She walked past the cages, wrinkling her nose at the dirty birds. Abby’s parents had started raising birds when she was twelve. “We eat so much poultry,” her mom explained. “And people are starting to talk about the way these birds are raised. This is much more humane, Abby. We know that the birds are fed right, and treated right.”
Her parents didn’t kil the birds themselves. They had someone come in and do it for them and prep the meat. Abby had never seen it happen, but less than a year after they built the coop, she stopped eating meat.
“Abby, don’t be ridiculous!” her mother would say. “This is good for you. This is delicious meat!”
“It makes me sick!” she’d say. And it did. The thought of chewing chicken in her mouth made her want to gag. When she tried to eat it, it refused to go down her throat. Once, she got a bite halfway down and then promptly threw up on her plate. “Fine,” her mom said after that. “You don’t have to eat chicken anymore.”
Abby’s dad was pouring seed from a bag into a trough. “Want to start feeding them?” he asked. She took a plastic pitcher they kept there and fil ed it with the feed. She poured the right amount into each of the birds’ feed bins. Every time a bird came clucking up to her, she stuck her tongue out at it.
Thea cal ed that afternoon. “I heard what happened,” she said. “Mom cal ed and left a message. That’s rough.”
“Yeah,” Abby said. “I guess you get out of your maid of honor duties, though.”
“I guess.” Abby could hear her light a cigarette and take a drag.
“Mom and Dad are being real y calm,” Abby told her. “It’s like nothing happened.”
“You know how they are,” she said, exhaling the smoke and choking just a little bit. “Plus, they never real y liked Matt.”
“Yes, they did.” Abby felt wounded to hear this.
“Oh, Abby. I don’t mean that they hated him. But you know. He wasn’t their type.”
“Why? Because he showered and wore clean clothes?”
“No, because he always thought he knew everything. You could sense it about him. Not that I minded him. He had a real y interesting energy.”
“Right.”
“Do you want to say hi to your niece? She’s right here.”
“Sure, put her on the phone.”
Abby heard rustling and then she heard Thea say, “Say hi to your aunt Abby. Tel her hel o!”
“Your mother is a moron,” Abby said into the phone, and then she hung up.
“We should go snowshoeing,” her mother said on the third day she was home. “It wil do you good to get out in the fresh air.”
“Okay,” Abby said.
“You’re so young,” her mom said as they trekked across the snow. “You’l see that this is for the best.”
“I’m twenty-five,” Abby said. “When you were my age, you already had Thea.”
“Wel , I wasn’t married.”
“So you think I should get pregnant?”
“Oh, Abby,” she said. “I hate to see you so sad.”
“Thea cal ed,” Abby said. “She told me that you and Dad never liked Matt.”
“That’s not true. We like anyone that you bring home. Anyone you like, we like.”
“But that’s not the same thing. Did you real y like him? Are you happy we’re not getting married?”
Her mom sighed. “Abby,” she said. “You have always known what you wanted. I never doubted you. But things happen for a reason, and if there was trouble, then yes, I am glad that you aren’t getting married.”
“I didn’t say there was trouble.”
“People don’t cal off weddings if everything is hunky-dory.” Her mom’s nose was dripping, and she wiped it with her glove. Abby looked down at the snow and pressed her weight forward on her snowshoes. “Come on,” her mom said. “We should get back. Your father wil be worried.”
Abby watched her mom pat her arm, but she couldn’t feel it through al the layers of clothes. She watched her go
Before Abby left New York to come home, she sent an e-mail to al of her friends that said: “The wedding is off. No one reason, just lots of little ones. I’l explain more later. Abby.”
She was sure her friends had been cal ing and e-mailing, but she didn’t get any cel service at her parents’ house. For once, she was relieved.
Usual y it drove her crazy, and she would stand on chairs and hold the phone up in the air to try to get some sort of signal. “Come on!” she would say to the phone. “Give me something.”
This time, Abby hadn’t even taken her phone out of her bag. She knew she’d eventual y have to go back to New York and face it. She would have to see her friends and drink vodka and listen to them tel her that it was for the best, that she’d be happier in the long run. She would exhaust herself, going out almost every night, deconstructing
