Chapter 12
It barely takes us a few minutes to reach the edge of the forest, even though I’m limping slightly from my fall. The prize-giving ceremony is already underway and dozens of people gather around Andrew, despite the heavy gray clouds overhead, threatening to burst.
“Maybe we should wait until everyone’s finished,” I suggest, and Luke starts to nod when Andrew catches sight of us.
“And it looks like some people got a little too caught up in all the excitement.” He gestures toward us and our muddied clothes, throwing a knowing look at the adults in the crowd. “Took a little trip off the trail, did we?”
I turn to Luke. “Or maybe—”
“On it.”
He holds up the golden egg and a child in front of us gasps like it’s the holy grail. Silence falls over the crowd as everyone stares at us.
“This is weird,” I mutter.
Luke starts toward Andrew, who’s now openly glaring at us. “Yep.”
“You found the egg,” he says. He does not sound pleased.
“We did.” Luke holds it up again for effect and I grin as a man nearby starts to clap. It’s not even that impressive up close. Made of cheap plastic and painted gold for effect. Still, I guess it’s the symbol that counts.
“We’ll take that prize now,” Luke says as Andrew’s face goes white. “In cash.”
“Abby!”
I leave Andrew to his disappointed grumbling as Louise winds her way through the crowd.
“What did you do to yourself? You’re filthy.”
My smile drops at her disapproving tone. “Well done on winning the grand prize, Abby.”
“I only meant—”
“The victors!” Tomasz swoops in to hug me only to immediately let go when his hands come away covered in dirt.
Louise stands back, still eyeing my clothes as though calculating how many laundry pods it will take to get them clean.
“It was all Abby,” Luke says, joining us. “I just tagged along for the ride.” He hands me an envelope. “That’s your share. I better get back to Beth.” He pauses, momentarily awkward. “I’ll see you around?”
“Definitely,” I say, a little too quickly, and he smiles at me.
“Your share of what?” Louise asks as he leaves.
“Of my winnings. I entered on your behalf.” I hold out the prize but she’s already shaking her head.
“I can’t take that. It’s yours.”
“I won it for you.”
“I don’t—”
“I’ll take it.” Tomasz grabs the envelope and forces it into Louise’s hands. “Thank you for your kind donation, Abby.”
“No problem,” I mutter as Louise’s frown deepens.
Well, that didn’t go as planned.
With the main event of the day over, the crowd around us starts to disperse and we head back to pack up.
Louise keeps fiddling with the edge of the envelope but says nothing to me.
She says nothing to anyone, pretending to be busy counting signups and soon even Tomasz gives up trying to deal with her, disappearing off to get the car.
“Can we talk?” I ask when we’re alone.
She doesn’t look up from the calculator on her phone, even when I sit beside her. “I guess.”
“Can we actually talk?”
Her eyes flick to mine, the distracted look on her face replaced by instant wariness. “Okay.”
Okay.
“I—”
“Are you sick?”
I pause, confused as Louise brings one hand to her heart.
“Is that why you came back? You’re sick, aren’t you? I knew you—”
“I’m not sick,” I interrupt. “At least not that I’m aware of.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look so serious?”
“That’s just my face!”
“Abby!” We’re back to angry now. “Don’t scare me like that. Why do you have to be so dramatic about everything?”
“I’m sorry .” I resist the urge to bang my head against the table as she turns back to her work. “Look, I wanted to talk about me staying longer than we originally discussed.”
“Oh yeah?” She smooths out another donation form, almost tearing it. “How long are we talking?”
“Another week maybe. Or two. Five. I don’t know,” I say when she looks up again. “I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”
“No shit.”
“What?”
“ I haven’t booked my flight yet ,” she says in a perfect imitation of me. “A child could come up with a better excuse.”
I blink at her. “You knew?”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
The phone goes down with a bang as she turns to me, her jaw set. “I know I’m not as smart as you, Abby, but just how stupid do you think I am?”
“You knew ?”
“You call me out of the blue asking if you can visit and then you arrive with a very large suitcase filled with random crap that no one needs for a two-week trip to Clonard. Who brings summer dresses to the west of Ireland in March? You seriously think I didn’t know something was up?
When was the last time you even called me? ”
“But you—”
“I kept waiting for you to tell me. I gave you multiple openings and each time you lied, and you’ve been acting so weird about the engagement and about Tyler and I just…
” She slumps back in her chair, crossing her arms, and for one moment she looks so much like our dad that I’m a little freaked out.
“So what happened?” she asks. “You broke up with him, right? You broke up with Tyler and you moved out and then you lost your job and now you have nowhere else to go? I mean, I’m glad to see you finally came to your senses, but—”
“He broke up with me .”
