“Gramma York, my mom’s mother was ninety-six. Unfortunately, she didn’t know who anyone was for the last seven of them. That’s a horrible way to grow old—Alzheimer’s. Can you imagine how confusing and lonely it must be for them? Mom was so worried about getting it herself.” A pause for thought. “That would be one good thing to know about my birth parents—their medical histories. Oh, and my nationality, maybe. We always said it was Irish. You know, because of the hair? But it could just as easily have come from Scotland . . . any of the northern or western European countries actually. Do you know there are Polynesian redheads? They’ve even found Chinese mummies with red hair.”
He squinted to see her in the low light from the dash. “I think I’d throw out Chinese and Polynesian right off the bat.” She sent him a look that said smartass. “And what if you’re not Irish? That could really throw a wrench in your St. Patrick’s Day plans.”
“That’s true. . . .” She tried to sound worried.
“But if you’re German, you’d have Oktoberfest to look forward to every year. And there’s that maypole thing in Sweden—Midsummer’s Eve . . . or maybe Day, I forget.” He glanced at her. “At least you won’t be without an ethnic holiday of some sort.”
She laughed. “And I can always fall back on being just a plain old American and I’d have the Fourth of July.”
“And Mother’s, Father’s, and Grandparents’ Days.”
“Columbus Day.”
“Labor Day.”
“Presidents’ Day.”
“April fifteen.”
“April fifteen?”
“Tax Day.”
“Oh, right. How could I miss that one?” She laughed. “How about Black Friday? That one’s huge.”
“Don’t forget March Madness!”
And so the conversation went, light and amusing, until they pulled up in front of Jesse’s B&B and Drew turned off the engine.
“I’m impressed,” he said after a brief silence in which Sophie tried to decide how to make her exit—or if she wanted to.
“By what?”
“The last woman to comply with a command performance for my mother came away in tears. I had to give her a Xanax and call a friend to stay with her before I could leave. You took it like a trooper.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “You and your sister are awful. Your mother’s very nice. Billy’s something else, but your mother was nothing but kind and generous.” She chuckled. “Ava warned me that she’d give me the third degree but that’s understandable. A stranger in town; hanging out with her children—she’d be a negligent mother if she didn’t check me out.”
“Even if we’re adults who can make our own decisions about the people we spend time with?”
Barely two seconds went by before she answered. “Sure. Why not? Don’t we all do it, to one degree or another, to everyone we meet. Where are you from? What do you do?”
“Sure, but not: Do you attend church regularly? Why have you never been married—and in the same breath, Do you have any children? My personal favorite? Teachers don’t make much money, do they?”
“Was that a real question? I thought she was making a statement. I agreed with her.” She laughed but didn’t hesitate. “Teacher wages suck. Big time. Do you know that in Ohio, I’ll have to work ten to fifteen years before I make as much as a building inspector? Or a dental hygienist? A web designer or even a funeral director? I’ll never make as much as a nurse and yet teachers mold the minds of tomorrow. We teach children to use their minds to question and create, and isn’t that just as important as keeping their bodies alive?” She took a breath. “I do make more than a fireman, though, and I don’t have to run into burning buildings. And despite the fact that it sometimes feels like the exact same job, I do make more than a zookeeper. So there’s that. . . .” She tipped her head to one side and smiled. “And I love what I do, so there’s that, too— What?”
“Nothing.” He looked away but was still grinning. When he could look at her again, her scowl wasn’t hard to read. “I was enjoying you all righteous and worked up. I like discovering new things about you. You’re quite a bag of mixed tricks, Sophie Shepard.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?” She knew it shouldn’t matter what he thought of her. But didn’t everyone wonder about the world’s general perception of them?
Not that he was becoming her world or anything . . . or even a part of it, really. All it took was: Oncologist, hospital, more than 400 miles from home to put him back into a proper perspective.
He adjusted his weight to face her more directly. “Like you appear to be most people’s dictionary definition of a kindergarten teacher: cheerful, upbeat, enthusiastic—”
“Don’t say perky.”
