One Last Thing ✅

forty things

When we get home, Grams goes upstairs to take a nap after making me a cup of Earl Gray and tucking me under a blanket on the couch. I watch part of an old black and white movie without actually registering any of the plot. I'm just about to turn off the television when there's a knock on the door.

I sigh, heave myself to my feet, and trudge my way to the door.

When I pull open the door, I find Abbott standing on my front porch.

"Hi," I say, surprised.

"Hey. I just wanted to see how you're doing."

"I'm fine," I say, the words falling automatically out of my mouth. "Just watching a little TV."

"Oh, yeah? What?"

My mouth opens, but I realize that I can't answer the question because I don't even really know. "Um, I'm not sure." It makes me laugh. The act feels strange. It's been a while since I laughed.

"Well, do you want some company watching... whatever it is that you're watching?" Abbott asks shyly.

"Sure," I say, and I open the door a little wider. He follows me inside, and I close the door gently behind him. "Would you like some tea?" I ask.

"No, thanks. I'm good."

I shrug and walk into the living room, where on the television a commercial for a steam mop is segueing back into the movie. I take a seat on one side of the couch, grab a throw pillow, and press it against my chest.

"Oh, I know this one," Abbott says. "Casablanca. My mom used to watch this whenever she had a bad day. I've never watched it the whole way through."

"I'm not really sure what's going on," I admit. "I was kind of spacing out."

Abbott takes off his jacket, folds it neatly and hangs it over the arm of the couch, and takes a seat opposite from me. "Well, I know enough about the plot to fill you in." He points. "See, it's during World War II. And that guy... Rick... he's the owner of this bar, and secretly he helps fugitives to get to safety. But then there's this whole romantic plot—my mom's favorite part, of course—between him and his ex, who's married to someone else who happens to need some documents to get out of the country. Which Rick has. Make sense?"

I wrinkle my brow. "Yeah. So... that's his ex?" I point at an actress onscreen, a woman with a cloud of soft curls framing her face.

"Yeah... Ilsa. Played by Ingrid Bergman."

I turn to Abbott, my eyebrows raised. "You know a lot about old movies."

He shakes his head. "Not that much. Just the ones I watched with my mom when I was little. She likes old movies the best. She says they have so much more soul than today's films. I made her watch Fast and the Furious one night, and she couldn't even make it halfway through."

I giggle. "Well, to be fair..."

Abbott smiles. "Yeah. Maybe I should have picked something better."

We are quiet for a while, just watching the movie. When it gets to the end, the part when Rick and Ilsa are saying goodbye by the airplane, it seems so familiar, like déjà vu. Maybe I have seen it before. Rick tells Ilsa that the problems of three people are so much smaller than what's going on in the rest of the world.

I don't know what it is, but that line snags something inside of me, won't let me go. I'm not sure I can untangle the thread, the full meaning of it, but it has something to do with me and Mrs. Edwards and maybe my mom.

By the time the credits roll, I realize that I am silently crying.

Abbott touches my hand. "Are you okay?" he asks.