10. Abbot
ABBOT
The Christmas lights have been taken down when Abbot arrives, those white strings of little lights Abbot had helped meticulously put up in November under Dan’s exacting directions. Still, the house glows with warmth, the lamps turned on, the garage waiting open for him.
He parks behind Ned’s car and forgoes the front door like he used to, slipping instead between Dan’s and Cheryl’s cars and past Peggy’s bike to walk up the three stairs to the door to the kitchen.
He opens it to the smell of dinner cooking and the sound of Baxter running toward him, tags jangling, nails clicking on the tile.
“Hello,” Abbot says, bending to pet him. Ned didn’t give him a bath apparently, because his coat is still a bit grimy, but Abbot scratches behind his ears anyway as Baxter’s tongue lolls and his feet slip as he tries to press even closer against his legs.
“Abbot!” Peggy shrieks, running into the kitchen on socked feet and sliding on the tiles.
“Hello to you too,” he says. She’s taller. Older, in just the month he’s been away.
“What’d ya bring me?” she asks before she even comes to a stop.
“Peggy, why don’t you try that again?” Ned asks, following behind her. “Hey, you.”
“Hi. Peggy, you still have your cape,” Abbot says.
“And it still needs to be washed too,” Ned says.
The fabric is more wrinkled than the last time Abbot saw it, the hem ragged with all these weeks she’s worn it, and a stain on the knot that keeps it tied around her neck.
I have to have it, she’d explained back in December, because of Emma and Olivia at school, and something about a cape club and all of its importance in their little first-grade worlds.
Abbot had nodded along as he fished out the broken egg shell she had let slip into the bowl.
Peggy bounces on the balls of her feet. “What’d you bring me, please?”
“For you?” Abbot reaches into his bag. “Did I bring you something? Let’s see.”
“Start with saying hi, maybe,” Ned says.
“I want to see,” Peggy says, pressing close. “Hi. Please.”
“Ah, yes, here it is.” Abbot deposits a box of chocolate into her waiting hands.
“Just one for now, okay?” Ned asks, touching Peggy’s head as she darts away with her chocolate cradled close. “We’re about to have dinner.”
“I have this for you as well,” Abbot calls after her.
“And let’s try a thank you,” Ned adds.
Peggy skids back in and retrieves the bag of baking ingredients he brought her, already with a chocolate in her mouth.
“We can make vermicelli,” Abbot says.
“Now?” she asks.
“If you like, we can at least get it started before dinner.”
“Now,” she says. “What is it?”
Abbot pulls out his phone to show her a picture of the little chestnut desserts. “Or we can make something else, but this is it.”
“It’s like spaghetti.”
“It’s from Latin vermiculi, for worms, from how the paste looks when it’s squeezed out.”
Peggy giggles. “Worms. Grandma! We’ve got worms!”
“Worms? Oh, it’s Henry. Dan, Henry’s here!” Cheryl holds her arms out and Abbot steps forward to return her hug. ”You’re finally back! We’ve missed you so much.”
“We’re eating worms,” Peggy says.
“This, for you,” Abbot says, retrieving another box for Cheryl.
“Who got worms?” Dan crowds behind her. “Henry, you made it. What’s that there, hon?”
“No, Dan, these aren’t the ones you like,” Cheryl says, cupping her hand protectively over her own chocolates.
“I like all of them.” Dan gives Abbot a long hug. When he pulls back, Abbot presents him with a Toblerone. “Oh my word. You’re too good to us.”
“It’s the same as you can get here in the States,” Abbot says like he always does.
“It’s not the same at all. The ones you bring are so much better.”
“Are these the worms?” Peggy asks, searching through the bag of nuts and flours.
“The tube right there,” Abbot says. “We can have it over ice cream, or a custard if you’d like to make that together.”
“Over ice cream for dinner,” Peggy says, heading back towards the living room.
“Over ice cream after dinner,” Ned says as he follows after her.
“We’re doing fish tacos.” Dan pops a triangle of chocolate into his mouth. “Though I’m having an appetizer.”
“Let me help cook.” Abbot hangs his coat on the overstuffed rack. He’s missed evenings like this so much, the delight of time spent with Ned’s family, such a contrast to his empty house.
He can come over more often if he moves. Make a regular habit of it, rather than waiting weeks between visits as he and Ned alternate between Boston and Portland. It will be so much simpler to live closer, to fold himself deeper into the rhythm of life here.
And to do so without worry. Because that’s what Cheryl and Dan really give him, the alleviation of his chronic concern about whether he's truly welcome and not intruding, his fear that they're too polite to tell him he isn't wanted.
Come in, they say of their family and their home, and they mean it.
“I have to show you what I learned,” Dan says, leading him to the counter.
“Don’t let him cut himself,” Cheryl says.
