Chapter 11: Enfolding
"What is that smell? Is something burning?"
"It's coming from the oven - John, quick, hand me the mitts!"
"Aunt Sadie! Aunt Sadie!"
"I didn't botch the pie crusts, did I? Did I?"
"Wait, Chare, they're only a little singled around the edges. Let's look more closely before jumping to any – "
Abby groaned, trying her best to shut out the commotion on the other side of the apartment as she rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes. The light was shining through her window, the snowy conditions of the early morning having given way to more temperate weather, and when she put her glasses on and glanced at the clock, she saw that it was half past three in the afternoon.
"How did I sleep so long?" she muttered, sliding out of bed. Sadie had promised to wake her in time to help with the preparations for the tenement party, but it seems her sister had elected to let her sleep instead. Either that, or the family was getting a late start themselves.
Straightening her glasses, Abby opened her suitcase and began rummaging through it for her hairbrush, still a little disoriented from her long nap. After a few perfunctory combs through her hair, she straightened her dress and the pearl pendant around her neck and headed for the door…
But just before she opened it, she hesitated.
Was she really ready to see her family? Coming home to the naturally-indulgent Sadie hadn't been difficult, but how would the other members of the clan react? Would she see disapproval in her mother's expression, and silent indifference in Lilly's? Would Judith and John greet her cooly, and David have that sad, disappointed look in his eyes? Would her nieces and nephews avoid her gaze, ashamed of their selfishly truant aunt?
The prospect was an unwelcome one. But she knew that such reactions would be far from undeserved. She'd chosen to run away from her responsibilities, and running away had its consequences. There was nothing to do now but face the music.
Remember, even if they're upset with you, you still need to make things right.
Taking a breath, Abby steeled herself, then opened the bedroom door and marched down the hallway, through the sitting area, and into the kitchen, not allowing herself to slow for even a moment for fear she would falter and turn back to her room.
The reaction to her appearance in the doorway was nothing like what she'd expected.
Someone - she wasn't sure which one of her nephews it was - shouted her name. Heads turned, eyes widened, and then she was being bombarded by happy greetings and exuberant hugs and everyone was asking questions all at once.
It felt shocking and wonderful and a little overwhelming…
And to Abby's utter surprise, no one seemed miffed with her in the slightest.
Eventually, Judith ordered everyone to clear out and give Abby space. John pulled out a chair for her next to Lilly, and Sadie brought her a cup of tea and a plate of roast chicken with candied carrots on the side.
"As soon as Mama heard you'd come home, she insisted on making you your favorite dish for dinner," she said cheerfully. "Davey picked up the groceries on his way home from the clinic."
"Now, now, enough talking," Miriam Becker chided. "Let her eat; she's liable to be hungry after such a long rest!"
Abby speared a candied carrot, her stomach growling as she raised it to her mouth. The familiar taste of the tender taproot in its buttery glaze brought tears to her eyes, and she quickly ate another bite, covering her emotionalism as best as she could with a show of ravenous hunger.
Seemingly satisfied that her daughter was being adequately nourished, Miriam ordered everyone back to work, and the family dutifully resumed their tasks, leaving Abby to finish her meal in peace. It was a relief to be drawn into the normal rhythm of business-as-usual, and as soon as she finished eating, she planned to dive right in and join the party preparations alongside the rest of them.
Hopefully it wasn't too late to make up for lost time.
That night, after the rest of the family had gone to sleep, Judith, Sadie, and Abby gathered in Abby's room, piling onto the bed with a steaming cup of hot chocolate apiece and a plate of ginger cookies to share. It was a tighter fit than Abby remembered from their girlhood days, but there was something comfortable about being with her sisters again, and she didn't mind being squished just a bit.
"What a day!" Judith exclaimed as she let her head sink back into a pillow. "I feel half-dead on my feet, but I won't be able to sleep a wink until I've heard all about Cherin Cove!"
Seated between her sisters, Abby folded her hands in her lap. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything, of course." Judith sat up, leaning forward expectantly. "If you're struggling to find a starting point, though, you could start by telling me about the man who brought you home."
Abby raised an eyebrow at Sadie, who smiled apologetically.
"I had to explain how you managed to show up so early in the morning," she murmured. "There was no way you could have gotten home on foot."
"And you know I would have lured the information out of you anyway," Judith added.
