Abby tried to stay out of the way for the rest of the afternoon, retreating to her room and closing the door behind her like it might shut the world out with it. She called her mom and let Leah’s familiar voice wash over her, grounding in a way nothing else seemed able to do lately. Her mother didn’t ask what Abby had been up to or why she sounded tired. She simply filled the space with stories about their neighbors, about Brooks’s latest girlfriend, about little, ordinary things that didn’t carry the weight of secrets or fear.
It helped. A little.
Celia did insist that Abby join them for dinner. She spent the meal animatedly listing all the things she wanted to get done before the baby came. Abby thought the list was wildly ambitious given that Celia’s due date had already come and gone
