WIP Amnesty: Abby has had enough (Hockey, Abby Sharp/Patrick Sharp, 4200 words, Teen)
This story grew out of Chicago Parent's article on the Blackhawks baby boom. All of the other women look picture perfect; Abby looks exhausted. She says about life when Patrick's on the road, "I don't mean to throw him under the bus or anything. It's not too much different from when he's home because usually he's napping or resting for the game. But no, we're used to being on our own, you know, so it's really not that much different." About Patrick's relationship with Madelyn she says, "I think now that she's getting older, and can talk and play with him, he's just in love. ... He's really enjoying it, I think, now that she's getting out of the baby stage." I read that and thought, "No wonder she looks tired." There were also rumors floating around scurrilous anonymous gossip spaces (way before last season's specific rumor) that Patrick slept with other women.
I wanted to write a story where Abby gets fed up, takes the kids, and leaves, and then has to figure out how to, or even if she wants to, fix her marriage. This is the part of that story I wrote. I never got to the part where they figure it out and make it work, so be forewarned that this leaves off at an uncertain place. Part of what made writing this story fun was that I was writing it just for me - I decided to just write and not worry about finishing or ever posting it. Months would go by without my even looking at this story, and then I would sit down and write 600 words one day.
Content Notes: This story involves real life partners and children. Infidelity themes. There is a mention of Patrick Kane and his girlfriend makes a brief appearance.
There's something about seeing herself in print that makes everything just that much more real. She looks terrible. Not terrible, but tired. Just as tired as she feels. And seeing her words about Patrick in print makes her realize just how bad it sounds. How bad it is.
Abby digs a condom wrapper out of Patrick's pockets when she's getting his stuff ready to be washed and taken to the dry cleaner before he leaves on the Circus trip, another two when he gets back, half a dozen out of his clothes from the Olympics.
Two weeks after Patrick gets back from Sochi, Abby looks down at the plus sign on a fourth pregnancy test. After nursing school and two kids, she knows her body, and she was already pretty sure, even before the results came up positive yet again. The girls are napping and Patrick's on a road trip, so she lets herself sink down onto the bathroom floor and cry.
When she's done crying, for the moment anyway, she buys plane tickets and starts packing a suitcase.
Madelyn wanders into the bedroom, rubbing her eyes as she wakes up from her nap. "Mommy?"
"Hi, sweetheart." Abby bends down to kiss the top of Madelyn's head.
"What are you doing?"
"Packing," Abby says. She lifts Madelyn up to sit on the bed where she won't be underfoot. "We're going to go visit Grandma and Grandpa."
"Can I play with Old Sam?" Madelyn asks, because she has an obsession with Abby's parents' cat.
Abby smiles at her, letting it be real because her love for her girls is still the perfect part of her life. "Yes, you can." Abby closes her suitcase, leaving it unzipped so she can add the last minute things before their flight the morning. "Do you want to help me choose which of your clothes to pack?"
"Yes!" Madelyn jumps down off the bed and runs to her room.
Abby lets her help choose clothes for Sadie too, and gently reminds her they can't take all the stuffed animals.
Before they leave the house, Abby writes a short note - "The girls and I went to Connecticut." - and leaves it on the kitchen counter where Patrick will probably see it when he gets home from his road trip.
Traveling with a toddler and an infant is not an experience to be envied, but Abby bought first class tickets, she boards early, and at the end, her mom is waiting for her at baggage claim.
"All right, sweetie," Mom says after she hugs Abby tightly. "Let's get you and the girls home."
*
Patrick calls at lunchtime. Abby takes a deep breath when she sees his name on her phone, and then she stands up from the table. "Can you?" she asks, and her mom nods.
Abby leaves the girls at the table and takes the phone into her room.
The first thing Patrick asks is, "Are you parents okay?"
"Yes," Abby says. "My family's fine."
"Okay," Patrick says slowly. "So why are you in Connecticut?"
Abby sits down hard on the bed. It takes a second before she can say, "I can't do this anymore. I thought I could. I could handle it when it was just Madelyn. And I thought I could do it with both kids, if I could just make it through the first year. But I can't. I can't take the cheating and -"
Patrick interrupts her to say, "I'm not," and she interrupts him right back to say, "I've been finding condoms and condom wrappers in your pockets for years."
Abby lets the silence hang for a second after that.
Then she says, "I can't do it anymore. I can't be the only one taking care of our girls all the time."
"We talked about this," Patrick says. "I have to travel. You knew you were going to be home alone with them a lot."
"But you don't do anything when you are home! You don't change diapers or make sure the girls get fed or clean up after them or do the laundry. And I can't keep doing this."
"Abby," Patrick says, like he's going to reason with her.
"I'm pregnant," Abby tells him flatly. "I could barely do this with two kids. I can't do it with three."
They're both silent for a minute.
"Is this," Patrick starts. "Are you leaving me?"
"I don't know," Abby says. "I still love you, but right now I don't like you very much."
*
Abby sets it up so the girls Skype with Patrick every day, but she doesn't talk to him herself other than to make the arrangements. She lets calls go to voicemail and doesn't answer his texts.
It doesn't help her figure out what she wants to do.