There’s a loud bleating to our left as Andrew herds the petting zoo animals past our stall. I barely risk them a glance as Louise, in a feat I didn’t know was possible, gets even more irate.
“He what ?”
“Louise—”
“That dick!” She’s furious. “He proposed to you!”
“Yes.”
“And then he just what? Changed his mind?”
“Apparently so.”
“When?” she asks sharply. “When did it happen? Because if it was after MacFarlane, I swear to God I’ll—”
“It was before,” I interrupt. “A few weeks before. He’s actually tried to get in touch with me since but I’m not really talking to him.
Or I’m trying not to or…” I trail off, suddenly tired.
“It had nothing to do with that,” I finish lamely.
“He didn’t want to marry me, so he didn’t. It was just me.”
I must sound as pathetic as I feel because she swallows her next words.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.
“I was going to as soon as I came home but I was late and you made pancakes and you were annoyed at me and—”
“I wasn’t annoyed at you.”
“You’re always annoyed with me.”
“Because you’re annoying,” she snaps. “And apparently a liar now too.”
“I was embarrassed, okay? It’s humiliating getting dumped at the best of times, but getting dumped by your fiancé a few weeks before your company goes under sucks even more. I didn’t want everyone to know how I messed everything up.”
“Oh, this is so you. Acting like you’re in control of everything. Sometimes bad things happen, Abby. No matter what you do.” She eyes me moodily. “Who else knows? Mam and Dad?”
I nod. “And I just told Luke.”
“Of course you did. You can’t flirt with him if he thinks you’re cheating on someone. Don’t,” she adds when I go to object. “Every tourist who comes here tries their luck with him. Ever since he hit late puberty.”
My mouth drops open. “You said you didn’t notice!”
“I’m not blind.”
“Then how come at the restaurant you said—”
“Because I thought you were engaged!” she exclaims. “And that was after you two made heart eyes at each other over lunch. I didn’t want you messing around with him. Especially when he used to have that silly little crush on you.”
When he what? I stare at her, wide-eyed but she’s not looking at me, her gaze on the emptying field outside the stall.
“I can’t believe you didn’t think you could talk to me,” she says. “You can stay as long as you need to. You don’t ever have to worry about something like that. You know that, right?”
I nod even though I didn’t. I now realize I didn’t know that at all and maybe that was just one of the reasons I was so worried about telling her in the first place.
“Thank you.”
She shrugs, still not meeting my eye.
“What did you mean when you said you thought I’d come to my senses?”
“Nothing,” she says. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she looked a little embarrassed. “I guess I wasn’t Tyler’s biggest fan.”
“You never met him.”
“Yeah, and who’s fault is that? Three years together and I never met the man who was going to be your husband. You were in New York, Abby, not on the moon.”
I don’t point out that she wouldn’t have come even if I’d invited her.
But she’s right. There’s no reason why Tyler and I couldn’t have come here.
But Tyler had never really shown an interest in Ireland.
Besides a few questions when we first met, he never once asked about my childhood. And I never talked about it.
“Dad said he never liked him.”
“Dad was half in love with the man,” Louise huffs. “But he loves you more so, of course, he’d say that. What did Mam say?”
“She was more concerned about the wedding plans.”
“You know she was worried about you right? As soon as the news of MacFarlane broke. She lost her mind with it.”
I sigh, feeling bad. “I should have spoken to them more at the time.”
“You had to look after yourself first. They get that. Plus they’ve always been a little bit in awe of you. Their genius child with too much confidence for her own good.”
“And you?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood. “Were you in awe of me?”
“I seem to be the only one who remembers you thinking that it only rained when you personally did something bad.”
“Because that’s what Dad told me.”
“Or that time you were convinced that cow was following you home from—”
“Okay,” I interrupt. “I get it.”
She smirks as it becomes my turn to scowl.
“Of course I was in awe of you,” she says, surprising me.
“I still am. You decided what you wanted to do and you did it. Everyone thought you would drop out of MacFarlane. Everyone thought you would drop out of college. Hell, everyone thought you would drop out of honors maths at school but you did it. Every time. You proved everyone wrong. And you’ll do it again. ”
“Careful,” I say, trying not to show how touched I am by her words. “That almost sounds like a compliment.”
“Yeah, well…” She looks away, clearing her throat. “Is that it? Any more bombshells to tell me about?”
“Not today.”
“Then do you want to help triple-count our signups?”
Her finger traces random shapes on the table as she waits for my answer. It’s probably the closest we’ll get to a hug.
“I’d love to,” I say.
And when Tomasz returns five minutes later he finds us side by side, doing just that.