I pretended to consider it.
“Smart.”
Abigail visibly relaxed.
Then Mom entered the kitchen.
She wore slippers on the wrong feet.
Her cardigan was buttoned unevenly.
She stared at me for three seconds.
“Samuel?”
Abigail immediately moved beside her.
“Yes, Margaret. Samuel came home yesterday.”
Mom frowned.
“Yesterday?”
My chest tightened despite knowing it was an act.
She was frighteningly convincing.
Abigail touched my arm.
“You see?”
I nodded slowly.
Mom looked toward the refrigerator.
“Did George buy milk?”
My father had been dead eleven years.
Abigail inhaled softly.
“There it is.”
Mom’s eyes flickered toward me for a fraction of a second.
She was enjoying this.
I almost admired it.
At 9:20, we got into the car.
Abigail sat beside me.
Mom sat in the back.
For twenty minutes, my wife described incidents that never happened.
Mom wandering barefoot into traffic.
Mom turning on the stove at midnight.
Mom accusing delivery drivers of stealing.