“I saw it on a cooking show.” Dan slices an avocado in two. He scoops out both halves carefully, setting them on the cutting board. “How was your trip?”
Too long. Excruciating. Better only that it’s over. “It was nice to spend so much time with Liesl,” he says, which is the one positive he clung to over those slow weeks. Not that she was especially thrilled the entire time, looking at him sourly as often as she laughed.
“Ned says she’s visiting soon?”
“The middle of February. Her school has a short break, so she’s flying over.”
“All by herself? They grow up so fast, don’t they?”
“It’s a direct flight from Geneva to Boston.”
“Oh, that’s easier then. Need us to pick her up?”
How easily Dan offers this, extending himself for Abbot and his family without a second thought. Warmth fills Abbot, this simple pleasure of spending time in this house, with these people.
“I’m planning to drive down, but thank you,” he says, and then before he knows he’s going to, he adds, “I’m thinking of moving closer.”
“You are? That’s amazing. You found a job?”
“Hopefully,” Abbot says. “It’d be nice to finish at Callahan this spring, and be down here for the fall semester.”
“We’d miss Ned,” Dan says as he cuts the avocado in thin slices. “But couldn’t be happier. Now watch this.”
“Miss Ned?” Abbot asks.
Dan’s mouth is pursed in concentration as he spreads the slices into a line, then starts spiraling the line of them in on themselves. “It turns out like a flower,” Dan says. “Well, it looked better online. Let me try again.”
“It looks lovely,” Abbot says. Not much like a flower, but perhaps if he squints a bit.
Peggy comes back into the kitchen, shoving between them with the tube of chestnut paste in her hands. “We should try this now.”
“I think your father wanted you to have dinner first,” Abbot says.
She turns her face up to him, her mouth ringed with chocolate. “No.”
“Ned?” Abbot calls to him where he’s clicking through TV channels in the other room.
“He said that because you were gone so long, tonight is special,” Peggy says. “So we can have dessert now.”
“Did he really say that?”
“He did,” Peggy says, staring up at him with wide, innocent eyes.
“Don’t look at me,” Dan says, holding up his hands when Abbot turns to him. “I’m just in charge of the avocados.”
“Ned,” Abbot calls again, and Ned finally leaves the TV on a basketball game and comes over.
“Dad, do I need to buy stock in avocados?”
“Just one more,” Dan says, though two are already sliced in half in front of him.
“Pegs, go set the table,” Ned says. “Baxter, did you drink all your water? I just filled it.”
“Bowls for the ice cream,” Peggy says. “And spoons. And worm utensils.”
“Plates, Peggy. We’re having tacos,” Ned says.
“Ned, you didn’t tell us Henry’s moving down here,” Dan says.
“You told Dad about Newbury?” Ned asks.
“I’ll just check the fish,” Abbot says.
“Newbury?” Cheryl comes into the kitchen. “Newbury University?”
“Henry, that’s incredible,” Dan says.
“That’s so close by,” Cheryl says. “And what a school that is.”
“I didn’t realize that’s where you found a spot to work,” Dan says. “Congratulations. Look at you. Newbury, wow.”
“I don’t think it’s nearly that certain,” Abbot says quickly.
“It kind of is,” Ned says. “If you want it to be.”
“But Adams—” Abbot starts.
“No, we’re ignoring that.” Ned scrunches up his nose.
“Ignoring what?” Dan asks. “Honey, I was just telling Henry we’ll miss having Ned here, but you know what that means.”
“What does that mean?” Ned asks. “What’s happening to me?”
Cheryl touches Dan’s arm. “I do know what that means.”
“I wasn’t actually thinking Newbury,” Abbot says, but neither of them are listening anymore.
“This fall,” Dan says. “Right? Summer down the Cape, playoffs, and then—”
“We are not scheduling around baseball playoffs,” Cheryl says.
“It’s the Sox’s year,” Dan says.
“It’s our year,” Cheryl says. “We’re thinking of doing some traveling.”
“That’s great,” Ned says. “Where?”
“Italy,” Cheryl says as Dan says, “Australia.”
“That’s…” Ned looks between them. “Not maybe the same trip.”
“And I’d just love to see Switzerland too,” Cheryl says.
“Kangaroos,” Dan says.
“You should come this summer when Ned does,” Abbot says.
He hasn’t even thought of Dan and Cheryl visiting at the same time.
The entire family there and—he can’t help but smile.
And with grandparents on hand to help with Peggy, maybe he and Ned could have some time alone.
A part of the vacation for just the two of them.
“Where am I going this summer?” Ned asks.
Abbot touches his arm. “Switzerland?”
“Am I?” Ned asks.
Abbot frowns. “Aren’t you?”
“We could do the summer into the fall,” Cheryl says, rubbing Dan’s arm.
“And be back for playoffs?” Dan asks.
“If that’s the trade for Switzerland and Italy, then yes,” Cheryl says.
