this and Abby made a sympathetic noise, but she couldn’t real y relate.
Abby could have told her mom that she’d been arrested for heroin possession while carrying on a lesbian affair, and she would have taken it in and then suggested that they talk about it.
“So, wil we stil have the party then?” her mom asked. They were sitting at the kitchen table with their tea, and it took Abby a minute to realize that she meant the wedding. She and Abby’s father were never official y married, of course, so maybe she thought they just decided to skip the legal part and live together forever.
“No, Mom,” Abby said. “No party, no wedding.”
“So you and Matt are …”
“Done. We broke up.” She nodded and blew on her tea.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “That’s a shame.”
Abby wanted her to scream or cry or jump on the table. Tears of frustration came to her eyes, and she shut them tightly.
“Oh, sweet pea. Oh, Abby,” she said. “Come here.” Abby let her mother pul her onto her lap like she was a little girl. She cried for about two minutes and then felt like an idiot sitting on her mom’s lap, and so she got up and went back to her seat.
“I’m fine,” Abby said. “It was for the best.”
“Then this is the right thing to do,” she said.
“Mom, I don’t think we’l be able to get much money back,” Abby said. “It’s only three weeks away. I don’t know what they’l do.”
Her mom was already waving her hands at her. “That is not for you to worry about. Money is just money.” Abby wondered, not for the first time in her life, if her mom would stil think that money was just money if she didn’t have so much of it.
“I have to stay here for a couple of days while Matt moves his stuff out of the apartment,” Abby said.
“Of course,” she said. “Do you need help with anything else?”
“Not now,” Abby said. “But I have to start cal ing people soon, I guess, to tel them that the wedding is off. I guess that’s what I should do.”
“I can do that,” her mom said. “These things happen al the time. No big whoop. We’l get it al straightened out.”
“Thanks,” Abby said. “Can I have a real drink?”
“Sure, honey. Wine or vodka?”
“Vodka,” Abby said. “I think this cal s for vodka.”
The next morning, Abby walked downstairs to find her dad making eggs in the kitchen. He saw her and gave her a hug. “Your mom told me what happened, kiddo. I’m real y sorry about that,” he said.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Do you want some eggs? Sunny side up or scrambled?”
“Sure,” she said. “Scrambled, I guess.”
Her dad nodded and turned back to the stove. He whistled while he cracked the eggs and beat them with a fork. “If you like, you can help me feed the birds when you’re done,” he said as he put the plate in front of her.
“Sure, Dad,” she said. She waited until he walked out of the kitchen, and then got up and scraped the eggs into the garbage.
Abby put on rubber boots that were by the back door, and borrowed her mom’s winter jacket. Stil in her pajamas, she slogged through the snow to the chicken coop. She thought about brushing her hair, but there was real y no need to. She pushed open the door to the coop and smel ed the coop smel of poo and bird dirt.
“Dad?” she cal ed.
“Back here, kiddo.”
