Chương 7
The thought arrived ugly and immediate. Sophie hated herself for it, then hated her mother, then hated Claire for making the amount visible, though Claire had only answered a question Sophie asked.
That evening, Eric came home early and carried two banker’s boxes into his study.
Vanessa followed him. The door closed.
Sophie stood in the upstairs hallway with her violin case in one hand and listened to the murmur of their voices. She could not understand the words, only the rhythm: her father fast, her mother low, then both silent.
She went to her room and checked the winter merit requirements.
Two contrasting works. One movement from a concerto. Sight-reading. Faculty recommendations. Attendance record.
Her attendance was good. Her preparation notes were not.
She opened the application, stared at the first blank field, and closed it.
Then she called Claire.
“Hello?”
Sophie had expected voicemail.
“Are you busy?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“But I answered.”
Sophie sat on the edge of her bed. “Can the bracelet really be fixed?”
“Yes.”
“Will it look the same?”
“Mostly.”
“What does mostly mean?”
“The repair will be visible under magnification. Mr. Salazar says one hinge may sit slightly higher.”
“Would Grandma have noticed?”
“Yes.”
Sophie almost laughed. “She noticed everything.”
“She believed that was a service she provided.”
A quiet moment passed between them.
“How long does it take?” Sophie asked.
“Six to eight weeks.”
“And four thousand five hundred?”
“Approximately.”
“I can pay for it.”
Claire did not respond immediately.
“I mean, not now,” Sophie said. “But I can.”
“With what?”
“I have money.”
“How much?”
Sophie looked toward her closet. “Some.”
“From where?”
“Birthday money. Clothes I can sell. My old phone.”
“You need your phone.”
“I have two.”
Claire was silent again.
Sophie felt heat rise into her face. “That sounds bad.”
“It sounds specific.”
“I didn’t ask for two.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“I can get a job.”
“At sixteen, with school and Calloway?”
“People do.”
“They do.”
“Are you saying I can’t?”
“I’m saying you should not make three decisions during one guilty phone call.”
Sophie pressed her thumb into the seam of the mattress.
“I applied for the merit audition,” she said.
“Good.”
“It’s only twenty thousand.”
“I know.”
“Did you tell Mr. Bennett?”
“No.”
“How did he know?”
“He probably tells qualified students.”
“Were you watching me at school?”
The question came out sharper than she intended.
Claire answered evenly. “I attended some performances.”
“How many?”
“Most.”
Sophie stared at the poster opposite her bed.
“You never sat with us.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Your parents believed the donor was represented by someone from Northlight. I did not want them connecting me to the school.”
“So you hid from us.”
“Yes.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yes.”
Sophie picked at a loose corner of the poster frame. “Did you think I was good?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever think I wasn’t worth it?”
Claire breathed out slowly.
“I sometimes thought you were wasting people’s effort,” she said.
The honesty hurt more than praise would have helped.
“When?”
“Last spring. You missed two coaching sessions.”
“I was sick once.”
“You were at Lena’s birthday dinner.”
“How do you know that?”
“You posted a photograph.”
Sophie closed her eyes.
Claire continued, “The second time, you arrived forty minutes late.”
“My ride—”
“You told your teacher you had a dentist appointment.”
“Did he tell you?”
“No. You told your mother in the lobby, loudly, that the dentist excuse worked.”
Sophie remembered the lobby. She remembered laughing. She had not seen Claire near the stairwell.
“You were spying on me.”
“I was ashamed to be visible.”
That stopped her.
Claire’s voice remained quiet. “There is a difference, but it may not feel like one to you.”
“Why were you ashamed?”
“Because I had created a secret inside the family and then had to live around it.”
Sophie looked at the dark window. Her reflection looked older than sixteen and younger than she felt.
“Did you cancel because of me?” she asked.
“The bracelet was part of it.”
“What else?”
“Your father’s messages. Your mother’s lies. My own resentment. The fact that none of you knew what the sponsorship cost and all of you behaved as though it could not end.”
“That sounds like all of us.”
“It is.”
“So I’m being punished for them.”
“You are experiencing consequences connected to them.”
“That’s something accountants say when they mean yes.”
Claire did not defend herself.
Sophie swallowed.
“Mom was trying to take the loan,” she said.
Silence.
“I followed her into Harbor,” Sophie continued. “She had the bracelet in her pocket after the appraisal. She told me she was returning the pen, but she was going back to the desk. I grabbed her wrist. She pulled away. It caught between us.”
Claire’s voice changed, barely. “Were you hurt?”
“No.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
“The bracelet broke in your hands?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Mom said Dad would leave.”
Claire sat very still at her desk, though Sophie could not see her.
“She said if he found out she almost pawned Grandma’s bracelet, he’d leave, and then everything would be my fault because I followed her.”
“That would not have been your fault.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you?”
Sophie pressed her lips together.
“I also didn’t want you to know I was there,” she said. “It sounds awful.”
“It was awful.”
Sophie’s eyes filled.
Claire softened her voice. “That does not mean you are awful.”
“You canceled before you knew.”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe me?”
“I believe this version more than the others.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” Claire said. “It isn’t.”
Sophie waited.
“I believe you,” Claire said.
The words did not fix anything. They made the room inside Sophie’s chest feel less crowded.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“You tell your father.”
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“He’ll hate her.”
“He may.”
“He’ll hate me for not telling him.”
“He may be angry.”
May you like
“You don’t know him when he’s angry.”
Claire looked at the folded sponsorship form on her desk and remembered Eric at seventeen, smashing a kitchen chair after their father’s bankruptcy became public. She remembered him at thirty-eight, standing outside a hospital room with both fists pressed to his forehead while their mother died. Eric’s anger had always been an attempt to make fear leave the room first.