She's been answering other texts, mostly just quick notes to the girls to let them know she's not around. She doesn't know what Patrick's telling people, if they're likely to hear from their guys why she isn't there. That's not really her concern at the moment.
Dayna calls her on the fourth day. "Where are you? We all had lunch today. We missed you!"
"I'm sorry I missed it," Abby says, sidestepping the question of her whereabouts. Patrick must not have told anyone the details, or not anyone who let it get back to Duncan or Brent. "How is everyone?"
Dayna fills her in on all the gossip and what happened at lunch and how Jana's not talking to Lindsey again. Abby says all the right things in all the right places, and Sadie wakes up crying from her nap before Dayna's done.
Abby tucks the phone between her ear and her shoulder while she goes to lift Sadie out of the travel crib. "I should probably go," she says, "take care of this." She kisses Sadie's cheek and holds her to her chest with one arm so she can hold her phone with the other hand.
"Oh, sure," Dayna says. "Call me later!"
Abby hangs up without promising anything, and turns her focus to Sadie. She's uncomplicated. Abby knows what to do with her: change her diaper, feed her, hold her.
She thought she had a handle on Madelyn too, but Madelyn throws a tantrum after dinner two days later.
"I want Daddy," Madelyn wails, sounding so heartbroken that Abby almost can't bear it. She stands frozen for a moment, watching her daughter cry and scream, before she scoops Madelyn up in her arms.
"I know you do, baby," she says. She presses her lips to Madelyn's baby fine hair. "I know, baby." She stands there swaying, rocking Madelyn and murmuring soothing nonsense until Madelyn finishes screaming and cries herself out.
After she puts Madelyn to bed in the room the girls are sharing, Abby sits down on the bed in her room and goes through her messages from Patrick. She reads every text message and listens to every voicemail. They range from angry to sad to confused.
She's already emotionally wrung out by the time she gets to the last voicemail, where he sounds tired. "Please come home," he says. "We'll work it out somehow. Just come home." He sighs, and then the message ends.
It's too much, all of the things she feels for him on top of her pregnancy hormones and how tired she is. She turns her face into her pillow as she cries so she won't wake up the girls or draw her mom's attention.
She cries herself to sleep and doesn't wake up until morning. She feels calmer, better able to deal with her life today anyway, and she manages a quick shower before Sadie wakes up.
Abby warms up a bottle for Sadie in the kitchen and sits at the table to feed her. Her parents' morning ritual is virtually unchanged even after more than thirty years, and Abby watches her mom make breakfast, her dad kiss her on the cheek in thanks when she puts a plate between him and his newspaper at the table, the two of them kiss again before her dad leaves for work.
Madelyn's still sleeping, probably worn out by her tantrum yesterday. Abby should get her up soon so it doesn't mess with her sleep schedule too badly, but she puts Sadie down on a blanket on the living room floor, where she can still see her from the kitchen, and sits down to eat her own breakfast first.
It also gives her a chance to talk to her mom. "Patrick wants me to go back to Chicago," she says in the middle of her breakfast.
Her mom makes a listening noise.
"Do you think I should go back?"
"Oh, honey." Her mom smoothes a hand over her hair and kisses the top of her head. "It's your marriage. I can't tell you what to do."
As much as Abby appreciates the autonomy her mom is granting her with that, she was somewhat hoping for motherly advice. "How did you handle being home alone with us all day?"
"Well," her mom says as she puts plates in the sink, "it was a different time, for one thing. I had a lot of support from other moms in the neighborhood. Remember all those times you would all play at someone else's house or have friends over here? That was all of us moms giving each other a break. Plus," her mom adds, turning to look at her, "I was very different from you." She comes over and kisses the top of Abby's head again. "Raising kids is what I wanted to do. You're much more like your dad."
They stay in the kitchen in companionable silence while Abby finishes her breakfast and her mom washes dishes. She hasn't specifically said anything - to anyone - about her education going to waste, but trust her mom to pick up on that piece of it anyway.
Abby lets her mom take her dishes when she's done eating, and then she goes to get Madelyn up.
*
Abby doesn't tell the girls they're going back to Chicago until after they've Skyped with Patrick for the day. It makes it almost impossible to get Madelyn to go to sleep, no matter how many times Abby tells her, "The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner we can go home and you can see Daddy."
Abby bought tickets for a midmorning flight, so it's okay that it takes them a little bit to get going in the morning. Her mom drives them to the airport, and she hugs Abby before they get the girls out of the car.
Abby hugs her mom hard and says, "Thanks, Mom."
Her mom kisses her cheek. "You know you're welcome to come home anytime, honey."
Abby clings to her mom for another minute before they get the girls out of the car and her mom says a goodbye to Madelyn that's cheery enough to stave off any temper tantrums.
It's a long day of travel, and they get to Chicago just in time to hit traffic. Abby makes sure the girls have plenty of snacks, but they're still both a little cranky by the time Abby buckles them into their car seats.
Abby's car has the DVD player in the back, so she puts on Finding Nemo and lets that keep Madelyn and Sadie occupied while she navigates Chicago during rush hour, which is a time of day when she usually tries not to be driving around.
