Chapter Twenty-Five Sera
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sera
I’m feeling fine in the morning, but Abbi insists on coming with me to work.
When I say that Luke will probably join me later in the day, so she doesn’t need to, she goes over to Paula’s to confirm.
She comes back, head all high, and tells me that Luke has a commitment all day (like I’m not aware he’s taking his brothers to see his dad) and she’ll take me.
I guess I shouldn’t have lied, but her worrying is getting under my skin.
At least she and Cam are going away to Maine for a couple weeks.
She leaves right after she takes me to my appointment in Boston tomorrow, and I think we could both use the break.
The kids at camp like Abbi, though not as much as they like Luke—a feeling I can relate to these days.
Since it’s an easy day, with the kids glazing their slab pieces before moving on to a free-choice project, she’s clearly bored.
I keep catching her picking up her phone and putting it down as she paces around the room.
When Jayda comes to get the kids for their beach time, she swoops in to help.
When I say I’m fine to do it, she looks at me incredulous, annoyed that I’d be so silly as to consider taking a three-minute walk in the heat.
I use the ten or so minutes of silence to sit and watch the wind playing with the seagrass atop the dunes.
The camp cat comes and finds me, an orange flash of personality who gets renamed every year.
He’s showing some age, a little whiter around his chin than I remember, but he’s just as lithe and feisty, playing with my smock strings like he’s a kitten. I lean down and scratch his head.
“You’re going to outlive me and the universe, aren’t you?” He meows in agreement and then trots off as Abbi returns.
“How are you?” she asks, reaching for my watch. I pull my arm away from her.
“Leave it, Abbi. You just checked after lunch. I’m feeling the same.”
“I just want to look. You need to stay healthy to be ready for a transplant.”
Suddenly I’m furious, the rage boiling up in my chest and spilling over, and I’m surprised by how much I’ve been holding in.
“Will you just fucking leave me alone?” I snap. “Jesus.” I drop my head into my hands and groan, trying not to simply scream at her to leave.
“You have a headache, don’t you?” Abbi doesn’t even pause for me to answer. She just marches back into the barn. I follow at her heels as she goes to the cubbies, where my things are stored, and starts packing my bag up.
“What are you doing?” I go over and wrench my bag from her hands.
“Sera!” I’ve broken one of her fingernails, and she prods at it before shaking it off. She opens her palms toward me like I’m a rabid skunk. “Take a breath; you’ll cause an incident.”
“I can’t keep my cool when you act like this, Abbi. Why can’t you just let me make my own decisions?”
“Because you’re not being careful enough,” she says, her voice rising.
“Who cares? What does it matter? I’m not going to spend my last several months tiptoeing around pretending death isn’t sitting in the corner counting down the seconds.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be only months if you slowed down a bit,” she snaps.
Her phone pings with another text. It’s face up on the table next to us, and I read it. It’s Cam, saying he understands if she wants to cancel their trip.
“What is this?” I ask, grabbing her phone and waving it in her face like it’s proof of some great treason.
“Nothing. Butt out of my life.” Abbi reaches for it, but I step back, still holding it.
“Go on the goddamn trip, Abbi.”
“Watch your mouth—there are kids around.” Abbi looks quickly side to side and tries to grab her phone again. I take a few quick steps back, putting a table between us. My heart beats fast with the effort, the anger and upset. My watch pings, and Abbi’s eyes widen in panic.
“No. I won’t watch my mouth, because I saw you put your entire life on hold last year.
And now you’re doing it again, sitting here acting like things will work out if we’re careful and boring.
All you’re really doing is keeping me from living my life while I still have it.
And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of you acting like you know best, like you know everything.
You’re not the one dying, Abbi. I am! You’re just avoiding anything good because you like feeling depressed. ”
“Stop it, Sera.” She starts to cry, but I can’t stop. All I see is red; all I see is the last few weeks of her circling around me like a vulture just like she did all last summer and fall. I can’t stand her hopeful anxiety anymore.
“No! You stop it! You actually have a future, so stop fucking wasting it on me!”
“You don’t get to tell me how I spend my time.” She lowers her voice in response to my shouting. I scoff at her hypocrisy, but she barrels on. “And aside from right this minute, I’d like to spend as much time with my little sister as I can.”
“Well, too bad, because I don’t want to spend any more time with you. Mom can take over Sera watch. I don’t want to see your face hovering around me anymore.”
“Mom’s tired too, Sera, don’t you get that? Don’t you see how this is killing all of us? Don’t you notice what we’ve given up?”
“And I didn’t ask for any of it!” I shout.
This shuts her up, but now we’re both crying, and my heart is struggling to keep up with my breathing.
My watch pings again, and I sit down on a stool and toss Abbi’s phone back at her.
She just barely catches it. She shoves it in her pocket, then wipes the tears from her eyes.
She’s spent so much time helping me get through the last year, and I love her, but in this moment, I hate her too.
“Maybe we need a break,” Abbi whispers.
“No shit,” I snap, willing my tears to stop and taking a few long, slow breaths.
Abbi stares at me a beat longer, then turns and walks out the door. “I’ll send Dad to pick you up,” she says. “Find someone else to take you to your appointment tomorrow.”
*
In the morning, all heart failures avoided, my gut sour from our fight, I finally feel bad for yelling at Abbi.
I go knock on her door. I have every intention of trying to make up without letting things go back to how they’ve been.
I just don’t think I can take it if she doesn’t give me a little space to breathe.
There’s no reply.
“Abbi?” I ask, knocking again. “Abigail?” I push the door open, hovering in the doorway as it reveals her empty room.
She probably left early for her trip to avoid me. I stand there as a calm, uncomfortable silence settles into the house.
I sigh and walk into her room, looking around.
Abbi’s room smells like lavender and the incense she likes to burn.
There’s a pile of ash in the ceramic tray on the bedside table next to an empty space where she usually keeps the stack of books she’s reading.
She’s got a big desk with two overflowing bookshelves on either side and a cozy armchair we found at Nyeman’s two years ago.
My eyes catch on a line of shells decorating a couple of shelves in the corner.
I recognize them. Treasures I found as a kid and gave to her.
Mixed in with them are small pieces of art I’ve made and photos of the two of us.
My old volleyball jersey I thought was missing sits folded on the lowest shelf.
Maybe she didn’t mean it, but the way everything is laid out, the shells stretched out in lines across the edges of the shelves, guarding all these mementos of our life together—it looks like a shrine.
“I’m not gone yet,” I whisper to the room.