“This is Bridget Callahan. I work in the HR Department of Brooklyn Hospital,” she said. “Do you have a moment?”
21
SOPHIE
The backseat of my parents’ Buick sedan was lonely. I sat behind my mom where I always used to sit and tried to avoid looking at the empty spaces next to me. We pulled away from the train station and headed back home to Cedar Mills, past the miles of ancient, rotting cemeteries, decrepit, gray factories, outdated bowling alleys, and hole-in-the-wall gas stations. That was Cedar Mills. Home sweet home.
“I thought I’d make pot roast for dinner tonight,” my mom said, breaking the silence. Pot roast was always Nori’s favorite, not mine.
“Thanks, Mom,” I replied, forcing a smile and wishing Jamison were there to whisper in my ear that everything was going to be fine.
My dad’s window was cracked a couple of inches countering the fact that my mom always had the heat on blast in the winter. Frozen February air seeped in behind him, mixing with the hot air blowing from the vents, making me feel uncomfortably hot and cold at the same time.
“Did you know that your cousin, Laura, is getting married this summer?” my mom announced. “Some winery in Vermont. I don’t want to drive that far, but you know how Aunt Kathy is. She’d throw a fit if we said something about it. The groom’s not even from there. They just like this winery.” My mom’s way of bonding always involved some form of gossip.
“How are Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dan?” I asked her.
“Uncle Dan retired from the Post Office at the end of this past December,” my father said. “He and Aunt Kathy are on a Jamaican cruise right now.”
“Nice,” I said. The small talk was killing me. “I’d love a break from this cold.”
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
“Your father and I were talking about taking a cruise this summer,” my mom said, fishing through her purse for God only knew what. “You wanna come?”
“Julie,” my dad huffed. “She’s twenty-four. She doesn’t want to go on vacation with her parents.”
He was right.
“So, what’s the plan this weekend?” I asked, casually glancing down at my phone and smiling when a message from Jamison magically appeared. I fired off a quick ‘I miss you’ and watched the screen diligently for a reply.
“No big plans,” my mother said. “We thought we could catch up. Maybe take you out for dinner Saturday night at your favorite restaurant. Grammy Gladys would probably like to see you.”
Grammy Gladys was half deaf and legally blind. She could never keep my sisters or me straight despite our vastly different hair colors, and for a while, she kept forgetting they were long gone. I cringed at the thought of her calling me by one of their names in front of my parents.
I shrunk down comforted by the down of my marshmallow coat and took a deep breath.
Baby steps.
Jamison was right. I needed them, and they needed me. None of us could move on without each other.
We pulled into the driveway thirty minutes later, and my father carried my bag upstairs to my room. Stepping into the house was like going back in time. Nothing had changed. The same pictures were on the walls in the same places. The yellow afghan blanket was still draped on the back of the couch. The vintage stuffed geese were still leaning against the entertainment center in the family room. A faint smell of cinnamon potpourri mixed with the savory pot roast aroma was coming from the crock pot in the kitchen.
“Welcome home, Sophie.” My mom rubbed my back reluctant to get too close to me as if she were still scared.
I climbed the stairs to my old room and flung myself on the bed. My tattered comforter was soft beneath my fingers and radiating with a clean laundry scent. Across the room, my old perfume bottles lined the dresser top, and a collection of stained, pilling, and over-loved stuffed animals sat neatly in a white wicker chair in the corner. Everything was exactly how I had left it years ago. I could only imagine how preserved the twins’ room was.
“Sophie, dinner’s ready,” my mom called from downstairs. She used to have to yell that multiple times when we were kids. We’d stay upstairs playing Barbies for hours until she finally gave up, and we ended up eating cold dinners.
My father sat at the kitchen table, a tumbler filled with brown liquid in his hand and a plate of steaming food in front of him.
“Here you are,” my mother said, handing me a plate of roast and veggies. “What would you like to drink? Still drink milk?”
“Water’s fine,” I said. “I can get it.”
We ate in silence, mostly, until the words perched in the back of my throat felt the need to come out.
“I have to tell you guys something,” I said, reaching for my water glass.
My father dropped his fork and sat back, studying me. Even though in a liquored-up state, he still knew when something was up.
I cleared my throat, eyes locked on the salt and pepper shakers sitting innocently in the center of the table. “A couple of months ago, I was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.”
My mother let out an audible gasp and lifted her hands over her mouth. “Sophie…”
“I had surgery last month,” I said, still averting my eyes. “I go in for a follow-up on Monday. I have to go in for regular check-ups for a while. They’re keeping a close eye on me.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” my mother asked. I lifted my eyes to meet hers, bagged and dark-circled. She didn’t sleep as it was. I never wanted to add to her stress.
“I didn’t want to make you guys worry,” I said, leaving my other reasons unspoken. They’d already lost two daughters. I didn’t want them to worry about losing their only remaining child.
“But what if something would’ve happened to you?” my father asked, his voice booming and rattling the tableware. “We never would’ve had a chance to say goodbye!”
“I know, I know,” I said, feeling my lips beginning to tremble. I blinked away the water in my eyes. “I know that now. I’m sorry.”
