The Bequest
Chapter 63—Abigail

That cliché, "Women, can't live with them, can't live without them," has always bothered me immensely. But the same sentiment does apply well to work. In many ways, I can't live with it, but I also can't live without it. After Ethan was born, I actually tried staying home. I took a semester off from law school and considered never finishing. I felt so overwhelmed with the baby, and so desperate to be a perfect mother, that I thought the only way I could do it was to do nothing else.

I hated that few months of my life. I've always been the kind of parent who loves being a mom...and needs to do other things in addition to mothering. I've learned, over the past few years, that I'm a better version of myself when I have more than one thing on which to focus. Lately, as I've been working extra in order to prove to the partners that I'm qualified and capable, especially from so far away, I've felt this even more keenly. And for the first time in over a year, it's not only my work schedule that's monkeying with my life.

"Wait, you have to work tomorrow?" I exhale into the phone a little too gustily. "I thought you were off for the next few days." I really wanted to talk to Steve about the whole Ethan at Rice versus on a ranch thing. And also have a real, no kids, no lake date, of course.

"I was supposed to be off." He clears his throat and drops to a whisper, as if he's sharing a government secret. "You didn't hear this from me, but one of the docs at my hospital was recently fired."

"How else would I hear about employment details of a doctor in Wyoming?"

"You're hilarious. But seriously, don't tell anyone I told you."

"I only know you. Who would I tell?"

"You know Jeff and Kevin, and Eddy, sort of."

"You think Kevin's high risk? I had to show him how to set up a Facebook account on his phone."

"It's a small world over here." He sighs. "This guy apparently forced not one, not two, and not even three, but four different nurses in the hospital to sleep with him."

"Is his last name Clinton?"

Steve doesn't even laugh. I suppose if someone I knew had turned out to be that horrible, I'd be upset as well. "Sounds like a delightful guy."

"I never liked him," Steve says. "And now I feel justified. The problem isn't that I'm upset about him being a jerk-although I feel really bad for the nurses-but there aren't many docs here, so covering all his scheduled shifts is killer." "When's your next day off?"

"Eight days away, now." He groans.

Eating dinner after his shift was fine, but between driving and working, he just doesn't have a lot of time. If he teaches the kids a horseback lesson, he basically needs to sleep the rest of the day. "What about Saturday night?" I ask. "After your shift?"

"I'm switching to nights that day," he says. "Could I interest you in a nutritious breakfast?"

"Sure," I say. "Breakfast sounds fine."

"It's a date," he says.

"Since the first one ended with a dunking, does that make this our second date?"

"I hear that's the most important one. Vogue magazine says that's when a girl can decide whether the guy's a creep or a hero."

"Shut up," I say.

"I really should be heading to bed."

I yawn. "Me too."

After he hangs up, I brush my teeth and get ready to sleep. As always, I refresh my inbox one last time, just in case. In case of what? I don't know. Except again, like with Gus earlier, a new message does pop up. This time it's from Robert, and with a header like Bad News, I can't help checking it.

Abby-

Just got in from that trip to Atlanta and had this waiting on me (see attached). I'm so sorry-I know you weren't planning to be back yet. I don't think it's wise to refuse the request. Don't want to predispose the judge to rule against us. If you want to skip this one, I can grab Bev to fill in for you. We'll come up with another way to show the partners you're ready. No stress-we can always push the vote.

-Robert No stress? My success at this case was supposed to be the thing that convinced the partners to bring me in. How can I just pass the ball off to Bev at the ten-yard line? I click the attachment and find that the judge had a vacation change and two other cases cancel and can move the trial up to the last week of July. Which means I need to be there for pre-trial prep as soon as possible.

Like, within the week. I doubt I can even stick around long enough to honor our plans for Saturday.

