“You’re a safe person to fight with.” I drew in a deep breath. “He didn’t want to talk about the necklace.”
“He didn’t want to talk about anything.”
“Now what?” My hope crumbled. For the past few weeks, I’d been so convinced I could simply talk to Edward Barbanel and find out everything. I hadn’t expected to be shut down. More fool me.
“We figure something else out. Hey. It’s okay. This is a stumbling block, not the end.”
I let out a strangled laugh. “Why are you being nice? You didn’t want me looking into this.”
He hesitated, staring down at our hands, then looking up at me with renewed resolution. “Abigail, you should know—”
“Noah.”
We both jerked around, dropping our hands instinctively. Noah’s father stood on the porch. He smiled stiffly, but his gaze was cold. “A word, please.”
Noah closed his eyes briefly, then nodded at me. His expression had locked down, as stoic as his father’s and as his grandfather’s had been. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Okay.” I glanced at Noah’s dad. “Um, nice to meet you, Mr. Barbanel.”
Harry Barbanel’s smile made it clear it was not nice at all. I’d never had a parent dislike me before, and I could have done without the experience. “Good night, Abigail.”
“Good night. Bye, Noah.”
And with a last look at the Barbanels as they were swallowed by Golden Doors, I fled down the driveway, feeling like I’d abandoned Noah to the wolves.
Fourteen
March 14, 1954
People have been asking me about my mother lately, in the unconcerned way strangers have. “What does your mother do? Where are your parents from?” I’m torn how to respond each time. Do I give them the scant details I remember, pretending they’d stretched on as they might have, had the actual timeline not occurred? (I almost never consider telling people the truth. The people who guess the truth know better than to ask.)
Often, I want to describeyourmother, though I’m not an idiot; I know she wasn’t mine. But at least I can remember her.
Sometimes I’m still so angry at her, though. Shouldn’t she have done more? No more than two children to a room, the law said, and we had dozens of rooms in the New York house and at Golden Doors. Shouldn’t she have taken in a dozen children?
Did you know we still haven’t spoken? I thought she’d soften to us.
Sometimes I miss her so much it physically hurts.
Are you okay?
The reply came almost immediately:
I’m fine
A punch of humiliation sent my stomach swerving low. Well, then. So much for thinking he might want to talk. Fine.
Except.
I thought of how often I wanted someone to push when I’d saidI’m fine,how rarely I meant the platitude. How when Mom and I fought, I’d go upstairs and tell her not to follow and wait, crying, until she did, always wishing she’d come faster. Noah wasn’t me, of course. Still. Was anyone ever really fine?
Screw it. Why dash your pride against an impenetrable wall of someone else’s pride once when you could do it twice?
Did you talk with your dad?
Yeah
How’d it go?