Patrick's car is in the driveway when they get to the house, and Abby takes a deep breath before she takes the key out of the ignition and gets the girls and all their bags out of the car.
The moment she opens the door to the house, Madelyn pushes past her and runs through the foyer, yelling, "Daddy!"
Patrick comes out of the kitchen, and Abby deals with getting the rest of their bags from the porch into the house so she can look away from the pure relief on his face.
Madelyn chatters away, swept up in Patrick's arms, her arms around his neck and his whole attention on her. Abby takes a deep breath, feeling her lungs expand and push back against the suffocating press of the house and its expectations around her.
"Hi," Patrick says when Madelyn's talk about Grandma and Grandpa and their cat and her aunts and uncles falls into long enough of a pause for it.
Abby nods at him without smiling. "Hi." She ducks her head to Sadie. "Do you want to go see Daddy?"
She hands Sadie over to Patrick and leaves him with the girls while she deals with their luggage. She unpacks the girls' things in their rooms and takes deep breaths while she's upstairs. She puts her bags in the master bedroom for now, and then she goes downstairs to figure out what they're going to eat for dinner.
Madelyn insists on having Patrick tuck her in. Abby puts Sadie down while Patrick gets Madelyn to sleep, and they meet in the hallway after Patrick softly pulls Madelyn's door mostly shut.
"How are your parents?" Patrick asks. He sounds stilted, and Abby doesn't feel much like making that better for him.
"Fine." She takes a breath. "Do you want the master or one of the guest bedrooms?"
His face falls out of whatever carefully neutral expression he was trying to hold onto. Abby's not proud of the part of her that's viciously glad to have caused that reaction.
"Abby, come on," he says. "Really?"
"Yes, really," she says. "I'm here, okay? But I still need some space, so you can take the master and I'll pick a guest room, or you can pick a guest room and I'll take the master."
There's an ugly, sulky twist to Patrick's mouth when he says, "This isn't what I was expecting when I asked you to come home."
"Well this isn't what I was expecting when I married you," Abby snaps back. She takes a deep breath. "Can we please not fight right now? I need some space, and that's what it's going to take for me to be here."
"Fine," Patrick says. "I'll take the master."
Abby nods, and takes another deep breath after Patrick goes downstairs. Then she gets to work moving some of her stuff into one of the guest rooms. Just enough, for now, that she can be comfortable until tomorrow. She can always move more later, and she's too tired from traveling all day to do more than that.
*
Abby's up early with the girls, getting them dressed and fed. She takes a deep breath and makes breakfast for herself and Patrick. It's habit. It's her usual life. She's not sure she likes it, but she can do it, and with the food between them, it's easier to duck Patrick's attempt to kiss her good morning.
She spends most of the day doing laundry and moving the rest of her things into the guest bedroom, around the tasks of taking care of the girls and making lunch and dinner.
Abby goes to sleep in the guest bedroom, and does the whole thing over again the next day.
On the third day, when Patrick is leaving for a road trip, she accepts an invitation to take the girls with her over to Dayna's.
"Abby!" Dayna hugs her and kisses her cheek. "I'm so glad you could come. We've missed you. Where have you been?" And that answers the question about whether or not any of them know what's going on with Abby and Patrick.
Abby musters up a smile and dodges the question. "Thanks for invitation. It's good to get out of the house with the girls." She keeps dodging the question all afternoon, gives non answers and redirects the conversation. No one seems particularly suspicious, all too happy to talk about their children and their own lives instead of pressing her about hers.
*
Things have changed by the time Patrick gets back from his next road trip. Not with her and Patrick; everything there is the same new normal it's been since she came back. But with the other wives and girlfriends.
Kelly-Rae is hosting this time, and the smile she gives Abby when she opens the door doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Come on in."
Abby gets the girls settled in with the other kids and then makes the rounds of the room. She gets a lot of those smiles that don't quite reach anyone's eyes. She could leave, but this is her social group too, and whatever spillover there is from her problems with Patrick, she's going to have to spend time with these women.
Lindsey joins her in the kitchen when she's getting herself a snack. "It's like they think it's catching."
Abby laughs, bitterly, despite herself.
Lindsey rests a hand on her shoulder for a brief second, and Abby is overwhelmingly grateful for the momentary support.
*
Abby spends the better part of a week without seeing anyone other than Patrick, the girls, or the checkers at the grocery store. It's almost unbearably lonely, and she resents the silent pressure to just give in and go back to the way things were.
Lindsey drops by one day when Patrick's on a road trip, and smiles when Abby opens the door. "I know this might be rude, but I was out and about and thought I would drop by to see you."
Abby and Lindsey aren't particularly close usually, but Abby is desperate for adult human contact, so she smiles and invites Lindsey in.
Lindsey says hi to the girls - it's obvious she doesn't know much about kids, although she's not unfriendly - and follows Abby into the kitchen.
"Do you want some coffee?" Abby asks her.
"Sure," Lindsey says. "I can always be more caffeinated." She grins at Abby and sits down at the breakfast bar while Abby boils water.
Abby's off caffeine with the pregnancy, but she makes herself a cup of tea so she can sit with Lindsey, and they take their drinks to the table.
