Protecting Abigail

by R. R. Banks

  "Are they cool enough yet?" Anna asks hopefully. "Can I have one?"

  Abigail laughs, but nods.

  "They should have cooled off enough by now," she says. "But be careful. That sugar in the middle stays hot for longer than the rest."

  Anna chooses one of the rolls and transfers it onto the small plate Abigail holds out to her. She looks at it for a few seconds, then gestures for Abigail to crouch down so she can whisper into her ear. Smiling, Abigail hands her another plate and Anna slips another roll onto it. She scurries across the room to me and offers me the plate. I accept it from her and take a bite. The sweet taste floods my mouth, and I nod at my daughter.

  "Yum," I say. "These are delicious, honey."

  Looking thrilled, Anna picks up her plate and runs out of the room with it before I have a chance to tell her to eat at the dining room table. I know where she's headed. Anytime she gets a chance, she disappears into the sunroom where she climbs up onto the window seat and stares out at the city. She either reads a book from the stack she keeps up there or brings her baby doll with her. It's her own space where she feels free to disappear into her own world.

  "These really are amazing," I say to Abigail as I take another bite.

  "Oh, thank you," she says is if startled by my comment. "She was really excited to make them for you. "

  "I can't believe you convinced Ruth to let you use her kitchen. I get scolded if I'm in here too long."

  Abigail lets out of short laugh and moves around the room cleaning up.

  "Her husband wasn't feeling well today and called pretty soon after I got here. I told Ruth to go ahead and go home to look after him, and that I'd send Anna down with some cinnamon rolls for them later. I hope you don't mind."

  "Not at all," I say. "She's around here too much as it is. Is Frank alright? I hope it isn't anything bad."

  Abigail slips the milk and butter back into the refrigerator.

  "I don't think so," she says. "Maybe a little cold. Ruth didn't seem too concerned about him, but I think she appreciates being able to be home with him. It's nice to see someone talk about their husband the way she does about him. You can see how much she loves him by the way her eyes light up when she says his name."

  "They've been married a long time," I say. "They'd already been married for years by the time I was born."

  She nods, chewing on her cinnamon roll with a thoughtful expression on her face. I take another bite to give her a few seconds with her own thoughts. Abigail pulls a cloth out of a drawer and runs it under the faucet for a few seconds before starting to clean the butcher block.

  "You can just leave that," I say. "Mary Ellen is coming tomorrow. She'll take care of it."

  Abigail looks at me through slightly narrowed eyes and continues to clean.

  "I can handle it," she says. "I made the mess, so I’ll clean it up. Not all of us are used to having housekeepers running around behind us."

  There's a hint of teasing in her voice that softens the edges of her assessment, and I figure there's no point in arguing with her. I know I could take my cinnamon roll and go to my office to finish up some work or unwind in the living room, but something makes me want to stay here in the kitchen with Abigail. She quickly finishes cleaning up and starts to untie the apron from around her waist.

  "I guess now that you're here, I'll get going."

  I step over to her, and Abigail looks up at me.

  "You have some flour on your cheek," I say, lifting my hand to brush the powder away from her skin.

  The pad of my thumb hums with electricity when it touches her, and Abigail looks away quickly. The timer on the oven goes off, and she rushes toward it as if relieved by the opportunity to get away from the intimate space we were sharing. She pulls out the new batch of cinnamon rolls and sets them on the cooling rack like the others.

  "There's plenty of icing left," she says. "Let these cool for a few minutes before you ice them. Remember to have Anna bring a few down to Ruth and Frank."

  Taking a piece of wax paper from one of the cabinets, she places four of the first batch of rolls on the center and folds the edges of the paper together to wrap around them.

  "A little midnight snack?" I ask.

  She laughs.

  "These are for Evan," she says. "He's coming over tomorrow for breakfast before some meeting he has in the city."

  "That would be a meeting with me," I say.

  She smiles.

  "Well, that's convenient."

  She unties the knot at the back of her neck and shakes her hair loose. I glance over at the counter and notice the coffeemaker has sprung to life.

  "It looks like Ruth accidentally set the machine to brew tomorrow morning's coffee tonight," I say.

  "Oh, no," Abigail says. "That was me. I set it to brew right around when the cinnamon rolls would be ready so you could have a cup if you wanted. Ruth told me you wouldn't be as late tonight as you have been the last few nights, so I thought you might like a little pick-me-up before dinner. Which," she says, "you need to order in, by the way."

  "Thank you," I say, genuinely surprised by the thoughtful gesture. "Would you like to stay and have a cup with me?"

  I expect her to say no, but she looks at the coffee, then back at me.

  "I'd like that," she says. She walks over to the coffee maker and opens the cabinet overhead, taking down two mugs. "How do you take yours?"

  "Black," I say.

  "Ah," she says, that little hint of teasing back in her voice. “You like it dark and bitter.”

