By quarter past eight they were back on the road, two little girls tucked snugly into their seats in the back, both falling slowly into the land of nod as the car carried on and the occasional vehicle passed by with a swoosh. Even Amelia had slowed the pace as they headed towards the eye of the storm, the rain turning into a pattering hail, bouncing off the shiny black finish of the SUV. In the absence of any five-year-old requests and one call from Amelia for something to keep her awake and send the kids to sleep Abby had settled for Aerosmith, with slight confusion from Amelia as to how that was intended to send anyone to sleep.
"You know she's worried about me turning into her evil stepmother." Abby said turning back around, away from Imogen and glancing over at Amelia.
"Who Imm?" Amelia asked stealing a frowned glance at Abby.
"Yeah." Abby asserted with a nod as she stared out at the road ahead, resisting the urge to ask who else Amelia thought would be worried about it.
"She told you that?" Amelia frowned slightly keeping her eyes on the road, it was too rainy and icy and windy now to do anything but.
"No, Lauren told me she was." Abby said with a sigh, running her hands through her hair, shuffling in her seat again to get comfortable as she reached to turn the heater up a little. "Has she said anything to you about it?" Abby asked looking over at Amelia who began to shake her head, pouting slightly.
" No, neither of them have, Lauren's asked me whether you're going to be Imm's Mom but she never told me any evil stepmother worries." Amelia replied, a concentrated expression on her face as she racked her memory trying to recall any mention of it.
"Well apparently it's the rules." Abby sighed as she crossed her arms and shook her head looking out of the window. She wasn't entirely sure how to feel about the whole thing; first off she was going to be a stepmother, she was going to be a stepmother to a five year old girl who she was getting more and more attached to as the days went by; she didn't want Imogen to be worried about it, but if she was it meant that it was a possibility, there was a chance that she would turn into an evil stepmother.
"What rules?" Amelia asked a derogatory edge to her voice as she frowned, her eyes fixed on the white lines zipping under the car.
"The evil stepmother rules, as soon as I become her stepmother then apparently I have to go down the Cinderella route." Abby said as she shook her head, a slightly comedic edge to her voice as she finished looking over at Amelia who smiled slightly as Abby spoke.
"Oh, the Cinderella rules." Amelia smiled glancing over at Abby as she nodded. "Well have you talked to her about it?" She questioned as her eyes returned to concentrate on the road ahead.
"Nope, Lauren just told me while you and Imm were in the bathroom at the first gas station." Abby explained, rubbing her eye quickly with a knuckle.
"Well then just tell her it's not going to happen." Amelia shrugged.
"Yeah, no, I'm going to." Abby nodded as she flipped through the CD wallet on her lap, deliberately busying herself with something else to avoid talking.
"Are you ok?" Amelia frowned slightly sensing there was something else Abby wanted to say.
"Me? Yeah I'm fine why?" Abby replied all too quickly as she looked over at Amelia, stopping the CD as she did, extracting another from the wallet and exchanging Areosmith for Simon and Garfunkel.
"Are you sure?" Amelia asked clearly not believing Abby's answer as she stole a glance in her direction.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Abby nodded dismissively as she settled back in her seat, crossing her arms, staring out ahead.
"Abby." Amelia pushed slightly, looking a little concerned as her eyes focused ahead, the headlight's bouncing off the water strewn across the road, the hail was bouncing into the water each stone causing little plops, scattering the water droplets on top of one another. Amelia could see Abby in her peripheral vision; she could see her rubbing at her forehead, scratching it lightly with her nails as she let out a quiet sigh, her lips puckering into a pout as she thought. "What's up?" Amelia asked quietly, frowning a little, she couldn't take her eyes off the road anymore; it was now too windy and wet to risk looking over too often.
It was one of those moments, there was nothing else and whatever Abby was thinking was penetrating the air in the car, Amelia could sense it, she could feel it; Imogen and Lauren were both fast asleep, there was no Jasper, no Nick, no anyone, it was just Abby and her thoughts surrounding them and Amelia could feel it, this was what road trips were for after all, getting lost in your own thoughts; but Abby had brought it up and Amelia was keen to hear it.
