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“Mom, for God’s sake,” Abi said, then abruptly closed her mouth.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” Lisa said. At no point had Abi implied in this story that she and Ilan had been doing anything improper, Abi had chosen her words carefully. But something in the way Lisa was looking at her made her squirm. It was the same feeling she got as a teenager when she used study hall to perfect her eyeliner technique.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Abi started, then broke off, not sure how to finish that sentence.
“Are we pretending you’re not seeing this person?” Judah asked, his tone innocent.
“Jude,” her mother said, a warning note in her voice. Her father shut up, but he looked slightly affronted. He reminded Abi of one of his lorikeets, all ruffled feathers. Lisa rolled her eyes and handed him a sleeve of crackers gesturing to the brie on the table. “Eat something, darling, you’ll feel better.”
“I’ve had exactly two conversations in two weeks with Ilan Efrat,” Abi explained, telling herself she wasn’t lying to her parents, exactly. She just wasn’t giving them the entire picture. She didn’t care how close they were, she wasn’t telling her parents she spent last Erev Shabbat humping a guy in a parking lot because they canceled dinner. Some things they just didn’t need to know.
Besides, she was responsible, wasn’t she?
She was usually the one who paid yearly subscriptions up front and in full. Amazon and Microsoft and all the streaming services and on and on took her for all she was worth but only once a year. She had lists for doctors’ appointments and hair appointments, and she kept meticulous records for tax season. She had to, she reasoned: she wrangled tiny humans for a living, so if she wasn’t on top of everything else in her life, she wouldn’t know what the day was most days.
“Doesn’t this worry you,” Judah said to Lisa, gesturing to Abi with a cracker. Something in the way he said it made Abi think they’d had the conversation before. He dipped the crackers into the brie, scooping a nice bit of the compote and shoved the whole thing in his mouth.
“At least use a napkin,” Lisa said, her tone reproachful. She looked at Abi and shrugged. “You know I never worry about Abigail. If she wants to ride a bike, she’ll ride a bike.”
“Perhaps we should retire that metaphor,” Judah said, glancing quickly at his daughter and then back to his wife. “And that’s not what I meant.”
“Itiswhat you meant, Jude,” Lisa said, “Abi doesn’t need us to worry about her or her relationship status. She is perfectly happy.”
“That’s just what she says—”
“I’m right here,” Abi said, waving a hand. She wondered what the fuck her parents were talking about. They had never said anything like this to her before.
“We know, darling, we’re talking about you,” Leah said sweetly before turning her attention back to her husband, “she knows we support her. She asks us for help when she needs it—she’sfine.”
“Mom’s right, I’m fine,” Abi said, wondering why she suddenly felt defensive.
Judah glared at his wife and poured himself a glass of wine. “That’s not the—”
“If she wanted our opinions, she’d ask for them.” Lisa looked at Abi and winked, “and since I haven’t heard her ask, I’m not going to force her to listen to what I think she should do.”
“Wait, what do you think I should do?” Abi said, crossing her arms. She was thoroughly confused. Lisa’s smile was patient, but she pointedly picked up the plate of brie, moving it out of Judah’s reach.
“Have some brie, precious, dinner will be ready in half an hour.”
“Theonetime Leah skips Shabbat dinner,” Abi muttered, scooping a large portion of brie and compote on a cracker and shoving the lot in her mouth. At least if Leah was there, she’d deflect some of whatever was happening right now. Or at least, maybe she would. It was also likely Leah would agree with her parents, though Abi still wasn’t too sure what her parents were talking about in the first place.
“We just want you to be happy,” Judah said, his tone conciliatory. His face was the bland one that Abi called his therapy face. It was perfectly neutral, impossible to read any meaning into his words other than exactly what he’d said.
“Right,” Abi said, finding it difficult to swallow so much cheese at once. Her mother moved her wine glass closer to her. Abi took the hint, splashing wine down her throat after the brie.
“Leah has Simon,” Lisa stated , and Abi rolled her eyes. Simon had been Leah’s best friend since kindergarten. They weren’t dating, and—as far as Abi knew—they never would. But Lisa was convinced the two were eventually going to settle down and have kids, if only because of so much close contact over such a long period of time. It was useless to try and tell her any differently so Leah and Abi stopped trying at least fifteen years ago.
“What your mother means is that your sister has more than one kind of support. Of course, she has you and us and Shoshana, but she also has Simon to lean on if she wants,” Judah translated.
“So, what? You’ll feel better if I make a special guy friend too?” Abi said. She knew damn well this was thewe think you should consider getting marriedspeech, but she wasn’t going to infer anything. If they wanted to say it, they were going to have to actually say it.
“Abigail,” Lisa said, and Abi raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t have to be. You know your father and I would welcome a daughter-in-law too.”
“Sometimes,” Judah began pointedly, and now he was using therapy voice in addition to therapyface, “we get so used to doing things by ourselves we forget how much easier it is to accept help from other people.”
“Hyper-independence is a trauma response,” Lisa said, and Judah winced, she was mucking up his flow.
Abi laughed out loud.“How exactly have I been traumatized?”