  "No, actually, I just like it fast. I'm not one to waste a lot of time standing in line waiting for an overpaid, entitled teenager to take twenty minutes handcrafting my pumpkin spice, peppermint, caramel macchi-mocha-cappa-latte and making a weird little picture in my foam."

  She pauses with her hand on the handle to the carafe. Her eyes slide over to me.

  "You know," she says, picking up the pot and tipping the dark brew into the mugs, "you could just get good old black coffee and then put cream and sugar in it yourself."

  She holds one of the mugs out to me and I take it, shrugging.

  "I'll just stick to what I know." She picks up her own cup and takes a sip. I eye it suspiciously. "You like it dark and bitter?" I ask.

  Abigail shakes her head as she swallows the sip.

  "I'm not too big on the peppermint, caramel macchi-mocha-cappa-latte, either." She takes another sip, then points at me. "But the pumpkin spice. I appreciate pumpkin spice."

  "Of course, you do."

  She shoots me a glare as she transfers a cinnamon roll to a plate. I start walking toward the living room, and she follows me.

  "It always makes me think of Thanksgiving," she says. "I love Thanksgiving. At least, I love the idea of it."

  We settle onto the couch, and I look at her questioningly.

  "What do you mean you like the idea of it?"

  She looks away, shaking her head and shrugging slightly as though she hadn't really expected me to delve any further.

  "I haven't really had the chance to really celebrate the holidays in a long time. Holidays were tense when I was younger. Sometimes they were great, and sometimes they were really not. Then after about a year of us living together, Trevor decided he didn't like celebrating them anymore. Evan and I had holidays when I lived with him, but it's not exactly the same as having a big family or friends around."

  "I'm glad Evan was able to be there for you," I say.

  Abigail tears off another piece of her cinnamon roll and pops it in her mouth.

  "He never told me how the two of you became friends," she says. "I've heard him talking about you, but I don't know how you met or anything. It doesn't seem like the two of you have much in common."

  It's not an observation. I know it's a leading question, an invitation for me to tell her more about myself. Usually this is something I would purposely avoid, but the way she's looking at me makes me feel more at ease.

  "We met about six ye
ars ago," I say. "Maybe a little more than that. He was a maintenance worker at one of my buildings. It was undergoing renovations at the time, and I was spending a lot of time there. Usually I check in on my smaller buildings and other ventures periodically, but I have people to do those things for me. During this project, though, I was more involved, and was at the building nearly every day. I met him as a member of the team that was working in the portion of the building still in operation during the renovation, but it was mostly just in passing. I knew he had a reputation for being a really dedicated worker and did an amazing job handling a couple of disasters that came up, but I didn't know him well. The project dragged on a lot longer than I had anticipated, and it was still going when my wife died. After her death, I threw myself into work even more. I was at the building working late one night and your brother came up to me and asked if I was alright. It sounds really crazy now, but that meant so much to me. Everyone knew what happened, but he was the only person outside of my direct, close staff who even said a word about it to me. He was the only one who asked me how I was doing in a way that made me feel like he actually cared."

  "I'm so sorry," she murmurs quietly.

  I nod, acknowledging her sentiment, but not wanting to let myself feel too much of the emotion it would bring if I dwelled on it.

  "He started coming up and talking to me whenever I was at the building. He genuinely tried to make me feel better, and when it was obvious he wasn't going to be able to do that, he just made sure I knew he was there, and that I could talk to him if I needed to. I was going through hell grieving for her and trying to raise Anna without any idea of what I was doing. She was just a baby and I'd never had any experience with a baby. I'm an only child. No cousins. The only children I knew were the ones I saw at school. Even with Ruth around, I was terrified I was going to mess up. Evan never judged me or pitied me. He was just there. Over time, we ended up talking more about him and he told me about some problems going on at the building and with the project, and I was able to intervene and get it resolved. Then I moved him to another building of mine. Once I wasn't in the same building with him all the time, we started meeting for lunch or to watch games. Just hang out. He became my best friend."

  "He's mine, too," Abigail admits. "Even when we didn't get to see each other for long stretches of time, I always knew he was there. I could have called him, and he would have been there for me as fast as humanly possible. I just never did."

  I can see her discomfort and want to push the conversation past it.

  "I still remember the first real conversation we had. We had interacted only a few times, but this was the first night I was back at the building after my wife's death. I had walked out of my office and was sitting out on the roof patio, staring out over the city, trying to figure out my life again. I don't know if that makes sense."

  "It does," she says, her voice carrying more meaning than those two simple words.

  "I don't know how long I'd been sitting there," I continue. "It was so fucking cold, but I didn't want to go back inside. I felt like I was stuck out there. Then Evan came to find me. He sat down with me and just stared out at the city like I was. He didn't say anything for a few minutes, then he offered me a piece of the candy he was eating. I hadn't eaten at all in what seemed like days, and it looked really good, so I ate some. We just sat there eating for a while, and he asked me if I was alright. He didn't say he was sorry for my loss, or that he understood how I was feeling. I hated that. Everybody who did talk to me during that time said either one or both of those, and it always felt so…"

  "Cardboard?"

