LITMIR.BIZ

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Her cheeks were damp with tears, too. How could Abby yell at her and make her feel even worse? Abby knew she would simply have to find a way to cope, a way to make the others understand.

      Then she was struck by another, more terrifying thought. “What about when Dad goes away on business? Who’ll look out for us then?”

      Megan’s expression faltered for just an instant, probably at the very real fear she must have heard in Abby’s voice. “Your grandmother will move in. Mick’s already spoken to her. She’ll be here later today.”

      At the realization that this was real, that if they’d made arrangements for Gram to move in, then this separation was permanent and not some temporary separation that would end as soon as her parents came to their senses, Abby began to shake. “No,” she whispered. “This is so wrong, Mom.”

      Megan seemed taken aback by her vehemence. “But you all love Gram! It’ll be wonderful for you having her right here with you.”

      “That’s not the point,” Abby said. “She’s not you! You can’t do this to us.”

      Megan pulled Abby into her arms, but Abby yanked herself free. She refused to be comforted when her mother was about to walk out the door and tear their lives apart.

      “I’m not doing this to you,” Megan said, her expression pleading for understanding. “I’m doing it for me. Try to understand. In the long run it’s going to be best for all of us.” She touched Abby’s tearstained cheek. “You’ll love New York, Abby. You especially. We’ll go to the theater, the ballet, the art galleries.”

      Abby stared at her with renewed shock. “You’re moving to New York?” Forgetting for a moment her own dream of someday working there, making a name for herself in the financial world, all she could think about now was that it was hours away from their home in Chesapeake Shores, Maryland. A tiny part of her had apparently hoped that her mother would be going no farther away than across town, or maybe to Baltimore or Annapolis. Wasn’t that far enough to escape her problems with Mick without abandoning her children?

      “What are we supposed to do if we need you?” she demanded.

      “You’ll call me, of course,” Megan said.

      “And then wait hours for you to get here? Mom, that’s crazy.”

      “Sweetie, it won’t be for long, a few weeks at most, and then you’ll be with me. I’m going to find a wonderful place for us. I’ll find the best private schools. Mick and I have agreed to that.”

      Abby desperately wanted to believe it would all work out. At the same time she wanted to keep her right here answering questions until she forgot all about this crazy plan, but just then a taxi pulled up outside. Abby stared from the taxi to her mother in horror. “You’re leaving right this minute, without even saying goodbye?” She’d guessed as much earlier, but now it seemed too cruel.

      Tears streamed down Megan’s cheeks. “Believe me, it’s better this way. It’ll be easier. I’ve left notes for everyone under their bedroom doors, and I’ll call tonight. We’ll be together again before you know it.”

      As Abby stood there, frozen with shock, Megan picked up the first two bags and carried them across the porch and down the front steps to the waiting cab. The driver came back for the rest, followed by Megan.

      Standing in the empty foyer, she tucked a finger under Abby’s chin. “I love you, sweetheart. And I know how strong you are. You’ll be here for your brothers and sisters. It’s the only thing that makes this separation okay.”

      “It is not okay!” Abby replied vehemently, her voice starting to climb. Until now, she’d mostly kept it together, but the realization that her mom wasn’t even sticking around to handle the initial fallout from this made her want to scream. She wasn’t an adult. This wasn’t her mess to solve.

      “I hate you!” she shouted as Megan walked down the steps, her spine straight. She shouted it again just to make sure her mother heard the anger in her voice, but Megan never looked back.

      Abby would have gone on shouting until the taxi was out of sight, but just then she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Jess, her eyes wide with confusion and dismay.

      “Mommy,” Jess whispered, her chin wobbling as she stared through the open doorway at the disappearing taxi. Her strawberry-blond hair was tangled, her feet bare, the imprint of her old-fashioned chenille bedspread on her cheek. “Where’s Mommy going?”

      Calling on that inner strength everyone believed she had, Abby steeled herself against her own fear, tamped down all the anger and forced a smile for her little sister. “Mommy’s going on a trip.”

      Tears welled in Jess’s eyes. “When’s she coming back?”

      Abby gathered her sister in her arms. “I’m not sure,” she said, then added with a confidence she was far from feeling, “She promised it won’t be long.”

      But, of course, that turned out to be a lie.

       1

       15 years later

      Being an overachiever sucked, Abby O’Brien Winters concluded as she crawled into bed after midnight, mentally and physically exhausted after a roller-coaster day on Wall Street. She’d managed about twenty minutes of quality time with her twin daughters before they’d fallen asleep barely into the opening paragraph of The Velveteen Rabbit. She’d eaten warmed-over Chinese takeout for the third straight night, then pulled out a half-dozen voluminous market analysts’ reports she needed to absorb before the stock exchange opened in the morning. Her bedtime reading was a lot more challenging than what Caitlyn and Carrie chose.

      She was good at her job as a portfolio manager for a major brokerage company, but so far it had cost her a marriage to a great guy, who’d tired of playing second fiddle to her career, and more sleep than she could possibly calculate. Though she shared custody of the twins with Wes, she often felt as if she was barely acquainted with her five-year-old daughters. It sometimes seemed as if they spent more time with the nanny—and even her ex-husband—than they did with her. She’d long since lost sight of exactly what she was trying to prove and to whom.

      When the phone rang, Abby glanced at the clock and groaned. At this hour, it could only be an emergency. Heart thudding, she reached for the receiver.

      “Abby, it’s me,” her sister Jessica announced. Jess was the youngest of the five O’Brien siblings and the real night owl among them. Abby stayed up late because it was the only way to cram enough work into a twenty-four-hour day. Jess did it because she was just starting to hit her stride when the moon and stars came out. “I called earlier, but the nanny said you weren’t home yet. Then I got distracted with a project I’m working on. I hope it’s not too late. I know you’re usually up till all hours.”

      “It’s fine,” Abby assured her. “Is everything okay? You sound stressed. Is something going on with Gram? Or Dad?”

      “Gram’s amazing. She’ll outlive us all. And Dad is off someplace building something. I can’t keep track of him.”

      “He was in California last week,” Abby recalled.

      “Then I guess he’s still there. You know he has to oversee every single detail when one of his projects is being built. Of course, then he loses interest, just the way he did with Chesapeake Shores.”

      There was an unsurprising note of bitterness in Jess’s voice. As the youngest of five, she, more than the rest of them, had missed spending time with their dad. Mick O’Brien had already been making a name for himself as an architect and urban planner when he’d designed and built Chesapeake Shores, a now-famous seaside community on the Chesapeake Bay. He’d done it in partnership with his brothers—one a builder, the other an environmentalist. The town had been built around land that had been farmed by Colin O’Brien, a great-great uncle and the first of the O’Briens

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