Page 156 of The New Place

“You’ll come with me to look at Steve’s house?” Abbot asks, which isn’t an explanation or a comfort or what she needs, he knows, but it’s at least something.

“I’ll get my own room, if you buy it?” She doesn’t soften, exactly, but she doesn’t elbow him away, either.

“Yes,” he says without stopping to think it through. He hugs her tighter. Well, why not? It’ll be his house. Ned is a someday Abbot will have to wait for, and Liesl is here right now, and he’s let her down. “Whichever one you’d like.”

“The best one.”

“Well, no, because that will be mine.”

“But you said.”

“Then we’d have to share it,” Abbot says, trying to get a smile from her. “Bunk beds, in that case.”

“What? No way.”

“Then you can sleep on the floor.”

“You’re the worst,” she says and shoves at him, but the push is as light as her words are and that’s better than her misery.

Though that heavy sadness sits on her face still. He has to fix this. How, he doesn’t know, but he’ll have to sort it out before he hurts her any more.

The door to the stairs opens with a squeal. Abbot tenses, ready for a student he’ll have to be polite to, an answer he’ll have to come up with.

But Chris greets them with a raised hand and a cheerful smile. “I was just coming to find you two. How’s married life treating you?”

Complicated, apparently.

“Fine,” Abbot says and pictures Ned’s look of frustration at that word, not so different from Liesl’s resentment toward him. “I mean, good. It’s good.” Oh, he is really not skilled in offering details, is he?

Chris just accepts the words, clearly not expecting him to add anything else.

But Ned expects more. Has asked for it, again and again as Abbot has held him away as surely as he’s done to Liesl.

And her anger waited for him, all this time. The edge of tears in her voice.

How very easy it has been to let himself keep on like he has been, and how very unfair that is to those he loves.

32

NED

Ned’s phone rings as he walks in the house after work, Baxter snuffling at his ankles, his tail wagging.

“Hey, Claire?” he answers as he gives Baxter a quick pet. “Congrats.”

“Thanks,” she says on a laugh. “Yeah. This is happening. A baby.”

“It’s going to be great. I’m so excited.”

“Well, I’m terrified, so there’s that. And congrats to you too.”

“Big weekend. You’re going to do great.”

“I sure hope so. Listen, I got Baxter’s bloodwork back.”

“Oh? Good news?” Ned heads up the stairs, Baxter trailing him. It’s quieter up here, with Dad playing music in the kitchen as he cooks, and Ned shuts the door behind Baxter and quickly checks his watch. He has to leave soon to meet Abbot and Steve for this dinner they’ve apparently set up.

“Good news that we were able to diagnose him, and the better news is that it’s entirely treatable.”