Abby folded her arms across her chest. "I don't remember you being this nosy about David."
"No, indeed!" Sadie cried. "She was far worse! I'd barely even mentioned him in my letters - and simply as a friend, mind you - but she quickly made up her mind that there was something more going on between us!"
"That's because I got to observe him with my own two eyes when I came to visit." Judith's voice was smug. "The man practically swooned whenever I mentioned your name, and I knew there was a good chance you'd come around once you opened up your eyes and finally saw him. The only question was whether a wealthier, more adventurous suitor would have been preferable, but that was answered in due time, and everything turned out as I'd initially suspected."
Eying Abby, Judith added, "I don't have the luxury of observing this mystery man of yours, though, so I've far less evidence to sift."
"You're talking like he's a romantic prospect when you don't even know if he's a bachelor or of eligible age," Abby pointed out. "He could just be a complete stranger whom I paid to drive me over. You're jumping to conclusions."
"Am I, though?" Judith raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me for my skepticism, but you're not the type of person to spend hours alone with a complete stranger. You don't like small talk, or even meeting people if you don't have to. And you would have had to pay a complete stranger a good sum of money to make the drive, especially in the wee hours of New Year's Day. I would have expected you to wait until the trolleys were running again - unless someone you already liked offered you a lift."
Abby was silent for a moment, contemplating how to reply. She'd expected this interrogation, and it wasn't as though she was opposed to telling her sisters about Skip (truth be told, she wanted to hear their opinion of him), but it was difficult to ease into a recounting without feeling slightly sheepish that her connection with him - and the feelings of fondness that she'd developed - had come to nothing after all.
"How did you meet him, Abby?" Sadie gently broke the silence. "You don't have to elaborate very much if you don't want to. Just give us the facts, and then tell us about the other aspects of your trip - perhaps the bookstore that you were looking forward to visiting."
Abby relaxed a little at the suggestion.
"We met at that very bookstore, in fact," she replied. "I was there to browse, and he was looking for a specific novel that was a favorite of his late sister's. We got to talking, and he invited me to have lunch the next day at one of the nearby restaurants."
Before either of her sisters could interject, she continued her narrative, Judith listening with an attentive expression and Sadie with a little smile. Surprisingly, it wasn't hard to speak about Skip, and Abby found herself fleshing out her narrative with more and more detail as she went along, only pausing to take an occasional sip of hot chocolate or nibble on her cookie.
She told them about the loss of Skip's sister which had prompted his visit to the Book Nook in the first place, about their lunch date at the Rudder and Relish and their talk down at the docks. She described how she'd witnessed his act of kindness to Ada, the financially-struggling seamstress, and how he seemed to get along swimmingly with everyone, young and old alike. She detailed the ins and outs of their time at the Confetti Countdown, not forgetting to mention how light on his feet he was when dancing and the charming way his dimples showed on his cheeks whenever he laughed. And she talked about how he'd come to find her at the Lookout and had offered his driving services so that she could make it home in time for the tenement party.
The retelling was a bit disorganized, for she found that she had much to speak of, but she couldn't help but enthuse at length, especially to such an invested audience.
When Abby eventually got around to mentioning Skip's previous profession, something she'd initially forgotten to add, both Sadie and Judith exclaimed in surprise.
"A newsboy! Did he sell in Manhattan?"
"Was he part of the strike effort? Does he know David?"
Abby was only able to answer the first question, for the topic of the strike hadn't come up, and though Skip had mentioned having a newsie name, he hadn't actually told her what it was, so there was no way to find out if he'd crossed paths with David or not.
"He might have missed the strike completely," she mused, estimating Skip's age and thinking over the stories he'd told, most of which involved shenanigans that would only have been possible if he'd been older. He'd briefly mentioned a turf war that had taken place early on in his newsie career but hadn't shared many details, and Abby hadn't dug deeper, sensing that it wasn't something he'd wanted to talk about.
"Well, strike or no strike, one thing's for sure," Judith said drolly, "there must be something about working class men - and newsies in particular - that appeals to you younger Becker women!"
"They're all too adept at winning people over," Sadie joked. "One doesn't last long hawking headlines without possessing a certain sort of magnetism that's irresistible to the world at large." Catching sight of Abby's unamused look, she added, "But facetiousness aside, I think we can safely say that the newsie part was incidental. It's like saying Mama married a shoe-shiner. Papa may have started out that way, but it certainly wasn't all he did with his life, nor was it the reason why Mama fell in love with him."
