With Love from the Inside
Page 6
His frail, dependent body made her think of William. He’d lain helpless, too. Her mom praying at his bedside, her father crying, begging baby William to pull through. But he hadn’t, they hadn’t. Sophie had sat in the corner, trying to memorize her spelling words, willing this all to go away. C-a-p-i-t-a-l-i-z-e.
The back of her shoulders and her neck started to tighten. She hadn’t felt this angry in a long time. Mad at all this suffering, even madder at those who inflicted it. Her mom. Max’s mom. At least his mom hadn’t made him sick. She’d just abandoned him when he was.
Sophie took a white terry washcloth from the stack of linens sitting on Max’s bedside table and walked over to the sink to wet it. When she turned off the water she heard a little raspy voice say, “Sosie?” His frail body was working hard to speak.
“Hi, little man.” She placed the wet cloth on his forehead. “I heard you’re not feeling so well.”
She dragged a dark-stained rocking chair from the corner of the room. The edges were jagged and chipped, revealing raw wood. A pastel patchwork quilt lay over the back of the chair, and the tag read: Made especially for Max with love: From your friends at the Hospital Auxiliary.
“Rock me,” Max said as he held out his arms. “Read wabbit book.”
Intertwined lines connected his fragile body to machines. The blood-pressure cuff squeezed his arm, leaving it white, then red. Sophie put her hand under his bed and searched for the button to release the side rail. Her actions slow, so she wouldn’t disconnect anything.
“Scoot over, little man. If you can’t come to Sosie, then Sosie will come to you.”
Max flashed the biggest grin he could muster. Sophie maneuvered under the IV tube and over the call button and climbed in bed beside him.
“Where do we begin?” She picked up the tattered hospital copy of The Velveteen Rabbit.
She read to page six before realizing she was more into the book than Max was. His eyes fought hard to stay focused.
“You need to rest now, Max.”
“Sosie have to go?”
“I’ll lie with you until you fall asleep.” She rubbed his wet head.
“Sing me song?”
Sophie wasn’t sure how to handle this request. She hadn’t sung a song to a child in a long time. She closed her eyes and tried to think.
Out of nowhere, the words came out slowly: “Hush little baby, don’t say a word, momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.”
“That’s a silly song.”
“My mom used to sing to me.” The memory came rushing back. Her mom holding her hair while she bent over the toilet. Her mom rocking her after her overly anxious stomach wouldn’t settle. Singing that tune and those churchy lyrics to distract her so she’d feel better. This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine. Won’t let Satan blow it out. I’m going to let it shine. Her affection so warm and Sophie so protected. But now that night had a darker tint—what had she been sick from, really?
She won’t make the mistake of being so trusting again. Blind trust belonged in her past. Nothing, she promised herself, would ever have that power over her again—especially not the veiled urgencies of this so-called important letter, or the disgusting advances by a synthetic drug rep.
She closed her eyes and continued singing as if her words could somehow bring back the mom she’d thought she knew, a mom both Max and William had deserved. “If that mockingbird don’t sing, momma’s going to buy you a diamond ring.”
She tightened her hold on Max and hummed the rest of the forgotten lyrics until his sleepy head bobbed and landed safely on her shoulders.
GRACE
Do you remember the old wooden crate we used to pull out at Christmas? Your daddy would put that beat-up box beside the tree along with a small bale of hay. The neighbors thought we were crazy, but this tradition meant everything to me. Your grandma Pearl started it when I was a little girl, her parents before that.
Our “manger” sat empty until one of us did something love-worthy. When we were “caught,” we could put a piece of hay in the manger. As a family, we were preparing Jesus’s bed for his birth.
You decorated baby William’s room with twenty-five paper-cutout snowflakes, diligently folded and cut each heart and triangle just to see his eyes squint when he woke from his nap. The manger became quite full that day.
Daddy threw in some hay when he came home from work and noticed that I’d run over his golf clubs with my new stick-shift station wagon. “At least you’re okay,” he said, as he tried to straighten the end of his putter.
You were watching in the background to see Daddy’s reaction. When you saw him more concerned about me than about his golf clubs, you grabbed his hand and headed toward the manger. “Jesus’s bed is going to be soft and warm this Christmas.”
Over and over, I’ve rehearsed what I would say if I have the chance to see you again. One day, when your feelings have settled and your wounds have had a chance to heal, you will read this and see I’m not documenting my dying days in prison but recording the gifts I have been given while existing. You’re one of the most precious.
I’m feeling restless tonight—I need to get out of this cell. If I stand on my tiptoes and angle my head just the right way, I can catch a glimpse of the digital clock hanging on the far wall of the dayroom. I try not to look, but for some reason, I can’t stop myself. Ms. Liz, the prison chaplain, had promised to visit the dayroom this week. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and wasn’t sure she knew my news.
I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately. I guess running out of it will do that to a person. According to my mom, I used to “wish” my life away. “I can’t wait to get a job and make my own money,” I would tell her at least once a week. “Being a grown-up has to be so much better.”
