Something About Sophie

by Mary Kay McComas

  “Hey, Mike.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Looking for a get well soon incentive.” He produced a Hershey with Almonds bar while his eyebrows did push-ups. “Your favorite.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I empty your trash, remember?”

  “You’re not supposed to go through her trash.”

  “I don’t—didn’t. The wrapper was on top and dumping the trash is generally an eyes-open operation. But if you want me to wear a blindfold from now on, it might take me longer than usual to get it done.” He grinned to disavow any impertinence and walked the candy bar over to the tray table. Placing it within her reach, he gave Sophie a good hard going over. “You’ve definitely looked better, but this isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”

  “What kind of compliment is that?” Jesse frowned.

  “It’s not?”

  “No.”

  “I saw this guy on YouTube who survived a train wreck—he was messed up.”

  “So, I don’t look like a train wreck?”

  He grinned and wagged his head. “More like the third car in a ten-car pile up, I think. What do you think?” he asked his mother, straight-faced.

  “I think I’m going to take you home before they have to put Sophie on antidepressants.”

  A good chuckle made her ribs hurt, but it was worth it.

  She’d hardly noticed the nurses coming and going, doing the vital-sign checks and testing her mental functions—and as soon as she announced her name, the year, and where she was before, she was asleep again before they left the room.

  At one point she dreamt one of them stroked her cheek and kissed her on the forehead. The bizarre vision roused her enough to confirm the emptiness of her room with a quick slit-eyed scan before she slipped back into oblivion.

  “She’s sleeping.” A woman spoke in a hushed voice.

  It was morning. The last time she looked at the clock on the wall it said ten o’clock. A nurse had been by earlier and strongly encouraged her into a recliner and set her breakfast of almost-cooked fake eggs and great crispy bacon in front of her while she put fresh sheets on the bed. As it happened, the chair was a comfortable alternative to the bed, so the nurse gave her a pair of ugly socks, put a blanket over her lap, and she dozed. Heavily.

  She didn’t budge for the voice at the door. She didn’t recognize the soft voice, and she wasn’t up to unknown visitors—though her current position would indicate otherwise, she supposed. At least, not until she heard a man say, “I’ll hang. I’m not going home until I see her.”

  “Billy. Come in. Please. Both of you.” Ava stood behind her brother in unnatural reserve. Sophie pushed herself up in the chair. “Ava.”

  Her mind was an empty chamber. Why hadn’t she prepared things to say to the McCarrens? Come to think of it, what had she planned to say to Drew when she saw him? Their pain, their confusion—there was nothing she could say that would change it for them, nothing to make it right again. It wasn’t an enormous leap to assume they were as emotionally overwhelmed as she and that whatever fell from her mouth would make no difference anyway.

  “Ava. I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry about your mother. I’m sorry for your loss.” Ava nodded, finding it difficult to meet Sophie’s eyes—while Billy, with tiny strips of tape across the wound at his hairline, strolled to the other side of the chair to sit on the bed. Sophie held out her hand and he took it like an old, dear friend. “How’s your head? How are you?”

  “I’m on my way home. I have a little concussion headache, but other than that I’m fine. You look much better.”

  “I am. I think. I sleep a lot.” He nodded, seeming to identify. “So I’ll probably get to go home today, too, then. As soon as I get the okay. From my doctor,” she said, looking at him askance, hoping he’d say something about Drew.

  “Dr. Kelsey’s slow, huh?” He shook his head, mildly annoyed for her sake. “That was the sheriff’s dumb idea, not letting Drew be your doctor. Said it wouldn’t be ethical or legal or something, so he asked Kelsey from the ER to keep an eye on you. You know, since you weren’t going to be here long and he already knew all your stuff—from that night.”

  “Oh.” It made sense but it didn’t explain why Drew hadn’t come to be with her.

  “Course, Drew’s been keeping an eye on him, so it’s basically a twofer.” He grinned. “Plus, he gave me reports on you without breaking any confidentiality rules, since they wouldn’t let me come down to see you for myself until now. Worked out great . . . except for Kelsey being slow.”