“Do you have any idea what that would’ve done to your mother?” he yelled.
“Ken,” my mother said, placing her hand over his balled fist. Her eyes pleaded with him to calm down as if one more yell of his would send me packing. And she was probably right. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I wanted to be back home in the city with Jamison.
“I made a mistake. I’m sorry.” I stood up and took my plate to the sink.
“Where do you think you’re going?” my father asked, slurring his words slightly. We’d only been home a short while, but something told me he wasn’t on his first whiskey sour of the night.
I stood, paralyzed, silently praying my mom would intervene. “Rinsing my plate.”
“Ken,” my mom said. “You need to stop. She said she was sorry.”
“Damn it, Julie,” my dad said, disgusted. His sloppy tone was giving away the fact that it was not quite six o’clock, and he was already hammered.
“Ken. Enough.” My mom’s voice rose, bringing my father’s words to a halt. Soft-spoken and mild-mannered, she never raised her voice.
I ran upstairs shutting my door and burying myself under the blankets of my bed. I’d never felt so trapped. I wracked my brain trying to think of who could take me back to the train station, and I pulled out my phone to try to find out when the last train for the night.
I never should’ve come home. Jamison was wrong.
A light knock on my door followed by my mother standing in my doorway forced me to turn away from my phone.
“Yes?” I asked.
She slipped inside shutting the door behind her and taking a seat on the side of my bed.
“Your father…” she began, shaking her head and staring up at the popcorn ceiling as she searched for the right words, “… he’s taken to the bottle lately. He’s not who he used to be.”
“Obviously.”
“I’m sorry about his little explosion at dinner.”
“You don’t hav
e to apologize for his actions.”
“He needs a little time to cool off. That’s all.”
“Until then, I’m trapped up here.” I wanted to leave. I wanted to zip up my suitcase and hightail it back to the city. If I left in thirty minutes, I could still catch the last train.
“No,” she said. “You’re not trapped up here.”
My eyes met hers suddenly finding them much more wrinkled than I remembered. And I watched as she tugged on and readjusted the hem of her shirt which clung to the rolls of her stomach a little too snugly.
“I missed you, Sophie,” she said, staring at me as if I were far away and not mere feet from her.
“I missed you, too,” I said.
I missed the old her—the one without the vacant eyes. The one who used to laugh and smile and bake cookies and ask too many questions. The one who cried when she saw me in my prom dress. The one who’d sleep at the foot of our beds anytime one of us had the flu. The one who would slip us an extra cookie after dinner when dad wasn’t looking.
“So, tell me about this Jamison guy,” she said, her eyes almost twinkling. She was in there. Somewhere.
My lips curled into a shameless grin the second she mentioned his name. “He’s a doctor.”
“A doctor?”
“A neurosurgeon, to be precise.” I sat up in bed, fully willing to tell her all about him. I loved any excuse I had to ramble on and on about how amazing he was, though she’d have to get the PG version. “He lives on my street. We met outside one night, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.”
“When he called…” My mother smiled, but her words seem to catch in her throat. “Never mind that. Let’s just say I was surprised.”
“I didn’t know he was going to invite you,” I said.
“Your father didn’t think you’d want us there.”
“I didn’t.”
Her face fell slightly, but I was only being honest.
“But I’m glad you guys came anyway,” I added.
“Are you and this boy serious?” she asked. I silently chuckled. Jamison was far from a boy. He was all man.
I shrugged. “I thought we were. He wants to take me to Paris. But he just accepted a job a thousand miles away, so I don’t know.”
A heavy blanket of sadness washed over me as reality sunk in.
“You’ll make it work,” my mom said with a reserved smile as her hand covered mine. “If it’s meant to be, you’ll find a way.”
I leaned forward wrapping my arms around her and breathing her in, finding solace in the fact that after all this time, she still wore the same Charlie perfume and used the same Herbal Essences shampoo. She smelled like the mother I remembered. She smelled like home.
I spent the weekend following my parents around visiting Grammy Gladys and helping my mom polish silver and any other mindless activity she needed assistance with. My father apologized at breakfast Saturday morning and sent me off with a conservative kiss and hug Sunday afternoon as if nothing had ever happened.
My mother took it the hardest.
“I’m just a train ride away,” I reminded her as we waited for my train to arrive.
“I know,” she said, fighting tears with a smile. “It was so nice to spend time with you again.”
“It was,” I agreed. “We needed that.”
With glassy brown eyes, she looked me up and down as if she were taking a mental snapshot before I left. In the distance, the rumbling and groaning of my train grew closer.
“I’ll be back,” I said, wrapping my arms around her as train brakes screeched behind us. I let go and fished in my pocket making sure my ticket was still there before giving them one final wave and heading back to the city. The weekend wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly a step in the right direction.
My stomach fluttered at the thought of seeing Jamison in an hour, and I could already taste him on my lips.
22
JAMISON
“What’s this?” Sophie asked as she shuffled down the hallway to her apartment.
I sat against her door surrounded by packed boxes.
“I’m looking for a place to live,” I said, a smile on my lips. “Know of anyone looking for a roommate?”