Abby remained silent for a minute or two before answering Amelia, who was now pulling the sleeves of her sweater down her forearms, almost over her hands as she grasped the wheel, she was using every ounce of will power she possessed to prevent herself from staring over at her sister. Abby sighed again, focusing her eyes on the dark distance, her arms still crossed firmly over her chest.
"What if I'm shit at this? I mean, I don't have kids and there's a reason for that, and I've done the whole wife thing before and I wasn't exactly good at in then, and I mean there's a chance that I could…I don't know, I don't want to screw her up, I don't want to screw any of this up, I don't want either of them to end up hating me." Abby said shaking her head, blinking as she tuned to watch the passing fields as she stared out of the passenger side window.
Amelia remained silent for a couple of minutes, digesting what Abby had said as they sped on, she'd never seen Abby like this before, she always came across as being this strong, self-assured person, everyone had insecurities, even the most arrogant people, it was human nature; Abby most certainly wasn't arrogant, but she'd never shown Amelia this humbling self doubt before, she'd always been the one to assure her, over the last fifteen months anyway, but now, this obvious genuine concern that Imogen would end up hating her or that she'd disappoint Nick bewildered Amelia slightly, from what she knew of Abby, from where she stood, there was no way in the world that Abby ever would or ever could hurt or disappoint either Imogen or Nick, but that was a fear she quite clearly had. Amelia glanced over at her briefly, Abby was shaking her head, the muscles around her jaw flexing, her eyes even looking out into the distance.
"Abby, she's never going to end up hating you." Amelia said, returning her eyes to the road, "Neither of them will ever end up hating you, they can't; they don't know how to do that." Amelia said quietly, her face taking on a serious, sad, concerned expression as her eyes stayed focused.
"You don't know that." Abby replied shaking her head, turning to look out of the windscreen again as she looked resigned, accentuating it with a small acquiescent shrug.
"You're already better at this whole parenting thing than most parents, she loves you, she wants you to be her Mom, that's got to mean something." Amelia said frowning still as she glanced at Abby again. "Doesn't it?" She asked shaking her head slightly as she returned her eyes to the road, conveniently spotting a sign for a truck stop. If she was going to have this conversation, she'd rather have it when she wasn't trying to focus on doing too many things at once, and possibly when she could have a cigarette.
"She's scared of me turning into a whole other person, and if I'm honest…what are you doing?" Abby asked frowning over at Amelia as they pulled off the road again and into the truck stop.
"I can't have a serious conversation about this while I'm driving, and I need a cigarette and I'm guessing that you might want one too." Amelia told her with a forlorn smile as she switched the car off and turned towards Abby. "If you're honest what?" She asked pushing Abby to carry on as she fished around to find a lighter.
"I don't know y'know." She started again with a sigh as she ran her hand over her face and through her hair. "If I'm honest I'm terrified of loosing control, I don't want to turn back into the person I was when I was married to Richard and I…I can almost see how it would happen." She said shaking her head, her eyes tired and sorrowful as she avoided Amelia's gaze, only looking up when she noticed the proffered cigarettes waving around from Amelia's outstretched hand. She swallowed and managed a weak smile as she extracted one from the packet.
They both unbuckled their seatbelts and extracted themselves from the car minus their jackets; they slammed the car doors and moved under the shelter Amelia had parked up in front of.
"You know if we keep stopping like this then it's going to take the entire weekend even to get to Maggie's." Abby half laughed, ruefully, as Amelia lit her cigarette and passed the lighter over as she rested her back against the bonnet of the car.
"Well I'm sure she'd understand, this is the first road trip you and I have ever taken." Amelia smiled over, exhaling a plume of smoke in a deliberate thin line as she passed one of her arms over her stomach, resting her other elbow on her hand, her cigarette wavering in the air. "What d'you mean you can see yourself turning back into the person you were when you were married before?" She asked quietly looking over at Abby's profile, her eyes curious.
