I pushed away the plate of half-eaten roast beef and covered it with my napkin.

“Mama, stop that,” my mother said firmly. “You tormented me in high school. You’re not going to do that to Poppy.”

“I’m only teasing.” Nana stabbed at a slice of banana. “She’s practically grown-up now. I wasn’t much older than she was when I got married.”

“Let that be a warning to you,” my mother said.

Chapter Twenty-One

We emerged from the Rathskellar to find that the day had taken on a mellow cast. A few large, white clouds had appeared, and the bright glare of noon had softened into the warm light of mid-afternoon.

“I’m sorry to rush,” Kim said. “I promised to take Tory to the mall to meet some of her friends. It was a babysitting bribe. I can trust Justin to her care for about three hours without fear of fratricide.”

I hugged her and promised to keep in touch, wishing that meant more than Christmas cards and email jokes. I missed Kim; or rather I missed the Kim I’d known, the one who was on her way to MIT, who had absentee parents and parties in her rec room. I wanted to know the mature Kim, the mother, the ex-wife, the woman who’d dropped out of MIT. Years later, after Tory was born and her divorce was final, she’d gone back to school and become an accountant. She had her own business now. By all reckoning she was very successful. I knew the bare details of her life, and yet I could catch only glimpses of the adult Kim through the prism of the teenaged girl who’d been my friend.

She climbed into a convertible Saab and drove off, waving to us in the rearview mirror. In high school, her dream car was a Datsun 280ZX, and she’d dated at least three guys who drove that make of car.

“Do you remember Kim’s car in high school?”

“The Great Pumpkin,” Abby said. “I remember pushing it.” A slight breeze ruffled Abby’s silk shirt, causing the sleeves and chest to billow out. She put her hands in her pockets and tucked her elbows to her sides. “Where to now?”

“Let’s walk across the brickyard and down through Free Expression Tunnel. We can visit the dorms and then stop at the bookstore and buy some of that overpriced alumni crap. Kim looks good, doesn’t she?”

“She does. It’s funny to see her without a man in tow.”

“Men,” I corrected. “There was always more than one. Kim liked to hedge her bets. Do you think she likes being an accountant?”

“Instead of an unemployed mathematical genius? I think so. She seems happy enough with her life. She was depressed as hell when she came back from Boston. I thought she should have been hospitalized.”

“If her parents could have abandoned their goddamn travel schedule for five minutes,” I said. “I don’t think they stuck around long enough to notice that she’d come home permanently.”

“She left MIT and saved them god knows how much in tuition. More money for Germany or Thailand or wherever the hell they wanted to gallivant off to next. She nearly died after that second abortion, a hemorrhage like you wouldn’t believe. If I’d gone home that night like she asked me to . . .”

“I know. Rosalyn insisted you stay.”

Abby shivered. I handed her my jacket.

“Clever Rosalyn. I should have known. What kind of nurse was I?”

“One who didn’t have any training yet. That was the fall you started at UNC, remember?”

“Okay, then what kind of friend was I? I didn’t want to spend a minute away from Rosalyn. I wanted to be with her twenty-four seven. Kim should’ve asked you.”

“Me. Kim told me. I would have gone with her again, but she didn’t want me to. She wanted you, Abby. She said it was too humiliating to have me go twice—once was a mistake. She could be forgiven for once. Twice was careless. Twice was a sin. The DiMarcos practiced a weird form of Catholicism: once-a-year visits to midnight mass, and the rest they made up as they went along.”

“Thanks for the jacket. Aren’t you cold?”

“No. Remind me—why didn’t Kim go back to the Hokstra Center?”

“It was closed. The doctor who founded it died or moved or something. We went to some place on the edge of town, I forget the name. It was no better than a mill. The waiting room was full of women sitting on hard plastic chairs. A hatchet-faced nurse called out names as their turn came up. Take a number. No counselors, no soft cushions, just a cold steel table in the operating room.”

“Did she tell you that?”

Abby nodded. “She said she deserved it. She said the experience was just as awful as she’d hoped it would be. She should have sued that fucking doctor. The anesthetic didn’t work—she felt the whole thing. I should’ve gone into surgery with her. I should have insisted. You would have . . .”

“I would have what? I wouldn’t have done a single thing that you didn’t do. Kim lived, Abby, thanks to you. You took her to the hospital. You remained calm. She wanted you because you’re better in a crisis than I am. You’re warm and generous and competent. I’m not. Don’t tear yourself to pieces over what might have been.”

She took a deep breath. We’d crossed Hillsborough Street and stopped to lean against the low brick wall that separated the back of D. H. Hill Library from the brickyard. Students who would have been toddlers when Abby and I were freshmen here walked past us, backpacks slung over their shoulders. For some reason, it seemed strange to think that anyone who had been born during the Reagan administration could possibly be old enough to attend college.

“How are you, Poppy?” she asked.