“But the kangaroos. I wanna box.” Dan puts his fists up.
“Baxter and I are happy to miss this one, if there will be kangaroo boxing,” Ned says.
“But you’d come too,” Abbot says quickly. “This summer to Switzerland, surely?” Hadn’t Ned said he would? He and Peggy both. That’s what they’d talked about, when Ned had said he couldn’t visit over the holidays.
“A summer in Europe,” Cheryl says. “I can’t wait.”
“A practice retirement.” Dan lightly bumps his fists against Peggy’s. He taps Ned’s arm too in a series of gentle punches. “But if you’re moving, Ned, that’s something to know.”
“Moving?” Ned asks. “I’m not moving.”
“If Henry’s coming down to Newbury,” Dan says.
“Instead of Newbury, there are other opportunities I’d much rather—”
“Abbot’s moving. I’m not moving,” Ned says.
Dan gives him another light punch on the arm. “Yeah, you two are moving in together.”
Ned wheels around. “We’re what?”
“Where are we moving?” Peggy asks.
“Woah, woah,” Ned says. “Nobody is moving.”
“Henry just said he’s moving down here,” Dan says. And has apparently assumed that means Ned is going to be living with him.
Abbot looks at Ned, gauging his reaction.
They could find a spot together, one that they’ll move into so very soon.
Only months away, if not weeks, and Abbot pushes aside the picture of working in the same building as Ned for this brighter, better one of them living together too.
A home, for the two of them. Three, when Peggy’s there.
Four, with Baxter. No more unlocking his door to the cold, dim rooms in Portland, but Ned’s shoes on the floor, his coats on the hooks, the couch warm from Baxter sneaking up there.
“But I’m not moving,” Ned says, puncturing the image Abbot’s formed. “Abbot can move. I’m not going anywhere.”
He could, though. They could both move. “Ned—” Abbot starts.
“You aren’t?” Dan drops his fists.
“Not that I know of,” Ned says.
“Oh.” Dan looks between him and Abbot. “Oooohh. To be discussed. Got it. Sorry. Foot, mouth.”
Yes, Abbot and Ned can talk about it when they have time to themselves, rather than here in the crowded kitchen. Let Ned catch up to the idea, and Abbot too, his picture of the summer and fall reorienting again and again.
Growing better each time, too.
“Maybe not in front of Peggy.” Ned gives his dad a look, and he’s not freaking out like Pat said he would. He’s being careful of Peggy’s expectations, because she’s standing right here, following the conversation like it’s a tennis match, head turning back and forth between them.
“Why not?” she asks.
“Because,” Ned says. “Peggy, nothing is happening or changing or anything. Dad, c’mon. She’s six. This isn’t the way this conversation happens, okay?”
“Well, you can’t blame me,” Dan says.
“No?” Ned asks. “Abbot doesn’t even have a job down here, but thanks for jumping so many steps ahead. Peggy, plates, forks, knives, cups, please.”
Peggy just stares up at him, then looks at Abbot. “What about the worms?”
“After we eat,” Ned says.
“Yes, after dinner,” Abbot agrees.
“But—”
“Silverware,” Ned says and when Peggy looks up at Abbot again, he hands her forks to put on the table.
“Sorry,” Dan says into the silence.
“It’s okay,” Ned says.
“Just excited,” Dan says.
“Well, sure, I’d be too if I were seeing kangaroos in Italy,” Ned says easily. “Okay, what else do we need? Seems the avocado is covered. Sour cream? Who wants hot sauce?”
“I want dessert,” Peggy says.
“I know you do.” Ned ushers her toward the table. He catches Abbot’s eye and drops his voice. “You didn’t tell my dad we’re moving in together, did you?”
“No. I just said I was thinking of moving closer.”
“Okay.” Ned glances over his shoulder at Peggy. “Cause that’s—moving is really different than moving in together.”
“Of course,” Abbot says. “We can talk about it.”
Ned nods slowly, his eyes darting back again. “Yeah. I mean, we haven’t even really talked about you moving here to begin with. What that will look like?”
Abbot draws his hand down Ned’s arm, and he can feel tension there. “You said you’re excited about it.”
“No, I am. Yeah. Absolutely. Definitely.”
Ah. Alright, he apparently is panicking. “Is this about what Steve said about Adams?”
“We’re still ignoring that.”
“We’ll figure out what next year will be like,” Abbot says. “If that’s worrying you.”
“I’m not worried,” Ned says quickly.
“I’m not either,” Abbot says. Ned just needs time to adjust. And then they’ll sit down and talk. About Abbot living closer, even about moving in together and how soon that could happen. Everything that’s to come for them.
Abbot smiles as he straightens the forks Peggy’s putting on the table, one stained with a fingerprint from yet another chocolate she’s snuck ahead of dinner.