I feel a little bit like Amanda. I shouldn't care about leaving early-I barely know Steve. It's not like I was ever planning to stay permanently, but my feelings of disappointment and alarm are real. For the first time in six weeks, I wonder whether I've been a little bullheaded. Am I wrong not to even consider giving Ethan what he wants?

Could he stay here himself and handle the ranch alone? I haven't even contemplated that option. I'll be sending him off to college alone soon enough. How would coming here be different? A college dorm is much safer than riding on a trail with hundreds of cattle, for one. It's also safer attending classes than working underneath a tractor, trying to drop the transmission, or whatever crazy thing he did yesterday that resulted in him having quarts and quarts of toxic waste dumped on himself.

I'm staring at my phone, debating whether to text Steve, when I hear a tap on my door. I glance at the clock. It's nearly ten o'clock. Pretty late for my early-riser kids.

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I expect Ethan-but it's Izzy. "Hey, Mom."

"Is everything okay?"

She nods. "Can I come in?"

"Of course."

She perches on the edge of my bed.

"What's up?"

"I know Ethan just gave his presentation," she says, "and I know he really wants to stay." She drops her eyes to her hands. "I just thought you might want to know what the rest of us thought."

"The animals are a lot of fun," I say. "We could increase the frequency of your lessons back home."

"I just wanted to say that Whitney and I were talking, and she agreed with me."

"Okay."

"For the first time since Dad died, we actually feel like we're a family again."

"With Aunt Mandy and her kids here too?"

"Actually, we wish they'd stay," Izzy says. "Maren was a brat, but even she's getting better, and none of us want to go back to Houston. We like the animals, but we also like the rest. It's not even just the horseback lessons. We've also just been together more."

"Sweetheart, I can't work remotely forever." I'll never make partner from here, either. "And once school starts, you'll be just as busy here as you were back home." "Maybe."

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Her face turns upward. "Can you just promise me you'll really think about it?"

"Is everything okay?" I brush the hair away from her eyes. "I'm surprised you'd even want to stay. What about all your friends back home?"

"I don't have any," she says. "And neither does Whitney."

Their words barely make sense. "What about Reese and Harper? Liz? Or Shayla?"

"No one knows how to talk around me," she says. "Or at least, that's how it started. When they made some kind of joke, like, 'I'd rather die than drink a pumpkin latte,' they'd all freeze and look at me, as if they'd broken some rule by using the word 'die.' And then they just kind of started hanging out with other people, and there wasn't room for me at the lunch table any more." She shrugs. "I'm fine. It's okay. But we all like the idea that we'd have new schools and a fresh start." "The new school would be really small," I say. "They probably aren't very academically rigorous, with the limited funding they have and the large geographic area from which they all pull."

"You don't know that," Izzy says. "You're guessing."

I shrug. "It's an educated guess." I grab her by the shoulders and pull her close for a hug. "No matter where we are, no matter what happens, we're always a family. I don't want you to lose that feeling." She doesn't seem to take the encouragement from my words that I hoped she would.

Usually I go right to sleep, but that night, I lie awake for hours.

When my alarm goes off, I want to hit it and roll over. For just one day, I want to pretend that I don't have to tell Ethan he's going to Rice and watch as his face falls and his hopes and dreams are squashed. I want to pretend that my kids will be eager to go home to the home we were giddy to buy and have lived in happily for years. I want to pretend that I don't have to answer emails, review trial plans, feed animals, make food, clean common areas, and fold laundry.

But most of all, I wish I could close my eyes and get my life back, the one I worked so hard to create. I want my husband back-I want the future to be secure. I want someone else at my side who agrees that the things I'm doing are right. I want someone else to be the bad guy, just for once.

I take five minutes to pretend that I can have all that.

And then when my alarm goes off again, I groan and whine and whimper as I roll out of bed and pull on a pair of jeans. "They want to stay-here-where we're constantly feeding something and scooping poop for something else. Where riding isn't fun, where it's a chore. Where cows are constantly trying to injure themselves just to ruin my entire week."