Spencer took a deep breath. He reminded himself that she didn’t know what the stakes were. He decided to take Chris’s advice and talk to her as an adult.

“Look, Abby, I get that this is all a pain in the ass for you and I’m sorry. I’m working things out here and—”

“Your problems at work.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re working out your problems at work. Then everything will be fine.” When he said nothing, she looked at him demurely. “Caitlyn didn’t want to give you and Chris time to work things out. I got it.”

“You guys were on first-name terms?”

“Yeah. She was cool.” Abby looked at her father. She knew he needed to have a smoke. She decided to accelerate the process. “I don’t accept Friend Requests. I don’t talk to adults I don’t know. If any of my friends’ parents or my teachers get in touch, I ignore them. Basically, I ignore adults unless you say I can speak to them, Dad.”

Spencer heard Chris stifle a laugh somewhere behind him. Abby was now staring intently at the screen, not even waiting to see how her response had landed. Her comebacks were getting sharper. Her mother had been pretty much untouchable, unless Spencer had been on form.

“OK, Abby, so do you mind if I—”

“Please go have a fag outside, Dad.”

“I don’t call them fags, Abby.”

“British people call them fags.”

“You’re half-British, Abby, just saying.”

“No, Dad. I’m just AWOL Abby.”

AWOL Abby was what she’d become known as back at school. She’d challenged the moniker hard, saying she was, in fact, on a surprise extended family vacation.

At least her dad had changed a little since they’d come to Toledo. More than a little, in fact. Chris said he was doing well at work. He did seem happier here. The only problem was, he was the only one who did.

Hammering the rumors down was never-ending, like bashing moles in that carnival game. But in spite of her best efforts, the AWOL thing stuck, and its persistence seemed to signal the start of a slide for her from being one of the crowd to, well, she wasn’t sure exactly where it was headed. Anything that had made her even slightly different before, her British roots, her sky-high intelligence, things that hadn’t mattered when she was hanging out daily with her friends, became possible reasons for her disappearance. It hurt. And her dad and Chris had no clue. They must have no clue, because they were happy to make things even more difficult by limiting her fighting time.