Abby paused before answering, breathing smoke out, giving herself time to think before she spoke, the smoke was expelled from her lungs all too quickly though and so she opted for hanging her head slightly, concentrating her gaze on the ground as she gently washed her foot backwards and forwards over the accumulating water, finally she stopped, bringing her head up to look back over at Amelia.
"I'm an alcoholic, and when I was with Richard I was a mess, not in the beginning, but…" She paused thinking how she should go on; she followed her resigned smile with a shrug and looked back at the ground as she continued to speak. "But at the end, I was a disaster, I was all over the place, and I hated it, I did, if I hadn't hated it I would have carried on like that, I wouldn't have tried not to be like that and I can see myself doing to Nick what I did to Richard, but it won't be just doing it to Nick, it'll be doing it to Imogen, and once you start that, you can't come back. I destroyed my marriage, not single handedly, but…" She paused before carrying on , "…but it was mostly me, I mean, I never talked to him, I never told him anything, and I was the one that sent him packing." She paused staring out into space, "He was the one who asked for the divorce but it, it was…I was the one who destroyed it, and I don't blame him for doing what he did; Jesus if he'd acted the way I did then I would have done the same thing and I'm terrified of doing it again, because it wasn't what I set out to do then." She paused closing her eyes, shaking her head.
"What are you talking about?" Amelia asked looking over at her, completely baffled now, Abby was rambling, she was… Amelia didn't know what she was, but she wasn't being the Abby she usually was, she was morphing into some weird, rambling, self-doubting, self-depreciating stranger Amelia had never met.
"I boycotted myself Amelia, I just, I don't even know what I did really but I've always done it, I do it, I need it to be complicated or down to something I can't control or something I can blame because then I have an excuse to stop, and I can blame everything falling apart on something else, and at the moment it doesn't seem like it's like that." She said, her face contorted, giving off something of a confused, bitter expression.
"If you don't think it's difficult then you need to tell me what you're doing because you clearly have this raising children malarkey down better than I do." Amelia smiled attempting to lighten the tone slightly, relatively unsuccessfully as Abby let out small half chuckle and rolled her eyes, taking another drag on her cigarette, Amelia half smiled as well as she continued. "Which part of all of this do you think you're going to be shit at?" She asked quietly, kicking the ground slightly as she dropped her cigarette butt into a small puddle.
"What?" Abby asked as Amelia finished, she looked over at her little sister who was now leaning against the bonnet, her arms crossed over her chest, her head bowed slightly, but turned in her direction.
"You said 'what if I'm shit at this'. Which part do you think you're going to be shit at?" Amelia questioned again still half looking at Abby.
Abby paused, biting her jaw slightly, she moved her hand glancing at the cherry on the end of her cigarette about to take another drag, deciding against it though she flicked it away from her body, watching it catch in the wind and flutter down a little way away from them.
"Are you not going to ask me about being an alcoholic, or how I screwed up my first marriage?" Abby asked, her tone pretending to be light and resigned, but clearly baring the underlying bitterness and resentment.
"Nope." Amelia shook her head. "You got divorced what four years ago?" She said pouting slightly herself as she looked over at Abby.
"Almost five." Abby confirmed for her.
"Right, and you were married for four years you said." Amelia asked looking over for confirmation again as Abby nodded. "So you got married pushing nine years ago now, so if you're opinions or lifestyle haven't changed even slightly since then I'd be amazed, and you're not marrying the same guy, if Nick and Richard are anything like each other then I'd ask, but from what you've told me about Richard I'd be surprised if he was anything like Nick when you married him." Amelia shrugged "And the alcoholic thing…" She trailed off, pausing before turning her head to look at Abby, surveying her suspiciously for a second. "I didn't know, and I wouldn't have guessed, I couldn't have guessed, which I think probably means that you're good with it which means that I don't really think that it's any of my business unless you choose to talk to me about it, which you're more than welcome to do if you want to." She finished with a smile and a shrug as Abby almost laughed and shook her head, blinking and looking away. What was with these people why were they not all running for their lives? "So which part of this do you think you're going to be shit at?" Amelia pushed, getting back on track as she looked back at Abby, the concern back in her eyes. Abby closed her eyes and sighed again running her hand through her hair before answering.
