“Well, no one ever invited me.”
“Okay. Well, sure.” A long moment passed. “Listen, Hannah’s really missing you.”
I took another breath. In-and-out, Abigail. Slow and steady breathing. “Yeah, I’m going to come see you guys whenever I get back from Newfoundland.”
“So you’re not moving there permanently.” Emphasis on thepermanently. Emphasis on the fact that Laura had never taken this seriously.
“I might be.” I said it just to bait her, to see if I could get a reaction, but she didn’t give me one. I pressed on. “But in any case, I would have to come back to Brooklyn to organize the move and clear out my apartment. Assuming I can figure out a green card and stuff. I have to see a lawyer. I’m still deciding.”
“I guess I don’t understand why you had to move halfway around the world in the opposite direction from us to make some kind of a statement.”
“I’m worried about climate change.”
“Climate change.” Her video image was perfectly placed for me to see her entire eyeroll.
Sister fights are always particularly nasty because they’re about everything and nothing.
“Abs, I know you’re just doing this to try to prove a point,” Laura said.
“What point?”
“That you can survive without us.”
“You’re the one who told me to leave.”
“I didn’t say go to Newfoundland. I said if you had something you wanted to try, you should go ahead. But I didn’t think you were moving to the Arctic Circle.”
“I’m not in the Arctic Circle.”
“Well, it seems like a deliberate way to make it impossible for us to see you. You could have stayed in New York where you could actually fly down to see us for like three hundred dollars instead of thousands of dollars from Newfoundland...”
“Okay, well if you guys decide to stay there…”
“We are staying here.” Now Laura looked angry.
“Okay, well,ifyou do, I will come and visit,” I went on. “And you know, maybe I’ll just buy a place up here and then I can come stay with you guys for a couple of weeks every winter when it’s really snowy up here.”
“You’re serious about moving to Newfoundland? Newfoundland. New…found…land.”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Because your niece misses you and you are choosing to never see her.”
“If you stay in Atlanta.”
“We are staying in Atlanta. Nick wants to buy a place here, before the market goes up anymore, because if we wait another year, we may not be able to afford it.”
This was news. “But you’re still figuring out if this is going to work.”
“Abby, we were married for years. I know him.”
“And things are going well?”
“Why is that so hard for you to believe?”
“Okay, so what do you want me to do, Laur? Move there?”
“Well, yeah, I want you to be closer to your family.” I don’t know why Laura and I always managed to go fullDesperate Housewiveswhen we disagreed about something. It was probably because we agreed often enough so that every disagreement seemed like betrayal.