"No, indeed," Judith agreed. "Our men are much more than their jobs. I was only teasing, as I do find the coincidence amusing."
"Well, be amused all you like, but keep in mind that unlike Sadie I haven't married a newsboy yet," Abby said pertly. "I'm not sure I'll ever see Skip again, in fact."
"Truly?" Sadie looked both surprised and a little sad. "I suppose the two of you have only known each other for a few days, and that's hardly enough time to form an understanding…but it seemed like you connected well, and he was so good and kind to you that I can't help but wonder if something more might have developed if you hadn't had to come home so early."
"And given what you've divulged over the past half hour, you don't seem to be completely indifferent to him, either," Judith pointed out. "You hardly speak about men in general, and the ones who have shown interest in you in the past you've quickly written off as unappealing, but obviously you felt differently about Skip. Why are you so eager to let him walk out of your life without making any effort to draw him in?"
Abby hesitated. Inwardly, she was disappointed that her friendship with Skip hadn't blossomed into something more, but it seemed so childish to admit that. She hadn't run away to Cherin Cove to bag herself a beau, after all, and even though she'd been far from indifferent to the prospect once it had presented itself, she'd tried not to let that possibility distort her purpose...
"To be honest, I don't think either of us was really looking for romance," she said slowly, knowing that her sisters were waiting for an answer. "I enjoyed his company, and I think the feeling was mutual, but realistically speaking, there's still so much that we don't know about each other, and we both have separate lives and personal interests. The timing isn't ideal, either, not to mention the fact that we don't live close enough to make seeing each other convenient."
"But romance generally isn't convenient," Sadie reminded her. "Sometimes you have to take a risk and invest yourself first."
"That's rich coming from a girl who literally married the boy downstairs," Abby couldn't help snarking. "You hardly had to roll out of bed to see David - he was right there all the time."
"Abby, that's unfair!" Sadie protested. "And it wasn't that simple! Think of it from his perspective."
"That's right," Judith agreed. "You're forgetting he cha – "
"Yes, yes, I'm quite aware of the trevails our gallant brother-in-law went through to win his fair lady," Abby retorted sharply. "And before you start in on how John brought you a rose every week for nearly a three months and wrote you the most interesting letters before you agreed to let him court you, I haven't forgotten that, either. I may have been young at the time, but I wasn't oblivious."
The declaration came off far more caustically than she'd intended, and she fell silent, guilt setting in as she saw the shocked looks on her sister's faces. She hadn't intended to snap at them, nor to disparage their love stories, for she secretly thought them rather sweet when all was said and done, but something like jealousy must have crept in, and the bitter words had slipped out before she could stop them.
"I'm sorry," Abby muttered, sincere but unable to keep the gruffness out of her voice. "I didn't mean to…"
She trailed off, her eyes fixed on the plate of cookies in front of her. Sadie had managed not to burn them, but a few looked slightly singed on the bottom.
Not the time to fixate on the cookies.
"I didn't mean to speak sharply like that," Abby tried again, setting aside her pride with some difficulty. "I just feel…so foolish right now."
The admission hurt, and she kept her eyes down, not daring to look at her sisters.
"I wasn't planning to let Skip get to my head," she continued, "but when he initiated that lunch date, and then after our talk at the docks, I thought that maybe something was growing between us. I started thinking that maybe he liked me…and then I found out that he was only being cordial because he wanted to give visitors a good impression of Cherin Cove so they'd help bolster its flagging economy! I told myself to get over it, and that it didn't matter – but then he offered to drive me home, and it started snowing, and I invited him to stay, but he couldn't, or maybe he didn't want to, and I realized that no matter how much I might have wished for him to reciprocate my interest, I don't think he ever felt anything for me after all!"
The jumble of words came to an abrupt end, and she forced herself to take a breath.
"I tried to look at things calmly and rationally…but I guess hearing both of you talk about your husbands stirred up some discontentment. I don't think marriage is necessary for happiness, and I've never felt like I needed or wanted a beau before…but…if I'm honest…I would have liked to have Skip - at least to see if anything more could have developed between us - and I'm disappointed that it all turned out to be just a silly fantasy in my head!"