"I don't know, all of it I guess, I'm not a good wife, I know that much and I never thought I'd ever be anyone's mother so I just…" She trailed off shaking her head, taking a deep breath, the muscles in her jaw flexing again. "I can't see myself doing this and not fucking the whole thing up." She said looking over at Amelia again, shrugging shaking her head, looking away.
"If you don't want to be his wife then you've got quite a bizarre way of showing it." Amelia said smiling and frowning at the same time as her chest collapsed slightly and she suppressed a chuckle.
"You see though that's the thing, I do, I do want it, and I've told him that I'm not good at it, and I promised myself after I got divorced that I was never going to get married again, but now…" She trailed off again shaking her, as she sighed.
"Why shouldn't you get married again?" Amelia asked frowning slightly in confusion as she cut in.
"I just I didn't think I'd want to, I didn't want to." Abby told her accentuating her last words, her head still shaking.
"Abby there's nothing wrong with loving the guy, there's nothing wrong with marrying him, and there's nothing wrong with admitting that it something that you want to do, something that you're going to do." Amelia said earnestly looking a little perturbed. "What happened to the grinning idiot status thing you had going, that was a much more fun frame of mind." She added with a trace of a smile creeping onto her lips.
"I don't know y'know." Abby said, ignoring Amelia's final comment, she never really admitted her fears, not really, and this was something she was scared of, she was terrified, because she loved Nick, and she loved Imogen, and she'd told Imogen that, but only in a way that you can tell five year olds, but they were her life now, if Maggie went off the rails again when say something happened to Nick she would actually be in a quandary as to who to be with; Maggie or Eric would have won hands down in the past, now they didn't straight up win, and that was what terrified her. Somehow bringing Nick and Imogen into the Maggie and Eric mix, as well as Amelia, Jasper and Lauren all suddenly being present made something already so complicated even more so and it had the potential to all become just too hectic.
"Well what do you think you're going to do to fuck the whole thing up?" Amelia asked, she was doing her best to be reassuring, she wanted to hear Abby out, she wanted Abby to be able to tell her and she wanted to make sure that Abby knew that she'd be there to listen, and hopefully offer some semblance of constructive advice.
"I could do anything, I could start drinking again, something could happen with Maggie or Eric or me even and I'd just let it all go, I know I would." She said, rubbing her hand over her face, letting out a long controlled breath.
"D'you seriously think you'd start drinking again, I mean you drink now, but not excessively, I've never seen you wasted in over a year, why would you, why would you want to if you're sober now?" Amelia asked frowning slightly.
"Does anyone want to? I don't know, it's not like it's a choice anymore." Abby shook her head, closing her eyes, sighing again.
"Surely that's exactly what it is though, you choose not to get out of you mind every day, you choose not to drink to excess, that's a choice surely, if you were a mess before then that's before, you're definitely not a mess now, in fact I'd say you were pretty together now, that's something you've chosen, it's something you've worked for." Amelia said, honesty etched on her words as she tried emphatically to get Abby to understand that she, and almost everyone else had nothing but praise for her.
"I know, but there's no grantee that something won't happen again that tips the scale, there are days where it takes everything I have not to go from one drink to the next, when I have to turn everything down because I know that if I touch anything then it'll be the beginning of the end." She shook her head yet again, rubbing her face wearily.
"But you do it though, the fact that you want to get trashed and you don't, that's the part that counts, that's surely the part that means you get through it, that makes you a recovering alcoholic rather than just an alcoholic." Amelia said her eyes full of angst for Abby, she couldn't believe that she hadn't know any of this, well she could believe it, but it seemed now like it was something that was eating Abby alive and Amelia wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to do about it.
Abby looked over at Amelia her eyes full of guilty sorrow; she looked almost broken somehow, searching for some kind of help.