“Wouldn’t—perky implies a certain ditziness you don’t have. I’d say energetic, full of life. And very compassionate. A stranger, who doesn’t get the chance to unburden his heart before he dies, brings you to tears. You’re sympathetic to a son’s need to know and understand the extraordinary actions of a father he loved and look up to. I did notice that you were a little shaky when we found Cliff Palmeroy’s body, but if I hadn’t been trying so hard to impress you with my cool, calm, and collected doctorliness, I might have fallen apart altogether.”
“Oh, please. That’s a lie and a half and you know it.”
Smiling, he shook his head. “I was still mighty impressed. No hysterics or screaming and only that short cry afterward, in the face of that kind of trauma? Pretty amazing.”
“Ha. Trauma,” she said, scoffing, choosing not to remember. “Obviously you’ve never had to deal with a five-year-old who’s accidentally wet himself during his brain vacation.”
“Brain vacation?”
“Mm. Young kindergarten people are far too grown up for baby things like quiet time or the dreaded nap. But I think it’s important to give them a little downtime to unwind and relax a bit after lunchtime. I read online about calling it a brain vacation—we all just let our brains relax before we begin our lessons again. They can look at picture books or do puzzles or just lie there and think nice thoughts. At the beginning of the school year they often fall asleep—twenty-minute power naps. By the end of the year most read or color . . . or whisper to their friends until I catch them.” Her laugh was tender and affectionate. “You change, grow up a lot in kindergarten.”
“And you show them how.”
Her shrug was unpretentious. “It takes a village. . . .”
He drew in a deep breath and let it out slow. “Don’t move.”
She went statue, then barely wiggled her lips to ask, “Why?”
“I need to kiss you.” He moved his face up to hers. She felt his breath on her lips when he murmured, “You have two seconds to protest.”
Two seconds? That’s hardly enough time to even—his lips brushed hers—think.
Then there was nothing to think with as her mind teetered and started to reel; her stomach lurched in anticipation. He cupped her right ear to secure and support her head; she touched his cheek to make sure he was human, real, and not a dream.
It wasn’t a long kiss. It wasn’t a sloppy wet or an open-mouthed-and-down-the-throat kiss. It was the gentle press of lips; a slow, careful exploration of their shape and size and softness; a quick test of elasticity and give. It was a shock and a stir and then it stopped.
Her eyes came open to his, deep and dark with only the dim and distant glow from Jesse’s porch light.
“I wasn’t going to do that.” He swept her lips with his again. “I wanted to the second I saw you, but . . . you were supposed to be gone in twenty hours and I—”
“Twenty hours?” A distracting number to pull out of his pocket.
“Mm. At most. We talked at about four o’clock in the afternoon. Jesse’s checkout is eleven A.M. so I figured, at the latest, you’d be gone by noon the next day. Twenty hours.”
A lot of spur-of-the-moment math for someone with a kiss in mind, she calculated.
&nbs
p; “But I didn’t leave.”
A slow wag of his head. “No. You didn’t.”
“And we kissed.”
“We sure did.”
“And it was nice.”
“It sure was.” Another pass. “Very.”
“And probably a big mistake.”
“Probably.”
“But that’s not going to stop us.”
She was aware of his chest rising and falling on a sigh. “I hope not.”
Sophie grinned at hearing her own wishes out loud and he kissed her again—hot and sure and with every indication of it becoming a new leisure pursuit.
Chapter Eight
If nothing else, Sophie’s flint was getting a powerful workout.
And it was holding up rather nicely, she decided with no little satisfaction as she sat next to Hollis Cubeck in Mr. Metzer’s law office a few minutes after nine o’clock Monday morning. They’d agreed it was the most private and impartial place to meet—and all three of them were anxious.
