Page 154 of The New Place

“Liesl,” he starts again, making his voice gentle.

“And were you ever going to tell me about getting married?”

“You were there,” Abbot says.

It’s the wrong answer, because she huffs a loud breath. “No, before.”

“Right,” he agrees quickly. “Before.” Before what?

“Dad had to tell me,” Liesl says.

Ah, yes. Okay, that’s some footing he can gain. “We hadn’t told anyone yet.”

“Then how did Chris know?”

“He—” Abbot starts, but he can’t explain this to her.

That catches him right in the chest. Her perspective on how this engagement to Ned happened, the entire marriage—it’s a truth for just him and Ned. A ruse. A joke, even, that followed too quickly on pretending to look at houses together.

Which Ned never wanted to do, and won’t want to now, friends with Steve or not.

But Abbot can’t untangle that any more than he can the frustration on Liesl’s face. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” he tries.

“Yeah, but you did. Were you even going to surprise me?”

Of course, he wants to get out, which is also untrue.

But her eyebrows are tightening as she waves at him in a gesture of sheer annoyance. “And you spent the whole time you were home talking about Ned.”

“You always talk about Ned,” Abbot says and no, that’s the wrong response yet again.

“You couldn’t wait to get back here. It was like you were barely home.”

This is home, he nearly says. He closes his mouth over the words. That’s only marginally better than the other thought: Yes, I could hardly wait. “I spent a month with you,” he offers.

She answers the appeasement with a disgusted look. “Yeah, a month texting Ned.”

“I—”

“And talking about Peggy,” she goes on, and he tries to refute that too, but she’s still talking. “And then it’s all like, oh great, you’re getting married, surprise. And Ned hasn’t ever even come to visit, so are you going to bother to keep coming back to see me? Or do you just live here now with your new family and your dumb dog?”

I do live here, he could say, but Baxter? The derision in her voice? Abbot steps closer.

Her jaw sets, defiant. Liesl loves Baxter. And Ned. And they had fun over the holidays, no matter what she’s saying now. She’d helped him pick out the vermicelles for Peggy, too, insisting they hunt through the shops for a specific brand.

He’s missed something along the way. Something large and important that apparently should have been really very obvious. “Liesl…” he starts.

“I don’t even care.”

“Yes, you do.” He has very little idea of what’s going on, but he does know this is her caring very, very much. “Liesl, I will always come back to see you.”

“Don’t. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Abbot says. “Not at all, if you think I don’t want to see you, or I’m distracted when I do. You’re why I go back at all, Liesl.”

“Yeah, it’s obviously not to visit the cemetery.”

No. Of course not. Why would he go there? Why would he even want to? He hasn’t been once after that awful day, and he won’t, not ever.