22. Abbot #3
Dinner is interminable. There’s a toast to their engagement, and another to Peggy, which makes her grin in delight.
Two texts from Liesl come, and when he checks his phone after they’ve eaten, she’s messaged We could do cupcakes instead of a cake, then minutes later, I’m NOT going to be a junior bridesmaid, that’s dumb, an impressive level of detail in planning for a ceremony that’s the barest thought.
A someday, and likely a distant one. Five years.
Does Ned even want to get married again? He’s never said one way or the other, and that suddenly seems an important detail they should sort out.
Maybe he’d prefer to stay hanging in this liminal space. Engaged for all public appearances, a commitment in promise only, not in actuality. An appeasement to Newbury, to Beverly…
Abbot scrubs a fork until it shines, then picks up another and does the same.
“Married,” Cheryl says into her phone. “I know, I know, it’s so amazing. He’s right here, actually. No, Ned’s putting Peggy to bed, but Henry? It’s my sister-in-law.”
“Hello,” Abbot obediently says into the phone, and whether it’s Dan’s sister he met at the Cape last summer, or a spouse of Cheryl’s sibling, he doesn’t know.
“Congratulations,” the woman on the other end of the line says. “What great news. We’ll have to send you two something. What’s a good address?”
“Thank you,” Abbot manages. An address? “You certainly don’t need to—”
“I’ll just send it to Dan and Cheryl, easy enough. It’ll be right in the mail,” she says. “And you’ll let me know when you two get your own spot?”
“Yes, of course,” he says, which he won’t, because he doesn’t know who she is, and Maybe in five years, Ned had said.
He hands the phone back. And they’ll get married five years after they move in together, and begin discussing children in another half a decade, when they’ll both be nearly too old to consider the topic.
He goes upstairs long before he has any intention of sleeping.
To find Ned, ostensibly, who hasn’t returned from Peggy’s bedtime, but more accurately to escape.
He’s exhausted. He has work to do, he could say if Dan or Cheryl ask, but they don’t, just give him one last radiant smile he struggles to return.
Ned’s sitting on the bed when Abbot opens the door. He pauses, surprised.
“She’s still up,” Ned says.
“I thought you fell asleep in there.” Abbot hoped he had, he now realizes, and he tries to push away the thought. Of course he’s happy to have some time with Ned. He always is, and tonight is no different.
No, tonight is special. Momentous.
Ned has his laptop open. Abbot should go back downstairs and leave him to his work, if that’s what he’s doing, but Dan and Cheryl are down there, and Ned is up here, and he stays stuck in the doorway, unsure which he prefers less.
But it’s Ned. Abbot steps into the room and pulls the door shut. Of course he wants to be here, and that isn’t nerves in his stomach at Ned’s expression, the careful way he watches him.
“Abbot,” Ned says.
Abbot turns away, sorting through the bag he brought. “Is Peggy alright?”
“Yeah, she’s fine.”
Abbot quickly strips off his shirt, exchanging it for one he’ll sleep in.
“Hey,” Ned says.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“I’m not doing anything. Just waiting for Peggy to get up again in five minutes.”
Abbot nods and takes off his pants too. He pulls on a pair of shorts, and really, perhaps he shouldn’t have changed, because he could have taken Baxter out for a walk. Too late, he thinks, holding his pants, considering if he should put them back on.
“So I really do want to talk at some point,” Ned says. “We don’t have to tonight.”
No, thank you, Abbot doesn’t say, knowing it will just incite Ned. He folds his pants so they won’t wrinkle.
“But like I said, Dad didn’t know to not bring up your mom.”
It’s cold in here and Abbot didn’t pack a sweatshirt. He could wear one of Ned’s and wrap himself in the scent of his clothes. Instead, he rubs at his arm.
“And I’m just worried, what if that’s Peggy? What if she says something and you get upset? How’s she going to take it?”
Abbot’s phone charger is somewhere in his bag. He keeps meaning to leave one here, but he hasn’t, and he searches for it now.
“Abbot?”
“Have you seen my charger?”
“Abbot.”
“It won’t be a problem.”
“Here,” Ned says, holding up his cord.
“Thank you.” His phone has a mostly full battery. He busies himself plugging it in.
“Daddy?” Peggy asks. She must be on just the other side of the door.
Ned rubs his hands over his face and then stands. “Hey, hon.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“I just got you water.”
“But I need more.”
“Alright,” Ned says, and Abbot feels his eyes on him.
“Go on,” Abbot says. “I have some emails.”
“Yeah,” Ned says. “That’s what you said.” Ned gently shuts the door behind himself.
Abbot’s laptop is downstairs, and he very much doesn’t want to go get it. He sits on the bed, listening to the silence. When his thoughts start to wander, he picks up his phone.
It’s frustrating to do any real work on it, but he might as well. Ned won’t return for some time, Abbot’s sure. Peggy needs him tonight, and Abbot knows something of wanting a parent’s attention, worried at their distraction, and the fear of his own unimportance.