Lindsey's good at small talk, chatter that keeps Abby engaged but not having to delve too deep, and she doesn't mind when they get interrupted by the girls.
At a pause in the conversation, Abby asks, because she doesn't have anyone else to ask and she thinks Lindsey will both be chill about it and not repeat it, "Have you ever been cheated on?" It's not the most pressing concern in her marriage, but it's the easiest one to explain.
"I've made a habit of dating rich men who want to date me because I'm hot," Lindsey says matter-of-factly. "Of course I've been cheated on."
Abby turns her cup between her hands. "What did you do about it?"
Lindsey shrugs. "Depended on the situation. Sometimes I just lived with it and made sure we always used condoms. Sometimes I used it as an excuse to break up with them if I wanted out anyway."
"Wow," Abby says after a moment. "That's not really helpful."
Lindsey doesn't seem offended by that. "I didn't come over to be helpful about that," she says cheerfully.
"Then why did you come over?"
"Because I've been the outcast in a group of women I was stuck being friends with, and I thought you might like some company."
Abby's so grateful for it that she almost cries. She manages to hold back her tears, and rests her hand on Lindsey's arm for a moment. "Thank you."
*
Having at least one ally makes it easier to take the girls over to the lunch Elina is hosting. Abby smiles politely and says, "I'm not drinking right now," whenever anyone offers her a glass of wine, and lets them gossip behind her back about whether or not she has a drinking problem. That's easier, too, with an ally in the room.
Lindsey doesn't stick to her the whole time, but she makes it clear that she's not shunning Abby, and she drags Amanda over for a more uncomfortable than it should be conversation. Abby's never been quite sure if Lindsey and Amanda even like each other, or if they just tolerate each other because of Pat and Jon, and she and Amanda don't have much common ground to base a friendship on.
Jana and Elina are definitely only tolerating Lindsey because of the team, and their smiles to Abby are the least real of anyone's.
It's uncomfortable in some ways, but Abby sticks it out, the girls are happy to play with other kids, and it's not as exhausting as it could be.
*
The limbo she's living in doesn't last that long; it's less than a week after they go to Elina's for lunch that Patrick sits down with her in the kitchen while the girls are napping. It's miraculously not a travel or game day for him, so it's probably the only chance they have to have this talk for a while.
"What do you need?" Patrick asks. He has a protein shake he's turning between his hands between sips. "To stay."
Abby needs less than she wants, and she needs less to stay than to be happy. "I need you to be a parent," she says. "Not just the fun parts, but the boring, messy stuff too. Changing diapers, potty training, getting them fed, reading the same story for the hundredth time. All of it."
Patrick's mouth twists, and he drinks from his shake before he says anything. "I'm still going to be gone a lot, and practices and naps and media stuff."
Abby nods. "I know, but when you're not doing that, I need you to be here."
"Okay." Patrick doesn't look happy about it, but he's agreeing, and that's something. "What else?"
Abby takes a breath to steel herself; he's really not going to like this one. "A nanny."
"We don't need a nanny," Patrick says. "I don't want our kids raised by a stranger, and I just said I would do more. We don't need-"
Abby talks over him. "We need a nanny because after this one's born," she puts her hand over her stomach, and they haven't talked about the baby at all, "I'm going back to work."
Patrick stares at her. "You're not going back to work," he says flatly.
"Part-time," Abby says, and she sets her jaw because she doesn't want to end her marriage over this, but she will if she has to. She can't live the life she's been living anymore. "I didn't go to nursing school just to have something to do. I went to nursing school because I wanted to be a nurse. I want to be a nurse."
Patrick's silent for a second. "I want our children raised by us."
"No you don't," Abby snaps back. "You want them raised by me while you go," she waves her hand, "do everything you want and fulfill all your dreams."
Patrick pushes his shake away from him. The glass spins a little in its condensation. "You going to work doesn't make any sense. You should be here, with the girls. You're supposed to be here while I'm here."
Abby's hands are shaking, but she makes herself sit still. "What doesn't make sense is that you got everything you want and I'm suffocating. I am going back to work. I'm going to be a role model to our girls that you don't have to give up everything to be a mom. That's not negotiable." She swallows. "What's negotiable is if we hire a nanny together or if we get divorced and have to have at least one nanny anyway."
Patrick takes in a sharp breath, like he didn't realize that was a real possibility. "You would leave me over this?"
Abby's voice shakes when she says, "Yes." She's pretty sure it's not what she wants, but she wants to be alone in her house with three kids and no support even less. "I love you." She wants to reach out to take his hand, but he doesn't look like he'd take it. "I love our girls. But I can't take this anymore." As awful as it is, there's a sense of relief about saying it when she can see his face and see that he can see that she means it. "That's what I need to stay."
Patrick's mouth twists again. "What about the cheating?"
"I'd rather you didn't," Abby says, "but I don't think I can stop you."
"Wow," Patrick says after a moment. "You don't think much of me, do you?"
"You married me," Abby snaps. "You promised to forsake all others, and then you didn't. I don't really think there's anything else I can do about it."
"And you don't care," Patrick snaps back.