When I had you, and I didn’t think I could stay awake one second longer, I begged for you to sleep through the night. When you screamed with colic, I counted the minutes until Paul would be home. Whole chunks of my life wished away because they required patience I didn’t yet have.
I used to obsess about the time when I was first locked up. Did you know there are only 914 Saturdays from the time a child is born until they leave for college?
Did you go to college?
If I couldn’t find a clock I would ask the officer, “Can you tell me the time, please?” Some would answer. Others would taunt me: “Have someplace you need to be, Bradshaw?”
My name still made the evening news back then, and I could tell from the one-word answers you gave me during our weekly phone call that sixth grade was not going well for you. Paul had written down your class schedule for me. At 11:55, if I could find a clock, I closed my eyes and prayed. Don’t let Sophie sit alone at lunch, dear God, please don’t let her sit alone . . .
At 6:15 p.m., I wondered what Paul was making for dinner. Did he have enough energy to help you with your homework?
After a while, I had to let those things go. My prayers still would go up, but the day-to-day worrying became too exhausting. Details of our family’s lives I would never know because they were too many to recount in the fifteen minutes we were allowed on the phone. For sanity’s sake, it was better not to try.
All I have to do is look around me to know time doesn’t heal all wounds. If it did, maybe this place would have some happier hearts or some empty beds. And perhaps you’d be visiting me, pressing pictures on the glass and sharing with me the moments that made you smile or caused you to cry.
Passing time does nothing to heal our brokenness. It’s the work we put into our mending that makes us well.
We shared 659 Saturdays together before I left our home. Only 26 of those included William. I want one more Saturday. I need time to fix us.
I’m going to ask Ms. Liz if she can bring in a manger. Any old box will do. I feel the need to do something love-worthy. I hope your bed is warm and s
oft tonight.
SOPHIE
“I’m looking forward to some cornbread stuffing and pecan pie,” Thomas said, pulling into the passing lane.
Sophie pulled out the earbuds she’d put on an hour into the four-hour drive to Charleston, where Thomas’s parents lived. The last few lines of Miranda Lambert’s “Over You” trailed off faintly in her lap.
“Me, too.” But after thinking about pencil-thin Eva, she decided she’d eat only turkey and a deviled egg.
They hadn’t talked at all about her quick day-before exit or anything else of magnitude since Thomas had come home late last night. They’d both been tired and still had to pack. And weren’t some secrets better off left unsaid?
“You okay, baby?” Thomas asked after they had been in the car more than an hour. His eyes met hers, and his question seemed sincere. “You’re not saying much.”
“I’m fine.” She looked away, not giving him the chance to explore her silence any further. She couldn’t remember the last time “fine” described her.
The mature part of Sophie knew she should in turn ask him how he was doing, how he felt since his patient died. Had he figured anything out? However, in this moment, the hold-a-grudge fraction of her took over and she remained silent. She put the earbuds in her ears and scrolled through her playlists.
Maybe she was being paranoid about Eva? She considered the possibility, then considered her state of mind. Her pink Prada purse, tucked between her feet, still hid the letter from her mother’s lawyer.
She hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly when Eva stepped out of Thomas’s office. Drug reps visit doctors. That’s what they do. And Eva, no matter how much Sophie despised her, was a drug rep. All five-foot-ten thin inches of her.
Sophie closed her eyes and attempted to “rise above” and “kill her with kindness,” all the things her dad tried to instill in her after he became her moral compass. But even the thought of Eva irritated her.
“I’m still a little crazy about what happened at the hospital. You know, the little girl. I’ve never lost a patient before.”
Sophie could hear him, but she wasn’t sure he knew that. She chose to think about Max, praying his fever had broke.
Thomas stared straight ahead with both hands gripped tightly around the bottom of the steering wheel.
“Do you know what happened?” she asked, letting go of her punishment and, for the moment, her grudge.
“I’m not sure.” He took one hand off the wheel and ran it through his hair. “I’m not. The hospital is going to review the case pending her autopsy. I brought my notes and whatever hospital records I could copy without looking suspicious. I thought maybe Dad and Carter could give me some advice.”
Sophie nodded. Thomas’s dad was a prominent cardiac surgeon who flew across the country and gave lectures to physicians on when to use a synthetic heart valve. Something he invented. Sophie wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but Thomas said it paid a whole lot better than nose jobs. Carter, Thomas’s older brother, worked as a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office.
“Are you sure you want to talk to your dad?” A valid question, since Thomas always seemed to be on the defensive when he was around him.
“I don’t want to talk to anybody,” he said, “but I don’t have a choice.”
Sophie took her earbuds out, wrapped them in a ball, and tossed the coconspirator of her passive-aggressiveness in the glove compartment.
“She was being bullied.” Thomas tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his neck held stiff. “She wanted her burn scars to go away because she was being teased at school.”
“That’s awful.”
“I feel awful. You know I don’t like to treat kids, but something about this little girl tugged at me.”
“Why, do you think?”
“Scary,” Thomas lamented, and his neck and shoulders softened downward. “The kids at school ran from her because they said she looked scary.”