“I’m sorry to be late.” Mr. Metzer fumbled with the latch on his briefcase. “There was some confusion as to who was to pick the results up in Charlottesville this morning, but, as you can see, it was quickly settled.” He held up an official-looking envelope, smiling. He sat down behind his desk. “Now, before we open this I want to make sure you both understand that with only Arthur’s blood and without a donation from either of the mothers or a third sibling that these results are based on a probability index—meaning there can be no absolute match, only a high or low probability of siblingship. Is this clear to you both?”
“Yes.”
“They said basically the same thing when they swabbed my mouth.” Sophie twisted her fingers in her lap. Hollis seemed like a nice enough person, but she’d never been a sister before; wasn’t sure she’d be any good at it. And Daddy? Bringing home a puppy was one thing, but a brother? “And I read about it online. It’s complicated, isn’t it? Amazing, too—what they can do; the information they can gather.” She caught herself jabbering. “Yes. I understand.”
“Hollis, would you like the honor?”
Permission was asked and granted with a single glance between them. He took the envelope and turned it over twice in his hands before looking at Sophie again.
“Ready?”
She nodded. “Are you sure you want to know, Hollis? You have the most to lose.” She reached out and touched the sleeve of his shirt. “And I’m not talking about BelleEllen.”
His small nervous smile warmed his eyes. “I also have a lot to gain.”
Still and all, a blood relative would be awesome. Particularly this one.
He made short work of getting to the lab results and began to read impatiently. He continued to read even as his shoulders sagged and his spine curved back into the chair in disappointment. Because they weren’t related or because they were? Sophie held her tongue—literally—between her teeth.
When he looked up and his eyes met hers, she knew. Truth told, she’d guessed as much from the first. Yet, from nowhere, she felt a tear roll from the corner of her eye. She swiped at it with one hand as she reached for Hollis with the other. “Oh, Hollis. Thank you. Thank you for being as disappointed as I am.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand. It says it’s less than a ten percent match. I was so sure. I even thought I saw a family resemblance.” He looked to Graham Metzer. “Could they have made a mistake? Can we get retested?”
The attorney was grave. “You can always retest, of course, but it’s doubtful you’ll get different results. They’re painstaking with this sort of thing to get accurate results. They’re very aware of the personal and legal consequences for the people involved if they make a mistake.”
They knew what he said was the truth and as acceptance settled in the room, Sophie could almost feel the shift of their thoughts toward Arthur Cubeck. She decided to voice what she suspected they were all wondering.
“If he wasn’t my father, then why did he leave me BelleEllen?”
In the silence that followed, she could hear a fly batting against the office window, again and again, desperate to be free.
“Do you know why?” Hollis asked Graham, but it was more like a statement. Sophie’s heart smiled—related or not, she and Hollis thought alike.
The lawyer nodded. “I thought I knew. He never said so in so many words. We were friends—we didn’t judge each other; we didn’t need to make excuses or give explanations if we didn’t want to; we knew the other’s character and I trusted his decisions. I knew he had his reasons. But to tell you the truth, I assumed as you did. It seemed inconsistent to his nature, extremely, but human beings make mistakes, and they do inconsistent things. It wasn’t for me—as his attorney or as his friend—to question him. So as you might guess, at the moment, I’m as surprised . . . and as confused as you are.”
They looked at one another—up a stump with no place to go.
In her mind, Sophie quickly slammed the door against the questions she saw coming. She didn’t want to think them. She’d already allowed her hopes to rise once. It hurt, more than she thought it would, to have them shot down.
“Hollis.” She stood swiftly, arms out for a hug. “It was a great idea while it lasted. I would have loved to have had you for a brother.” He took her in his arms without hesitation. She let him hold her for a moment, then murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m not your sister.”
“Me, too.” He gave her a gentle squeeze, held her another second or two, and set her away from him to see her face. “So what’s next for you?”
“Well, Sheriff Murphy says I can’t leave town yet. Not until he figures out who killed the man Drew and I discovered Friday night.”
“Cliff Palmeroy.”