"You asked what I need to stay," Abby says. "I'd like you to be faithful, but I don't need it to stay."
"I'm not entirely sure why you even came back." Patrick scoops up his protein shake and stalks past her out of the kitchen.
Abby puts one hand over her eyes and the other over her mouth and does her best not to cry. She has the feeling that this is one of those times where if she starts she's not sure she'll be able to stop, and the girls won't nap forever.
I wanted to write a story where Abby gets fed up, takes the kids, and leaves, and then has to figure out how to, or even if she wants to, fix her marriage. This is the part of that story I wrote. I never got to the part where they figure it out and make it work, so be forewarned that this leaves off at an uncertain place. Part of what made writing this story fun was that I was writing it just for me - I decided to just write and not worry about finishing or ever posting it. Months would go by without my even looking at this story, and then I would sit down and write 600 words one day.
Content Notes: This story involves real life partners and children. Infidelity themes. There is a mention of Patrick Kane and his girlfriend makes a brief appearance.
There's something about seeing herself in print that makes everything just that much more real. She looks terrible. Not terrible, but tired. Just as tired as she feels. And seeing her words about Patrick in print makes her realize just how bad it sounds. How bad it is.
Abby digs a condom wrapper out of Patrick's pockets when she's getting his stuff ready to be washed and taken to the dry cleaner before he leaves on the Circus trip, another two when he gets back, half a dozen out of his clothes from the Olympics.
Two weeks after Patrick gets back from Sochi, Abby looks down at the plus sign on a fourth pregnancy test. After nursing school and two kids, she knows her body, and she was already pretty sure, even before the results came up positive yet again. The girls are napping and Patrick's on a road trip, so she lets herself sink down onto the bathroom floor and cry.
When she's done crying, for the moment anyway, she buys plane tickets and starts packing a suitcase.
Madelyn wanders into the bedroom, rubbing her eyes as she wakes up from her nap. "Mommy?"
"Hi, sweetheart." Abby bends down to kiss the top of Madelyn's head.
"What are you doing?"
"Packing," Abby says. She lifts Madelyn up to sit on the bed where she won't be underfoot. "We're going to go visit Grandma and Grandpa."
"Can I play with Old Sam?" Madelyn asks, because she has an obsession with Abby's parents' cat.
Abby smiles at her, letting it be real because her love for her girls is still the perfect part of her life. "Yes, you can." Abby closes her suitcase, leaving it unzipped so she can add the last minute things before their flight the morning. "Do you want to help me choose which of your clothes to pack?"
"Yes!" Madelyn jumps down off the bed and runs to her room.
Abby lets her help choose clothes for Sadie too, and gently reminds her they can't take all the stuffed animals.
Before they leave the house, Abby writes a short note - "The girls and I went to Connecticut." - and leaves it on the kitchen counter where Patrick will probably see it when he gets home from his road trip.
Traveling with a toddler and an infant is not an experience to be envied, but Abby bought first class tickets, she boards early, and at the end, her mom is waiting for her at baggage claim.
"All right, sweetie," Mom says after she hugs Abby tightly. "Let's get you and the girls home."
*
Patrick calls at lunchtime. Abby takes a deep breath when she sees his name on her phone, and then she stands up from the table. "Can you?" she asks, and her mom nods.
Abby leaves the girls at the table and takes the phone into her room.
The first thing Patrick asks is, "Are you parents okay?"
"Yes," Abby says. "My family's fine."
"Okay," Patrick says slowly. "So why are you in Connecticut?"
Abby sits down hard on the bed. It takes a second before she can say, "I can't do this anymore. I thought I could. I could handle it when it was just Madelyn. And I thought I could do it with both kids, if I could just make it through the first year. But I can't. I can't take the cheating and -"
Patrick interrupts her to say, "I'm not," and she interrupts him right back to say, "I've been finding condoms and condom wrappers in your pockets for years."
Abby lets the silence hang for a second after that.
Then she says, "I can't do it anymore. I can't be the only one taking care of our girls all the time."
"We talked about this," Patrick says. "I have to travel. You knew you were going to be home alone with them a lot."
"But you don't do anything when you are home! You don't change diapers or make sure the girls get fed or clean up after them or do the laundry. And I can't keep doing this."
"Abby," Patrick says, like he's going to reason with her.
"I'm pregnant," Abby tells him flatly. "I could barely do this with two kids. I can't do it with three."
They're both silent for a minute.
"Is this," Patrick starts. "Are you leaving me?"
"I don't know," Abby says. "I still love you, but right now I don't like you very much."
*
Abby sets it up so the girls Skype with Patrick every day, but she doesn't talk to him herself other than to make the arrangements. She lets calls go to voicemail and doesn't answer his texts.
It doesn't help her figure out what she wants to do.
She's been answering other texts, mostly just quick notes to the girls to let them know she's not around. She doesn't know what Patrick's telling people, if they're likely to hear from their guys why she isn't there. That's not really her concern at the moment.
Dayna calls her on the fourth day. "Where are you? We all had lunch today. We missed you!"
