Free Abbott Awaits by Chris Bachelder Page A

long. The monitor is quiet, which means either that she is alive and sleeping or that she is no longer alive. He wishes he had been more patient with her, more attentive. He wishes he had been more focused and engaged during all those hours they spent with the beads and the buttons in the family room. He wonders about the last thing he said to her. He thinks it was, “Have a good one.” When he has wrestled and played with her in the family room, he has put his head on her chest and heard her small heart beating. He has wondered what keeps it going and going. Nobody seems willing to admit that the very premise is outlandish. Abbott’s daughter’s nap is Abbott’s time to get things done around the house or run errands or rest or read, but for the past forty-five minutes he has just been sitting at the dining-room table, waiting for her to wake up. There is no good reason to go in to check on her. If her heart is not beating,
then it has already stopped beating
. Going in does not change that. Why enter her room only to confirm a dark suspicion? While there existsthe possibility that she is alive and napping, Abbott should remain outside her room. If the nap lasts five hours, a week, a month, he should sit right here at the dining-room table with the slim hope that she’s just very tired. Why not live as much of his life as possible with this hope? Why rush to begin the sorrowful remainder of his days? If she is no longer alive, every second he does not know for certain that she is no longer alive is another second he does not have to live with it. He knows it is best to stay out of her room. When he enters her room, she immediately stirs. She is, and has been, alive. His relief is immediately succeeded by regret and self-rebuke. He does not want her to wake up. He could be reading right now, or taking his own nap. He could be working with wood. He tries to sneak from the room, but his daughter sits up and calls out. “Dad,” she says, rubbing her eyes. “Dad. I’m awake.”

14 Abbott’s Imaginary Burst into Subdisciplinary Prominence
    â€œHistorically speaking,” Abbott begins before a rapt imaginary audience at the imaginary Royal Institute of Harbinger, Omen, and Portent in Helsinki, “we occupy the epoch after Juvenal and before Armageddon.” He pauses for robust laughter, as his notes instruct. His imaginary paper is called “On the Feasibility of American Burlesque.” Its real thesis is that it’s increasingly unfeasible. The ornate, high-ceilinged lecture hall is stiflingly hot or quite drafty and cold. The atmosphere is electric, charged, and crackling. His artful Power Point presentation culminates with a photograph of the four deceased dolphins that recently washed up in San Diego. “A necropsy confirmed that they had been shot,” Abbott says. “With a gun.” The applause lasts one minute and thirty-five seconds. Flash photographers flout the strict prohibition against flash photography. Abbott’s handkerchief is soaked. He looks up from the lectern, sees members of the audience scanning the conference program for his short and humble bio. It hasn’t been easy to be away from his real wife and daughter for these six imaginary days, but the benefit to his career is inestimable.His absence makes him miss and appreciate his family even more. This trip in all likelihood has strengthened the domestic bonds. Also, he has never been to Sweden, and he has enjoyed discovering a new place on his own. Finland, he means. He has never been to Finland, and he has enjoyed discovering a new place on his own.

15 On the Very Possibility of Kindness
    The bananas in the kitchen are overripe, and Abbott’s wife wants to make banana bread. So far the premise is simple and so is the motivation. But there is a complication. Abbott’s wife is tired and busy, and she is having trouble finding the time to make the bread. Right now she has