  “Oh.” Still not the answer she was hoping for.

  “Drew hasn’t been in to see you, has he?” Ava asked, her voice soft and atypically timid.

  She shook her head.

  “He hasn’t?” Billy was open-mouthed.

  “He’s been by, I heard, but I haven’t seen him. He doesn’t wake me up.”

  “He’s been kind of busy,” Ava said. “With my dad and stuff. It doesn’t mean anything. He worries about you. I’ll make sure to tell him to wake you up next time.”

  Sophie looked up into Ava’s face. “I was wondering if it would be all right . . . would you mind if I attend your mother’s funeral?”

  “Really?” She looked surprised.

  “Unless you think someone might object. Your dad or your sister. Drew. I’d like to go but I’d understand—”

  “Well, sure. Yes, you can come. Of course. You don’t hate her?” The question came on an impulse.

  “No. I don’t hate her.” Ava’s eyes darted to Billy and back. “Ava, she saved my life.”

  There was another uncertain glance at her brother and her voice dropped low. “She didn’t save your mother.”

  So much of Sophie wanted to put all she’d learned that night away somewhere, lock it up and forget about it. Not possible, she knew—not even when some parts of it seemed so simple. “It was a mistake. She made a mistake. A huge mistake. And she spent her life paying a huge price for it.”

  “What she did . . . I mean, I feel lost—and I’m so angry and disappointed and ashamed of her at the same time, but she’s my mother—”

  “But that’s all you need to remember. She’s your mother. She loved you. And you love her.” She hesitated, wanting to console her friend. “A very wise man recently told me we can pick and choose our memories. Choose the good ones, Ava.”

  “How can you forgive her for what she did?”

  “I don’t know.” That very same wise man told her: It’s the choices we make that whittle the life we live. And her mother’s words came, too. Forgiveness is the choice we make so our hearts can heal. Sophie was making a choice.

  “I was taught to forgive. I was brought up believing it was the right thing to do.” Sophie smiled. Ava didn’t. “I’m not very good at it, though. Someday, maybe, I’ll try to forgive Frank Lanyard. But I can hold a grudge as tight as anyone. I can be really spiteful. And I play dirty sometimes. I’m not special. I’m as human as anyone. But the truth of the matter is: What your mother did all those years ago, it just doesn’t feel like something that’s mine to forgive.

  “It’s Lonny’s to forgive. And Lonora’s. Maybe even those four animals who might have had different lives if she’d stepped forward. But me? If she’d gotten involved, I wouldn’t be here. How can I hate her for permitting me to be?”

  It was a conundrum, all right. One they could all appreciate—and did, in silence, with furrowed brows.

  “I think, too”—Sophie said after a moment, reckoning out loud—“she tried to make up for what she did. Helping Lonny care for his daughter, making sure I went to a good home. She even did what she thought would keep me safe when I came back here. She tried. And in the end it took her mind and her life. How could anyone ask her for more?” She looked at her and passed on Lonny’s advice. “Forgive her, Ava.”

  The rest of their visit was an awkward mix of renewed offers of friendship, long pauses, and attempts
at not-so-easy optimism.

  Standing, with minimal help to hug them goodbye, Sophie was relieved to note that the places of true pain scattered over her body were now simply sore, stiff aches like the rest of her.

  She was healing—everywhere.

  It was hard to tell if anything she said was a comfort to the McCarrens, but it went a long way in clearing up the muddle in her own mind.

  If she believed that everything happened for a reason—and she did tend to lean in that direction—then Cliff Palmeroy spotting sweet Lonora Campbell traveling to the top of the mountains to see the snow that evening was meant to happen. Because of who those boys were at the time, the choices they made that night twisted that harmless encounter into something diabolical. Then, from a completely different direction—through a completely different series of events—Elizabeth and Arthur’s lives collided with theirs. And the choices they made skewed the episode down yet another path . . . to her.

  How was that for making sense of the senseless? she mused, returning to bed for another nap before lunch.