"I'm sorry I missed it," Abby says, sidestepping the question of her whereabouts. Patrick must not have told anyone the details, or not anyone who let it get back to Duncan or Brent. "How is everyone?"
Dayna fills her in on all the gossip and what happened at lunch and how Jana's not talking to Lindsey again. Abby says all the right things in all the right places, and Sadie wakes up crying from her nap before Dayna's done.
Abby tucks the phone between her ear and her shoulder while she goes to lift Sadie out of the travel crib. "I should probably go," she says, "take care of this." She kisses Sadie's cheek and holds her to her chest with one arm so she can hold her phone with the other hand.
"Oh, sure," Dayna says. "Call me later!"
Abby hangs up without promising anything, and turns her focus to Sadie. She's uncomplicated. Abby knows what to do with her: change her diaper, feed her, hold her.
She thought she had a handle on Madelyn too, but Madelyn throws a tantrum after dinner two days later.
"I want Daddy," Madelyn wails, sounding so heartbroken that Abby almost can't bear it. She stands frozen for a moment, watching her daughter cry and scream, before she scoops Madelyn up in her arms.
"I know you do, baby," she says. She presses her lips to Madelyn's baby fine hair. "I know, baby." She stands there swaying, rocking Madelyn and murmuring soothing nonsense until Madelyn finishes screaming and cries herself out.
After she puts Madelyn to bed in the room the girls are sharing, Abby sits down on the bed in her room and goes through her messages from Patrick. She reads every text message and listens to every voicemail. They range from angry to sad to confused.
She's already emotionally wrung out by the time she gets to the last voicemail, where he sounds tired. "Please come home," he says. "We'll work it out somehow. Just come home." He sighs, and then the message ends.
It's too much, all of the things she feels for him on top of her pregnancy hormones and how tired she is. She turns her face into her pillow as she cries so she won't wake up the girls or draw her mom's attention.
She cries herself to sleep and doesn't wake up until morning. She feels calmer, better able to deal with her life today anyway, and she manages a quick shower before Sadie wakes up.
Abby warms up a bottle for Sadie in the kitchen and sits at the table to feed her. Her parents' morning ritual is virtually unchanged even after more than thirty years, and Abby watches her mom make breakfast, her dad kiss her on the cheek in thanks when she puts a plate between him and his newspaper at the table, the two of them kiss again before her dad leaves for work.
Madelyn's still sleeping, probably worn out by her tantrum yesterday. Abby should get her up soon so it doesn't mess with her sleep schedule too badly, but she puts Sadie down on a blanket on the living room floor, where she can still see her from the kitchen, and sits down to eat her own breakfast first.
It also gives her a chance to talk to her mom. "Patrick wants me to go back to Chicago," she says in the middle of her breakfast.
Her mom makes a listening noise.
"Do you think I should go back?"
"Oh, honey." Her mom smoothes a hand over her hair and kisses the top of her head. "It's your marriage. I can't tell you what to do."
As much as Abby appreciates the autonomy her mom is granting her with that, she was somewhat hoping for motherly advice. "How did you handle being home alone with us all day?"
"Well," her mom says as she puts plates in the sink, "it was a different time, for one thing. I had a lot of support from other moms in the neighborhood. Remember all those times you would all play at someone else's house or have friends over here? That was all of us moms giving each other a break. Plus," her mom adds, turning to look at her, "I was very different from you." She comes over and kisses the top of Abby's head again. "Raising kids is what I wanted to do. You're much more like your dad."
They stay in the kitchen in companionable silence while Abby finishes her breakfast and her mom washes dishes. She hasn't specifically said anything - to anyone - about her education going to waste, but trust her mom to pick up on that piece of it anyway.
Abby lets her mom take her dishes when she's done eating, and then she goes to get Madelyn up.
*
Abby doesn't tell the girls they're going back to Chicago until after they've Skyped with Patrick for the day. It makes it almost impossible to get Madelyn to go to sleep, no matter how many times Abby tells her, "The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner we can go home and you can see Daddy."
Abby bought tickets for a midmorning flight, so it's okay that it takes them a little bit to get going in the morning. Her mom drives them to the airport, and she hugs Abby before they get the girls out of the car.
Abby hugs her mom hard and says, "Thanks, Mom."
Her mom kisses her cheek. "You know you're welcome to come home anytime, honey."
Abby clings to her mom for another minute before they get the girls out of the car and her mom says a goodbye to Madelyn that's cheery enough to stave off any temper tantrums.
It's a long day of travel, and they get to Chicago just in time to hit traffic. Abby makes sure the girls have plenty of snacks, but they're still both a little cranky by the time Abby buckles them into their car seats.
Abby's car has the DVD player in the back, so she puts on Finding Nemo and lets that keep Madelyn and Sadie occupied while she navigates Chicago during rush hour, which is a time of day when she usually tries not to be driving around.
Patrick's car is in the driveway when they get to the house, and Abby takes a deep breath before she takes the key out of the ignition and gets the girls and all their bags out of the car.
The moment she opens the door to the house, Madelyn pushes past her and runs through the foyer, yelling, "Daddy!"
Patrick comes out of the kitchen, and Abby deals with getting the rest of their bags from the porch into the house so she can look away from the pure relief on his face.