"I don't want to go back to that, and some days it just feels like it's only just around the corner, it feels like all I have to do is take that one step and there's oblivion; just waiting for me." Abby half laughed ruefully, still looking into Amelia's eyes, her head shaking the faintest bit as she bit her lip and let out a single ironic chuckle.
Amelia stayed silent for a moment, watching Abby as she drew her cigarette up to her lips, staring off into the distance. Amelia threaded her hand up to her shoulder and under the neckline of her hoodie, scratching lightly at the back of her shoulder. She waited for a moment longer before talking.
"If oblivion is around one corner then there's something else around the other one, Abby, you have to know that if you choose that route then you're right, you will fuck up; but you can't be hell bent on thinking you'll destroy it without trying, you can't think about it like it's inevitable, because it's not." Amelia paused, her cheeks pulling in, the corners of her mouth turning down as she emitted a small, frustrated breath and looked down. "I don't know if you remember or not, but when you guys were at our house when I got back from that funeral…" Amelia said, her face still pulled into a serious, concentrated expression as Abby looked over at her. "You told me that if I hadn't let it destroy me then I couldn't give in to it." Amelia said looking perplexed as she turned her head to meet Abby's eyes.
"This is nothing like that." Abby shook her head her voice little more than a whisper.
"It is though Abby, if you've gotten through this once, if you've accepted it and dealt with it once then you can do it again, and you don't even have to do it again at the moment, you've not even begun to head down that path, but if you do then you know that you can get back from it, you know that you can because you've done it once already, and it's probably the hardest thing you've ever had to do, but you did it and you survived it, so don't punish yourself for it, don't deny yourself things that you want just because of the things that have already happened; that's not going to make you happy and it's not going to make anyone else happy either." Amelia finished shaking her head.
"I'm not sure I can be happy Amelia, I'm not sure I know how to let myself be happy, I've spent so long being unhappy that it feels like anything else isn't the way it should be." Abby said quietly shaking her head again, her body shifting against the bonnet of the car.
"Come here." Amelia said after half a seconds pause grabbing Abby's arm.
"What?" Abby frowned slightly as Amelia pulled at her.
"Just come here." Amelia said frowning a little frustrated as she dragged Abby out from under the shelter and around the side of the car. Amelia let go of Abby as they stood in the rain by the back door of the car, Imogen's face visible through the window as the droplets trailed over the glass. Amelia gestured towards Imogen, looking at her for a second before looking back at Abby. "She's yours, she's been given to you, she's given herself to you, her father's given her to you, she adores you, you're half her world now, when you look at her how does knowing all that make you feel, because it's scary I know that, I understand that, but it has to make a part of you happy, even just the smallest part of you, even if you're scared of hurting her, your mere presence makes her smile, and that has to make you feel a little bit good, even just the smallest part of you has to feel good about that." Amelia said looking pained as she glanced from Abby to Imogen and back. Abby blinked and closed her eyes, hanging her head, Amelia was right but she didn't know the half of it, Imogen made her more than a little bit happy, Imogen and Nick combined made her too happy, they made her believe that things would be alright and that was the scariest part, because nothing would ever be eternally alright.
"She's ok Abby, she won't hurt you either, she won't ever hate you and she's not going to disappoint you ever because the way you feel about her she can't…" Amelia paused as she and Abby moved back into the dry slowly. "She's not sick Abby, she's not going to inherit any of what you know your kids could, you're never going to have to look after her like that, she won't do that to you." Amelia said quietly shaking her head, Abby looked over at her, her eyes full of mixed emotions as her jaw tensed and she shook her head.
"Amelia, the thought she might, that she might have to deal with it in some way, or he might have to deal with it in some way, I cant do it all over again, I can't let them have to do it, I know she's not mine and I know that it won't be my fault but I can't do it if something goes wrong." Abby shook her head her voice hushed. "That's something I decided the first time around, I don't want to go through all of it again." Abby said her voice nothing more than a whisper now as she let her eyes close, her chest caving slightly as she said it.
"Kids?" Amelia questioned quietly as Abby started to nod, eventually tipping her head backwards taking a deep, cleansing breath.
"Just one, when I was with Richard."