ELIZABETH GUTTING
Though it had been years since they’d last spoken, she knew it was Laura. Abby was called back to her early twenties by that pleading inlection — the voice that could only be Laura’s. She thought now of the mornings in Laura’s kitchen, eating croissant crumbs of each other’s plates, Abby’s textbook pushed aside for a later hour. The rowdy dinners with Laura’s young children — Professor Naughton’s children, too, of course. And that inal standof, in the doorway to Abby and Professor Naughton’s home, when Laura’s expression had hardened and she had told Abby never to come back. She’d shut the door before Abby could ofer a word of explanation, or apology. “Laura,” she said. “Thank God. Are you all right?” “So you’re on your way over now, too? I guess I could have warned you this would happen. But something made me wish I was wrong — I wished I was imagining that my dear sweet husband was haunting me from the dead. It started with a cheap mountain bike showing up on my porch every Tuesday morning. Then one day, there he was, balanced on its seat. Anyway, we can talk more in person. I’ll tell you as much as I know, and I’ll leave the
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