Madelyn chatters away, swept up in Patrick's arms, her arms around his neck and his whole attention on her. Abby takes a deep breath, feeling her lungs expand and push back against the suffocating press of the house and its expectations around her.
"Hi," Patrick says when Madelyn's talk about Grandma and Grandpa and their cat and her aunts and uncles falls into long enough of a pause for it.
Abby nods at him without smiling. "Hi." She ducks her head to Sadie. "Do you want to go see Daddy?"
She hands Sadie over to Patrick and leaves him with the girls while she deals with their luggage. She unpacks the girls' things in their rooms and takes deep breaths while she's upstairs. She puts her bags in the master bedroom for now, and then she goes downstairs to figure out what they're going to eat for dinner.
Madelyn insists on having Patrick tuck her in. Abby puts Sadie down while Patrick gets Madelyn to sleep, and they meet in the hallway after Patrick softly pulls Madelyn's door mostly shut.
"How are your parents?" Patrick asks. He sounds stilted, and Abby doesn't feel much like making that better for him.
"Fine." She takes a breath. "Do you want the master or one of the guest bedrooms?"
His face falls out of whatever carefully neutral expression he was trying to hold onto. Abby's not proud of the part of her that's viciously glad to have caused that reaction.
"Abby, come on," he says. "Really?"
"Yes, really," she says. "I'm here, okay? But I still need some space, so you can take the master and I'll pick a guest room, or you can pick a guest room and I'll take the master."
There's an ugly, sulky twist to Patrick's mouth when he says, "This isn't what I was expecting when I asked you to come home."
"Well this isn't what I was expecting when I married you," Abby snaps back. She takes a deep breath. "Can we please not fight right now? I need some space, and that's what it's going to take for me to be here."
"Fine," Patrick says. "I'll take the master."
Abby nods, and takes another deep breath after Patrick goes downstairs. Then she gets to work moving some of her stuff into one of the guest rooms. Just enough, for now, that she can be comfortable until tomorrow. She can always move more later, and she's too tired from traveling all day to do more than that.
*
Abby's up early with the girls, getting them dressed and fed. She takes a deep breath and makes breakfast for herself and Patrick. It's habit. It's her usual life. She's not sure she likes it, but she can do it, and with the food between them, it's easier to duck Patrick's attempt to kiss her good morning.
She spends most of the day doing laundry and moving the rest of her things into the guest bedroom, around the tasks of taking care of the girls and making lunch and dinner.
Abby goes to sleep in the guest bedroom, and does the whole thing over again the next day.
On the third day, when Patrick is leaving for a road trip, she accepts an invitation to take the girls with her over to Dayna's.
"Abby!" Dayna hugs her and kisses her cheek. "I'm so glad you could come. We've missed you. Where have you been?" And that answers the question about whether or not any of them know what's going on with Abby and Patrick.
Abby musters up a smile and dodges the question. "Thanks for invitation. It's good to get out of the house with the girls." She keeps dodging the question all afternoon, gives non answers and redirects the conversation. No one seems particularly suspicious, all too happy to talk about their children and their own lives instead of pressing her about hers.
*
Things have changed by the time Patrick gets back from his next road trip. Not with her and Patrick; everything there is the same new normal it's been since she came back. But with the other wives and girlfriends.
Kelly-Rae is hosting this time, and the smile she gives Abby when she opens the door doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Come on in."
Abby gets the girls settled in with the other kids and then makes the rounds of the room. She gets a lot of those smiles that don't quite reach anyone's eyes. She could leave, but this is her social group too, and whatever spillover there is from her problems with Patrick, she's going to have to spend time with these women.
Lindsey joins her in the kitchen when she's getting herself a snack. "It's like they think it's catching."
Abby laughs, bitterly, despite herself.
Lindsey rests a hand on her shoulder for a brief second, and Abby is overwhelmingly grateful for the momentary support.
*
Abby spends the better part of a week without seeing anyone other than Patrick, the girls, or the checkers at the grocery store. It's almost unbearably lonely, and she resents the silent pressure to just give in and go back to the way things were.
Lindsey drops by one day when Patrick's on a road trip, and smiles when Abby opens the door. "I know this might be rude, but I was out and about and thought I would drop by to see you."
Abby and Lindsey aren't particularly close usually, but Abby is desperate for adult human contact, so she smiles and invites Lindsey in.
Lindsey says hi to the girls - it's obvious she doesn't know much about kids, although she's not unfriendly - and follows Abby into the kitchen.
"Do you want some coffee?" Abby asks her.
"Sure," Lindsey says. "I can always be more caffeinated." She grins at Abby and sits down at the breakfast bar while Abby boils water.
Abby's off caffeine with the pregnancy, but she makes herself a cup of tea so she can sit with Lindsey, and they take their drinks to the table.
Lindsey's good at small talk, chatter that keeps Abby engaged but not having to delve too deep, and she doesn't mind when they get interrupted by the girls.
At a pause in the conversation, Abby asks, because she doesn't have anyone else to ask and she thinks Lindsey will both be chill about it and not repeat it, "Have you ever been cheated on?" It's not the most pressing concern in her marriage, but it's the easiest one to explain.