An uneasy silence settled in the wake of her declaration. Abby picked miserably at the yarn of the knitted quilt on her bed, avoiding her sisters' eyes.
Then both of the other women began speaking at once.
"It's perfectly understandable that you'd feel disappointed, dear –" Sadie began.
"I'm sorry we pried so much," Judith said simultaneously. "If we'd have known how you'd felt, we never would have pressed you or spoken so much of our own situations.
Abby found her throat closing at the gentle understanding in their voices, and when Sadie reached over, she left off picking at the quilt leaned into the embrace, gingerly at first, then eventually resting her head on her sister's shoulder as Judith wrapped her arms around both of them from the other side. It made her feel like she was a little girl again, only this time the cause of distress wasn't a scraped knee or a subpar mark on a spelling test, but something more deep and convoluted. She wished that she could conjure up a stoic, rational demeanor and simply brush past her feelings, but the compassion of her sisters had made that difficult, and though the sting of disappointment was as sharp as ever, it felt relieving to have everything out in the open somehow.
For several moments, the three of them simply sat there. It was the first time Abby had allowed herself to be fully embraced like this, and a part of her was slightly mortified, but Judith had always been protective and Sadie affectionate, and though Abby hadn't always felt close to them (especially in her younger years), she was deeply grateful now to have them in her life.
"I need to tell you something," she said suddenly, untangling herself from her sisters' arms. "Something I realized while I was staying at Cherin Cove."
Smoothing her hair into place and sitting up straighter, she said soberly, "It was wrong of me to run away when you needed me - not just for the tenement party, but when Papa died, too. I know you both had so much on your plate, and that it would have helped if I had been there to bear some of the load. The two of you had to hold the family together all by yourselves." She looked her sisters in the eye. "So, belatedly, thank you for that. And next time I'm not going to disappear on you. I promise."
"Oh, Abby," Sadie squeezed her hand. "You mean a great deal to us. We're so glad that you're home."
"And we forgive you," Judith added. "I know losing Papa was difficult, and we all needed to cope in our different ways. We're just glad that you decided not to grieve alone."
Grieving alone, Abby thought.
Yes, it was good not to grieve alone. There was a time and place for quiet, personal reflection, a time for mourning in solitude what had been lost…but at the end of the day, it was better not to let the draw of isolation or the fear of being vulnerable keep you from the consolation that others could offer.
"My, how the time flies," Judith's voice suddenly broke into Abby's thoughts. "It's past midnight already, and we have to be up bright and early tomorrow."
The conversation then turned to the more lighthearted topic of the upcoming tenement party, and Abby found her heart settling as she listened to her sisters hash out the remaining logistics while the three of them polished off the rest of the cookies. It was fascinating to observe her sisters' personalities both dovetail and clash as they talked through the last few items on their to-do list, and Abby resolved that she would pay more attention in the future to their discussions so that she could figure out a way to lighten their load.
By the time her sisters rose to take the empty plate and mugs back to the kitchen, she felt utterly content…and ready for another long rest.
"We'll see you in the morning, Abby," Judith said as Sadie waved on her way out the door. "Get as much sleep as you can - it's going to be a whirlwind tomorrow."
Abby promised that she would, then closed the door quietly behind them, smiling as the sound of her sisters' voices slowly faded away.
Now alone, she tidied up the room and turned down the bed at a leisurely pace, letting the emotions of the last hour settle still more before undressing and putting on her nightgown. The lamp on the dressing table was already burning low, and as she extinguished the flame and climbed under the covers, a sense of peace washed over her.
The lingering grayness she had felt upon her spirit had lessened, dissipated by her family's warm welcome and her sisters' forgiveness, and her heart felt lighter now than it had in a very long time.
Rolling over in bed, Abby closed her eyes and let herself drift towards sleep.
It was so good to be home again.
A/N: If only family reconciliation and character growth could be this straightforward and simple in real life (but then again, this is supposed to be a Hallmark-like story, so I claim artistic expediency in service of that end, even if it doesn't sit well with my preferred pacing as a writer (a preferred pacing which is, admittedly, quite ponderous!)).
Thank you for reading this chapter, slightly clunky though it was! I'd love to hear your reactions to it. Up next, we'll have an appearance by a canon character (as promised) who will play an important part in sparking our dwindling romance subplot back to life, so please stick around for some excitement soon!