  Lonny returned in the early afternoon with some good news.

  “Sheriff Murphy had your car towed back to my place the other night.”

  She’d forgotten all about it. Her lovely Liberty. “I dropped the keys.”

  “Locksmith cut ya a new one.” And before she could mention it, he said, “Got me a young detailer who owes me a favor. He’ll have the backseat lookin’ like new in no time.”

  “Thank you.”

  “He returned this, too.” From his pocket he produced her cell phone. Dead as Aunt Debbie’s dog.

  Her mind flashed on Elizabeth reaching for it: Give it to me for now. We’ll need to get our story straight first. Sophie chose not to remember more.

  Best of all, Lonny brought a photo album. Sophie was captivated and studied the photos of her great-grandparents and Lonny’s brother Sam and his family—soaked up every detail of the images of Cora and Lonora until they started to blur with eyestrain.

  “Rest well, Granddaughter,” he said as he was leaving.

  “Will I see you again tomorrow, Grandpa?”

  They grinned. “You bet.”

  It was a busy afternoon.

  Graham Metzer stopped by to pay his proper, attorney-like condolences—but as an aside, also professed his profound astonishment in Arthur and Elizabeth’s behavior. He’d known them both for years, and the story that had been related to him was too much to imagine.

  “I took the liberty of calling Hollis. I hope you don’t mind. I knew he’d want to know . . . not so much his father’s part in this business, but about you. He sends his love, and I hope you won’t think it presumptive of me, but I promised I’d call him again, once I’d seen you, to let him know when you might be up for his visit.”

  “Anytime. And thank you Mr. Metzer. It would have been . . . horrible having to tell him the truth myself. Thank you.” He smiled and started to take his leave. “One more thing? Please. BelleEllen.”

  It was all she had to say for the man to bow his head in understanding and agreement. He’d make the arrangements for the transfer.

  Mike appeared in her doorway a few minutes after Mr. Metzer left. They watched an episode each of American Chopper and Mythbusters on Discovery Channel; he ate the Hershey with Almonds he’d given her, drank her box of apple juice from lunch, and split. She loved Mike.

  And she told his mother so when she walked in an hour later.

  Jesse came bearing flowers, a chocolate-and-vanilla milkshake—Sophie’s pick—two magazines, and twenty minutes of amusing gossip that had nothing to do with anyone the patient knew personally before Dr. Kelsey and a nurse arrived.

  The doctor was a friendly thirty-something man who said he was glad to see her more alert than the day before.

  “I’m sorry I missed you,” Sophie said with an awkward chuckle. “So completely. I don’t remember you at all.”

  “I get that all the time,” he said in mock dismay. “I am an unsung hero if there ever was one. I’m savin’ lives left and right down there and no one remembers me.”

  He laughed then and told her it was common—that disproportionate sleeping and vague recall are part of the body’s defense mechanism. She was going to be just fine . . . and he wasn’t too offended.

  He examined her cuts and bruises—particularly those on her feet and knees. The scalp wound was a gusher but not grave, he said. He flashed a penlight in her eyes, had her squeeze his hands, and eventually informed her she was well enough to be discharged in the morning.

  Finally, he sat beside her on the bed to remove the Telfa dressing covering a laceration on her forearm. He debated leaving it exposed then started to replace it with . . . a pink Band-Aid.

  “Hey. That’s not. . . . Where’d you get that?” His eyes lit before he could smile. She was already sitting up and staring at the door. “Dad?”

  The door began to open slowly, tentatively at first and then he was there. Tall and a smidge too stout; a Caesar’s crown of graying hair and warm brown eyes behind round wire glasses—unwavering devotion in his expression.

  “Daddy.”

  “Baby.”

  She was out of bed and in his arms before the first tear slipped.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Jesse gave me the blue room across from yours. It’s a lovely old house. You can see she’s put a lot of work into it,” Tom Shepard said, promenading with his daughter on his arm down the second-floor corridor of Clearfield General Hospital shortly after the dinner hour.