“Mm. But he says it shouldn’t take long—hard to hide things in a small town, you know.”
He nodded. “But I meant what’s next for you with regard to your birth parents?”
“Oh.” She was afraid of that. She took a step back and his hands dropped to his sides. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? You don’t want to know?”
“No. Well, maybe. Sort of, I guess, but even if I knew where to start looking, which I don’t, I’m not sure what I’d do with the information.” She stepped behind the chair, closer to the door, distancing herself. “It was fine with you—great in fact. But you actually wanted me to be your sister. But what if you hadn’t?” The ache pulled at her heart again. “What if the numbers had crunched another way and your dad did cheat on your mom? How would you have felt then? I’m almost twenty-eight years old. Whoever my birth parents are, they’ve had nine years since I turned eighteen to try and find me if they wanted to—so clearly they don’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t think I want to. I mean, what if they still don’t. I don’t want to know that. Is it so awful to prefer my they-simply-couldn’t-raise-me bubble to the reality that they didn’t want to raise me?” She took a deep breath. “And for that matter, what if they really couldn’t? What if for some reason or another they might have wanted me if circumstances had been different? How would I know that the situation had changed? The last thing I want to do is come down on their lives like a dead elephant and ruin what they have, what they were trying to protect or avoid twenty-eight years ago.” She shook her head. “Once in a while I have a natural curiosity about them and why they gave me up, but I have no burning need to know anything about them. I had the best mom anyone could ask for; and as soon as the sheriff gives me the go-ahead, I’m going to go home to the greatest dad ever.” That she had no doubt about. “I’m very sorry about your father, Hollis. I am, but . . . I’m so happy I met you. It was amazing to think you wanted me, a complete stranger, to be your sister; that you were hoping I was a missing piece to your family.” She felt her chin quiver. “Thank you for that.” She stepped closer to the door. “And, um, Mr. Metzer, good to meet you, too.” One last look at the brother she almost
had. “Take care.”
“Sophie.” She heard the sympathy in Hollis’s voice—but that was the last thing she needed. What she wanted was to go back in time two weeks and toss Arthur Cubeck’s second letter in the trash as she had the first, stay home and paint her bedroom and the bathroom, accept one or all three of the invitations she’d declined to stay with family or friends at Indian Lake for as long as she cared to stay. “Sophie.”
She was careful not to let the outer office door slam closed. Overwrought, she was closing the door on her past, shutting away the useless curiosity, sealing the portholes to the pain she wasn’t duty bound to feel. Literally, figuratively, and with every fiber of her being, she turned her back once and for all on that long-ago part of her life.
She took two steps, then three, and stopped short. Grimacing head to toe she groaned a whiny, “Aw, Jeeze.” She stomped her heel. “Oh, man.”
She turned, tramped back inside, and stood in the doorway of Mr. Metzer’s office.
“BelleEllen.” She looked from one man to the other. “What are we going to do about BelleEllen?”
The lawyer looked to Hollis to answer—as if they’d already discussed the matter in the ninety seconds she’d been gone.
“That depends on why my father felt obligated to give it to you.”
“No, it doesn’t. No way. . . .”
The most exciting part of Sophie’s job was showing up on Meet Your Teacher Night to connect twenty little faces to the names that she’d written on a clown’s bow tie and attached to one of the cubbies on the wall the week before. She knew each child would arrive with several special skills, a few weaknesses, and plenty of pressure points. They’d come with one foot in reality and the other in make-believe, with as much pride as fear and with an innate sense that life—and theirs in particular—had infinite potential.
And the best part of her job was the part she was best at: figuring each one out.
Not immediately. Never right away. In her experience, no good puzzle unraveled quickly—or easily. Each class of children was as unique as each child in the class. So a plan that worked on most, rarely worked on all. And with change came the fears that some would cope with it, while others struggled. Attending to their stumbling blocks shared a priority with honing their abilities, and yet limitations and strengths came in a vast array of stages and degrees.
Something About Sophie Page 10