"I've made a habit of dating rich men who want to date me because I'm hot," Lindsey says matter-of-factly. "Of course I've been cheated on."
Abby turns her cup between her hands. "What did you do about it?"
Lindsey shrugs. "Depended on the situation. Sometimes I just lived with it and made sure we always used condoms. Sometimes I used it as an excuse to break up with them if I wanted out anyway."
"Wow," Abby says after a moment. "That's not really helpful."
Lindsey doesn't seem offended by that. "I didn't come over to be helpful about that," she says cheerfully.
"Then why did you come over?"
"Because I've been the outcast in a group of women I was stuck being friends with, and I thought you might like some company."
Abby's so grateful for it that she almost cries. She manages to hold back her tears, and rests her hand on Lindsey's arm for a moment. "Thank you."
*
Having at least one ally makes it easier to take the girls over to the lunch Elina is hosting. Abby smiles politely and says, "I'm not drinking right now," whenever anyone offers her a glass of wine, and lets them gossip behind her back about whether or not she has a drinking problem. That's easier, too, with an ally in the room.
Lindsey doesn't stick to her the whole time, but she makes it clear that she's not shunning Abby, and she drags Amanda over for a more uncomfortable than it should be conversation. Abby's never been quite sure if Lindsey and Amanda even like each other, or if they just tolerate each other because of Pat and Jon, and she and Amanda don't have much common ground to base a friendship on.
Jana and Elina are definitely only tolerating Lindsey because of the team, and their smiles to Abby are the least real of anyone's.
It's uncomfortable in some ways, but Abby sticks it out, the girls are happy to play with other kids, and it's not as exhausting as it could be.
*
The limbo she's living in doesn't last that long; it's less than a week after they go to Elina's for lunch that Patrick sits down with her in the kitchen while the girls are napping. It's miraculously not a travel or game day for him, so it's probably the only chance they have to have this talk for a while.
"What do you need?" Patrick asks. He has a protein shake he's turning between his hands between sips. "To stay."
Abby needs less than she wants, and she needs less to stay than to be happy. "I need you to be a parent," she says. "Not just the fun parts, but the boring, messy stuff too. Changing diapers, potty training, getting them fed, reading the same story for the hundredth time. All of it."
Patrick's mouth twists, and he drinks from his shake before he says anything. "I'm still going to be gone a lot, and practices and naps and media stuff."
Abby nods. "I know, but when you're not doing that, I need you to be here."
"Okay." Patrick doesn't look happy about it, but he's agreeing, and that's something. "What else?"
Abby takes a breath to steel herself; he's really not going to like this one. "A nanny."
"We don't need a nanny," Patrick says. "I don't want our kids raised by a stranger, and I just said I would do more. We don't need-"
Abby talks over him. "We need a nanny because after this one's born," she puts her hand over her stomach, and they haven't talked about the baby at all, "I'm going back to work."
Patrick stares at her. "You're not going back to work," he says flatly.
"Part-time," Abby says, and she sets her jaw because she doesn't want to end her marriage over this, but she will if she has to. She can't live the life she's been living anymore. "I didn't go to nursing school just to have something to do. I went to nursing school because I wanted to be a nurse. I want to be a nurse."
Patrick's silent for a second. "I want our children raised by us."
"No you don't," Abby snaps back. "You want them raised by me while you go," she waves her hand, "do everything you want and fulfill all your dreams."
Patrick pushes his shake away from him. The glass spins a little in its condensation. "You going to work doesn't make any sense. You should be here, with the girls. You're supposed to be here while I'm here."
Abby's hands are shaking, but she makes herself sit still. "What doesn't make sense is that you got everything you want and I'm suffocating. I am going back to work. I'm going to be a role model to our girls that you don't have to give up everything to be a mom. That's not negotiable." She swallows. "What's negotiable is if we hire a nanny together or if we get divorced and have to have at least one nanny anyway."
Patrick takes in a sharp breath, like he didn't realize that was a real possibility. "You would leave me over this?"
Abby's voice shakes when she says, "Yes." She's pretty sure it's not what she wants, but she wants to be alone in her house with three kids and no support even less. "I love you." She wants to reach out to take his hand, but he doesn't look like he'd take it. "I love our girls. But I can't take this anymore." As awful as it is, there's a sense of relief about saying it when she can see his face and see that he can see that she means it. "That's what I need to stay."
Patrick's mouth twists again. "What about the cheating?"
"I'd rather you didn't," Abby says, "but I don't think I can stop you."
"Wow," Patrick says after a moment. "You don't think much of me, do you?"
"You married me," Abby snaps. "You promised to forsake all others, and then you didn't. I don't really think there's anything else I can do about it."
"And you don't care," Patrick snaps back.
"You asked what I need to stay," Abby says. "I'd like you to be faithful, but I don't need it to stay."
"I'm not entirely sure why you even came back." Patrick scoops up his protein shake and stalks past her out of the kitchen.
Abby puts one hand over her eyes and the other over her mouth and does her best not to cry. She has the feeling that this is one of those times where if she starts she's not sure she'll be able to stop, and the girls won't nap forever.