  Dr. Kelsey’s only stipulation to her discharge the next morning was more walking. This was their third go-around.

  “Isn’t she great? And Mike? Have you met him yet?”

  “His mother warned me about him, but he was out when I arrived.”

  “Warned you,” she scoffed. “Wait until you meet him, Dad. He’s a great kid. Really funny. An ardent basketball player. And don’t let her fool you—he’s her pride and joy.”

  He smiled, having already assumed that.

  Sophie couldn’t stop looking at him and was fully aware that it was more fear than happiness that kept her from looking away. She couldn’t get close enough or hold him tight enough. And he was content to let her lean as heavily on his calm, gentle strength as she needed to . . . because that’s what a real dad does.

  “She certainly seems fond of you.”

  “The feeling is mutual. I don’t know what I would have done without her this whole time.” How do you explain someone like Jesse? How do you describe a friend who knows you well enough to call your father when you can’t quite bring yourself to do it—even though you want to. Was it even possible? She giggled. “She’d tear into the sheriff if he even looked like he was going to accuse me of murder again.”

  He chuckled. “Well, let’s face it: You are quite sinister-looking for a kindergarten teacher.”

  Ha! She was flint!

  “Right. To a shy five-year-old. For the first week of school. Maybe.”

  They turned a corner laughing—and her legs wobbled a bit when she saw Drew at the nurses’ station up ahead. She had a flash of déjà vu taking in the white lab coat and the small laptop that held his rapt attention.

  Not walk-into-a-wall handsome, he was tall and fit with the customary number of limbs and short, dark wavy hair. A truly ordinary man. And truly magnificent to her. Truly. It was as if a blurry film had been peeled away, leaving her world brighter, clearer, more defined—in every sense.

  “Oops.” Her father steadied her misstep. “Getting tired, honey?”

  By the time she realized he’d spoken, he’d already seen whatever look she had on her face and tracked her gaze to Drew.

  “Yeah. A little.” Too sorry to say it, she knew her fatigue would depend on Drew. If when he turned and saw them, his eyes sparked in the way that caused her pulses to skitter and it was clear they were still in mutual crazy-aboutness, then she’d be up to a marathon. If they didn’t, if they were
n’t, she wasn’t sure her heart would ever get up again.

  The cuts on the sides of her feet remained tender to walk on. She knew it wasn’t necessary to conceal the way she limped, but somehow it seemed critical to appear less weak, less injured . . . less pitiable. Sympathy was not what she wanted from him.

  They strolled into his peripheral vision and he looked up—she didn’t miss the slight hesitation in him before he turned his head to look at them.

  For a moment his uncertainty was not enough to hide the light in his eyes, that glow that was more than the fire and life inside him, beyond his empathy and compassion. They were brilliant with delight and desire. His affection made her heart swell and buoyed her spirits. His ardor thrilled her, made her shiver.

  For a moment.

  He didn’t even glance away, merely blinked and it was gone—and he was Dr. Andrew Kingston McCarren, an extraordinarily kind and understanding physician and an all-around great guy . . . but not more.

  “Hey, Sophie.” Dr. McCarren was quick and thorough with his appraisal. “You’re looking much better. How are you feeling?”

  Did she look as devastated as she felt? She caught herself staring, looked away and muttered. “Better.”

  So she was going to be in a train wreck after all, she thought, seeing the headlights coming down the track in her mind. And there she was: aware, waiting, feeling helpless to stop it.

  “Good. That’s good news.” For a long moment they tried to ignore the uneasiness raining down on them. “And you must be her dad.” He held out his hand. “Drew McCarren.”

  His hand was taken readily. “Tom Shepard. I’m deeply sorry for your loss, young man. I know your family’s in a terrible place right now.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.” The strain in his voice brought her gaze to his face. He had more to say, but the words were stuck in his throat.

  “I don’t know how to begin to express my gratitude to you and your family for all you’ve done for my daughter.”

  “Please. There’s no need.” Stiff. Brittle.

  Her father backed down, not wanting to press on anything painful. “At least let me thank you for calling to let me know about it.”