Sophie could completely relate to that poor little girl.
Sophie studied her husband’s defenseless face. She didn’t witness his vulnerability very often, but when she did, it made her ask the question: Would he empathize with me?
“Sweetheart,” Sophie said, her words slow and forced, “I have something I want to tell you.” She pulled her purse from between her feet and set it on her lap.
Thomas turned to look at her—very briefly, though, because traffic had started to back up. The stop-and-go of holiday travel made this moment less than ideal.
“What is it, baby?” he asked her, while beeping his horn at a teenage driver texting in the next lane.
Sophie unlatched her purse and pulled out the letter.
“Pay attention to the road,” Thomas pointed and mouthed as he passed the texting teenager.
Sophie halted her disclosure when the girl honked back and threw up her middle finger.
“Nice,” Thomas yelled through Sophie’s cracked window. “Classy.”
“You finished?” Sophie asked, before pushing the button to close her window.
“I’m done,” Thomas replied. He cracked his knuckles against the steering wheel. “What were we talking about?”
“I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry.” She slipped the letter back into her purse and then tugged on his sleeve. “I’m sorry you lost your patient.”
—
MRS. LOGAN (CALL ME MARGARET, DEAR) had done everything to open her arms to Sophie, including phoning her every year at the beginning of November to ask if she “wanted anything special on the menu,” a gesture Sophie knew went far beyond adding pumpkin pie and sweet-potato casserole. It was his mom’s way of making her feel as if she belonged.
There were questions at first after Thomas called his mother and repeated the exact lie Sophie had told him. “No, Mom, she doesn’t have a family.” His voice lowered when he realized Sophie was in the next room. “I don’t know all the details.” He paused. “I’ve asked, but she doesn’t like to talk about it.”
She could tell his mother was pressing for more, trying to understand the precedent of the poor orphan girl who would soon become her daughter-in-law. Sophie still remembered the sympathy in their eyes the first time they met her and the recognition she felt in their tight hugs. Their constant tone of sympathy was sometimes hard to take, but Sophie worried that if they knew the truth, that sympathy would be replaced by disgust, which she feared much more.
“Was your mother a good cook?” Margaret asked her their first holiday together. The abrupt question startled Sophie and caused her to nick her thumb with the potato peeler. She composed her answers while Margaret left to get a Band-Aid.
“My mom loved to cook,” Sophie said as Margaret squeezed Betadine over Sophie’s bleeding finger. She knew Thomas’s mom didn’t really care about the taste of her mom’s fried chicken, but it was a small way to bust through Sophie’s barricade and bond with her.
“She made wedding cakes for people.” Both statements were true, and somehow the sprinkling of honesty made the “already dead” part of her deceit seem like a smaller infraction.
All of their efforts did make her feel at home, and Sophie genuinely enjoyed her holidays spent with the Logan family. Everything from the blue Willow–patterned china to the bacon-wrapped scallop appetizers served promptly at 5:30 p.m., and the dinner that followed at 6 p.m. on the button.
This Thanksgiving, like all holidays, Dr. Logan sat at the head of the long dark-stained table. Margaret still made place cards even though everyone sat at the same spot every time they gathered for a meal: Carter and his family on one side, Thomas and Sophie on the other. Margaret took the end closest to the kitchen. All the chairs had high carved backs and didn’t scoot very well. It took at least three moves before you could escape—that was what Sophie had been thinking the first time she joined them for a formal meal.
“Unfortunately, you heard correct,” she replied as Thomas passed her the seven-layer salad. She took a small spoonful and handed the salad to her mother-in-law.
Dr. Logan poured some gravy on his mashed potatoes and directed his next question to Thomas. “Don’t you think it’s time for you two to give this old man some grandbabies?” The word babies sounded much louder.
Sophie swallowed three times to get down a bacon bit while waiting for Thomas to answer a question that felt more like an order.
He handed her a glass of water and said, “We’ve been practicing, but not quite ready for the big leagues.”
His father laughed loudly, seeming satisfied. She and Thomas did want to have kids, but with the demands of his job, Thomas decided it’d be best to put it off a little longer. Sophie didn’t argue, especially with her gene pool. Motherhood was best kept in the distant future.
Margaret changed the subject and asked Vivianne, Carter and Caroline’s only child, if she wanted some cranberry sauce.
“No, thank you, Grandma Margaret,” the five-year-old said with impeccable manners. “Aunt Sophie, will you color with me later?”
After the last couple days, Sophie couldn’t wait to pick up a crayon. “There’s nothing in the world I would rather do.”
—
AFTER DINNER, the men retired to the TV room while Caroline, Margaret, and Sophie cleared the table and talked about the after-Thanksgiving sales. Vivianne sat cross-legged on the floor, waiting patiently for them to finish.
Sophie tried to pay attention to Caroline’s ponderings about how all the “top designers” were cheapening their names by bringing their lines into discount department stores such as Kohl’s and Target, and threw in an occasional comment like, “I love Vera’s Lavender Label flats,” but something about her was off. She felt susceptible and out of place.