“What?” she asked, eyes scrunched as she tried to process what was going on.
I stood up, pulling her into me and pressing my mouth to hers. I’d been dying to kiss her all weekend counting down the minutes until I knew she’d return home. Our lips danced with a feverish desire, one I wasn’t sure would ever be quenched until she came up for air.
“You’re moving in with me?” she asked.
“I am,” I said, not asking. A weekend without her told me the one thing I’d already suspected—I couldn’t live without her. I hoisted her bag over my shoulder as she slipped her key into the lock. “I turned down the job at Mayo.”
“You what?” She turned back toward me with eyes as round as saucers. She knew just as well as I did that I’d done the unthinkable. No one turned down a job from Mayo. Ever.
“I was offered a job at a hospital in Brooklyn,” I said. “It’ll be a bit of a commute from here, but I’ll manage.” I set her bag on the floor and pulled her back into my arms breathing in her sweet scent.
“So why do you need to live with me?” she asked, adding, “Not that I’m opposed, or anything…”
“I sublet my apartment already,” I said. “I didn’t accept the job until yesterday.”
“Lucky me,” she replied, unable to fight the smile consuming her face.
“God, I missed you.” I buried my face in the crook of her neck as we stumbled into her living room. I tugged her chunky sweater up, pulling it off and disheveling her long hair while she worked on my pants.
“I’m on the pill now. Forgot to tell you,” she whispered, the words like music to my ears and eliciting a smile from my wanting mouth. She tugged her pants off, and I hoisted her up, her legs gripping around me as we fell backward onto the sofa. She lowered herself onto me, surrounding my throbbing cock with her tight warmth and sending shivers down my spine.
Bracing her hands on my shoulders, she nibbled her lip as her eyes held my gaze, and her hair fell into her face.
“You’re the only thing I need in this world,” I whispered to her, my hands holding her grinding hips. “No one but you.”
“Morning, handsome,” Sophie said to me as she stood in nothing but a t-shirt at the side of the bed. She held out a steaming mug. “Coffee?”
I sat up and took the cup from her hands as she crawled up on the bed and climbed over me back to her side. We’d been living together almost two weeks as of that morning, and I never got tired of waking up next to her.
“You need to get in the shower,” she said, leaning over kissing my cheek. “Today’s your first day at Brooklyn General.”
She didn’t have to remind me. I’d been counting down the days and not necessarily in a good way. I was grateful to have found a job and to have been able to stay in the city with Sophie, but Brooklyn General was a far cry from the prestigious Mercy Grace Hospital. And going back to work meant less time lying around with Sophie, screwing each other senseless, and watching her paint and listening to the whimsical thoughts that constantly left her pretty lips.
“Are you excited?” she asked with the wide-eyed optimism I’d always found refreshing.
I shot her a smirk. “You have way too much pep for six o’clock on a Monday morning.”
“I’m just excited for you.” She shrugged. “I know Brooklyn General wasn’t your first choice, and it’s no Mayo Clinic, but I want you to know I appreciate you sticking around for me.”
I sipped my coffee. “The alternative was dragging you kicking and screaming to Rochester.”
I’d have never left her. The chips just happened to fall in her favor this time allowing us to stay in Manhattan.
“You think I’m joking. That’s what’s funny.” I sauntered to the shower, Sophie skipping behind me and rambling on
about planning a double date with Mia and some guy she was seeing named Evan.
“I’m not big on double dates,” I called from behind the shower curtain. “But I could make an exception if you ask nicely.”
She popped her head into the shower nearly causing me to drop the soap. “You’ll do what I say when I say.”
“Yeah? And what makes you think you call the shots?”
“Because you’re utterly and completely in love with me,” she teased. “And you’ll do just about anything to put a smile on my face. That’s all.”
She closed the curtain and stepped back to her vanity where she combed and twisted her wild hair into submission. She continued gabbing about Mia and Evan and how Mia never dated, but she thought Evan might be the one, and why it was so important that we go on this double date so we could give her our unfiltered opinions on her new guy.
“Don’t forget about your appointment today,” I said, cutting off her detailed analytics of Mia’s personal life. Since I’d left Mercy Grace, they’d been scrambling to cover my backlog of double-booked appointments with what doctors remained, and in doing so, Sophie’s follow-up got pushed out a couple of weeks.
“I haven’t forgotten,” she said, all enthusiasm in her voice dissipating into the humid thickness of the fogged bathroom air. “Believe me, just because I never talk about that doesn’t mean it isn’t always in the back of my mind. It’s always there.”
“Call me when you leave and let me know what they say,” I said as I toweled off. I glanced at the clock, which gave me precisely fifteen minutes to get myself dressed and out the door to catch the train. I slipped my clothes on and wrapped my arms around her waist for a final morning kiss. “I had fun with you these last couple weeks.”
Her face lit up sweetly, and she smiled. “I did, too.”
“Maybe tonight we can sit down and pick out some dates for Paris?”
She nodded, kissing me again before slipping my tie around my neck and tying a simple knot. “You sure know how to make a girl happy, Jamison.”
The Promise of Everything - Garner-Willoughby Brothers Book Three Page 13