  I nod.

  "Exactly. Even when it was people who I've known for my entire professional life, or who knew my wife, it just didn't sound like there was any feeling behind it."

  "It's like someone pulled a cord on their backs," Abigail says. "They're just repeating a phrase that is programmed into them by Hallmark."

  "Yes. They think it's the appropriate moment to say those things, but it never feels genuine. Evan didn't say any of that fake bullshit. He just asked me if I was alright. And when I said I wasn't, he was fine with it. He didn't push me for anything else. After that, he shared that candy with me every Christmas."

  She gets a curious expression on her face as she reaches for another piece of her cinnamon roll.

  "Christmas? He shared Christmas candy with you?"

  "Yeah. That first year it was in a little blue tin wrapped up in tissue paper with ornaments all over it. I remember it distinctly because it looked like it was from Christmas a long time ago – like his grandmother had sent it to him."

  Abigail laughs. "I sent it to him."

  I look at her.

  "What?"

  She takes a sip of her coffee through the smile spreading on her lips.

  "I sent it to him. I make that candy every year. Because he liked it, it was one of the few things about the holidays Trevor let me hang on to after he got really controlling.”

  I hate to hear her talk about her ex this way. The casual, unaffected way she's able to mention him controlling her life, or the tension she always felt, makes it even worse. It means she grew so accustomed to it she doesn't feel shaken up by talking about it. It infuriates me that was normal for her. The longer Abigail is a part of my life, the more I learn about what she went through, and the more hatred I feel toward Trevor. Protecting her and making her feel safe is on my mind every day, even if I haven’t said it to her.

  "I can't believe you'd go through the effort to make something that delicious for someone like him."

  "I did it to make sure Evan had it every year. Besides, I only did the bare minimum for the candy I gave Trevor. I always put extra stuff in Evan's so it was better for him." She smiles at me warmly. "And I guess for you, too."

  "I'm glad you did," I say. "That candy is amazing. I look forward to it every year. It's not really Christmas until I've had a piece of that candy."

  I see a hint of color flood her cheeks as she glances away from me, and my stomach clenches.

  "Thank you," she says. We look into each other’s eyes for a few seconds before she pulls herself back and begins to speak again. "I didn't know Evan worked as a maintenance man for an apartment building. Why did he stop working for you?"

  "Evan asked me how I got into the different industries my businesses handle. I told him I come from an extremely wealthy and powerful family, and that I inherited all the businesses my family ran. I don't have any siblings or cousins, so everything came to me. From there, things just kept falling in my lap, and I grew the business. He asked which of the businesses was what I really wanted to do, which was my dream. This was something no one had ever asked me before, and honestly not something I ever thought about myself. I grew up knowing I would run the business my father ran, and that his father ran before him, and so on. When I found other business opportunities that would make money and grow my subsidiaries, I pounced on them. It was a matter of investment and taking advantage of potential, not really pursuing a specific dream of any kind."

  "Does that make you sad?" Abigail asks.

  "No. I don't feel like I missed out on anything in my career. But it did make me think about other people and the dreams that drive them. I'd watched Evan put all of his energy and effort into his maintenance work, and then into managing the improvement projects at other buildings I gave him. But it never occurred to me that he might only be working here just because it was available. Evan might have had a dream – something else he wanted to do. So, I asked him what his dream was. He told me it had always been his aspiration to own his own business making custom furniture and leatherwork. As soon as he said it, I knew that was exactly what he was supposed to be doing with his life. He's always been so creative. He could come up with endless solutions for anything that needed to be fixed. Even if he couldn't fix it, he could most likely make another one. I knew he was too good to be working in my buildings. So, I became his financial backer."

  "You inves
ted in his business for him," she whispers, admiration and appreciation making her voice soft and her eyes tender.

  "I just put up enough money to get him off the ground," I say. "Everything else was his own hard work and dedication."

  Abigail stays long enough to finish her coffee, and I follow her to the door, realizing I’m reluctant for her to go. I suddenly feel like I’m finally getting to know her better, and I want to know more.

  Chapter Ten

  Abigail

  Three weeks later...

  "What are we up to today, Anna?" I ask as I open the door to Xavier's apartment and tuck my key back into my purse.

  I look up, stopping in my tracks when I see Xavier in the living room.

  "Hey," he says.

  "Oh," I say. "I didn't know you were here. Anna called and told me her lessons were almost done for the day, so I came up. Are you not working today?"

  "I just came back by to grab a change of clothes," he says. "I have a client who's been on my back to go play tennis with him for the last few months. Unfortunately, now that it's actually starting to get warm outside, I don't have an excuse anymore."

  I laugh and nod as I place my purse on the side table.

  "That sounds like so much fun," I tease. "It is a really beautiful day. It's nice to see the city has finally figured out it's spring and has decided to cooperate."

  "Why don't you and Anna take advantage of the weather?" he asks. "Have you been to Central Park yet?"

  "No," I say, shaking my head emphatically. "I haven't since I first moved here."