Chương 13
“I’m angry with her.”
“That’s not hate.”
“No.”
“So you don’t?”
He took his time.
“She’s my mother. I love parts of her. I’m also not ready to be around her.”
Sophie frowned.
“That’s confusing.”
“Yes.”
“Can I be mad at someone I don’t know?”
Victoria said, “You can feel however you feel.”
Sophie looked suspicious.
“That sounds like Dr. Cole.”
“It was.”
Dr. Cole smiled.
Sophie twisted the thread around her finger.
“Do I have to meet her?”
“No,” Alexander said immediately.
Victoria looked at him.
He continued, “Not for me. Not for anybody.”
Sophie thought for a while.
“Can she write me?”
Victoria’s stomach tightened.
Alexander did not answer for her.
Victoria said, “Yes. She can write. I’ll keep the letters until you want them.”
“Okay.”
That became the arrangement.
Margaret wrote once a month.
No gifts.
No photographs unless requested.
No guilt.
Dr. Cole reviewed the first two letters with Victoria and Alexander because none of them trusted Margaret’s instincts.
The first was too formal.
Dear Sophie, I hope this letter finds you well.
Sophie laughed.
“It sounds like school email.”
The second was better.
Margaret wrote about burning pancakes because she had tried to make breakfast for herself after dismissing her housekeeper for the weekend.
Sophie asked why a grown-up needed a housekeeper.
Alexander said, “Excellent question.”
Victoria kicked his ankle.
By the sixth month, the world had mostly moved on from the boat video.
The internet found newer people to judge.
Victoria’s firm won a smaller hotel contract that would not replace the lost project but kept the junior hires.
Naomi celebrated by ordering the same terrible noodles.
“You hate these.”
“I’m loyal.”
“To noodles?”
“To tradition.”
Alexander settled child-support obligations through attorneys without argument.
Victoria made him argue about one number because she believed his proposal was absurdly high.
He said Sophie was entitled to share in his resources.
Victoria said Sophie was not a redevelopment project.
Daniel told both of them to stop using metaphors in financial negotiations.
Alexander opened an education account under terms Victoria approved.
He also bought Sophie a twelve-dollar chemistry set that stained her bathroom sink purple.
Victoria sent him the cleaning bill as a joke.
He paid it.
She sent the money back.
He mailed her twelve dollars in cash.
She kept it pinned to the office bulletin board.
By autumn, Alexander had unsupervised Saturdays.
Sometimes Sophie slept at his house, though the first overnight lasted only until 11:40 p.m., when she called Victoria crying because Franklin had barked at a delivery truck and she wanted her own bed.
Alexander drove her home.
He did not say, “She needs to get used to it.”
He carried her backpack to the door and said, “We’ll try again whenever you want.”
Sophie succeeded on the third attempt.
Victoria did not sleep at all that night.
At 2:13 a.m., Alexander texted a photograph of Sophie asleep sideways across the guest bed with Franklin on the floor.
Victoria typed, Stop taking pictures of her while she sleeps, creep.
He replied, Fair.
She smiled in the dark.
That bothered her less than it once had.
Margaret’s first meeting with Sophie happened eight months after the cruise.
Sophie chose it.
Nobody pushed.
The meeting took place in Dr. Cole’s office.
Margaret arrived wearing gray trousers and a cream blouse instead of the armor of an evening gown.
She looked smaller.
Victoria disliked noticing that.
Sophie sat beside Alexander.
Margaret stopped three feet inside the room.
Her eyes went to Sophie’s face.
Victoria recognized the same shock Alexander had shown on the boat.
Margaret controlled it more quickly.
“Hello, Sophie.”
“Hi.”
Margaret glanced at Victoria.
Victoria gave nothing.
Margaret sat in the chair Dr. Cole indicated.
For several seconds no one spoke.
Then Sophie said, “Your letters are weird.”
Alexander coughed.
Victoria bit the inside of her cheek.
Margaret blinked.
“I suspect they are.”
“The first one sounded like school.”
“I was nervous.”
“You’re old.”
“Sophie,” Victoria said.
Margaret surprised them by laughing.
“Yes. That too.”
Sophie looked at her.
“Why did you lie?”
The room changed.
Dr. Cole did not intervene.
Margaret folded her hands.
“I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
“Mom?”
“Partly.”
Victoria felt anger rise.
Margaret saw it.
She corrected herself.
“I was afraid of what your mother and your dad being together would change.”
Sophie frowned.
“So you lied.”
“Yes.”
“That’s bad.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know I was a baby?”
Margaret’s face lost color.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell Dad then?”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
She did not cry dramatically.
She looked at the floor.
“Because by then I was afraid he would stop loving me if he knew what I had done.”
Sophie considered this with a seriousness none of the adults could imitate.
“Did he?”
Margaret looked at Alexander.
He answered.
“No.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Alexander continued, “But things changed.”
Sophie nodded.
“Mom says that happens.”
Victoria looked at her daughter.
“I do?”
“Yeah.”
Apparently she did.
Sophie asked Margaret about Franklin next.
The adults nearly laughed from relief.
The meeting lasted thirty minutes.
Margaret did not hug Sophie.
She did not ask to.
Outside, after Margaret had left separately, Victoria stood beside Alexander in the parking lot.
“That was terrible.”
“Yes.”
“She handled it better than I expected.”
“Yes.”
“Stop agreeing with me.”
“No.”
Victoria looked at him.
Alexander smiled.
There he was.
Not the man from seven years earlier.
Not entirely.
Enough.
Sophie ran ahead toward Victoria’s car.
“Can Dad come for pizza?”
Victoria looked at Alexander.
He waited.
She said, “Fine.”
Sophie cheered.
Alexander said, “That sounded enthusiastic.”
“Don’t ruin it.”
They ate pizza at Victoria’s house.
Naomi arrived without warning because she claimed she was returning fabric samples and stayed for dinner.
She watched Victoria and Alexander argue about pineapple.
“This is disturbing,” she said.
Sophie nodded.
“They agree too much.”
“They’re arguing.”
“That’s how they agree.”
Naomi stared at Victoria.
Victoria pointed toward the door.
“Leave.”
“No.”
Franklin stole a slice of pizza.
Chaos followed.
It was stupid.
Ordinary.
Perfectly unimportant.
A year after the cruise, Victoria found Sophie’s silver handbag in the back of her closet.
She had not seen it in months.
The tiny tiara was inside.
So was a dried-out marker, two coins, a smooth stone, an old movie ticket, and a folded drawing of Franklin with what appeared to be six legs.
The hospital bracelet was no longer there.
Neither was the DNA report.
Neither was the forged letter.
Those were locked in a document box in Daniel’s office now, where evidence belonged.
Victoria held the handbag for a moment.
Then Sophie shouted from downstairs.
“Mom! Dad’s here!”
Victoria checked the time.
Alexander was early.
Of course.
She carried the handbag downstairs.
Sophie stood by the door wearing jeans, a blue sweater, and one untied sneaker.
Alexander was outside holding a cardboard display board for the school science fair.
“You made him carry it?” Victoria asked.
“He volunteered.”
Alexander said, “I was assigned.”
Sophie pointed at him.
“Don’t bend Saturn.”
“I have been briefed.”
Victoria handed Sophie the handbag.
“Found this.”
Sophie opened it.
“My rock!”
“That’s your reaction?”
“I thought I lost it.”
Alexander looked inside.
“What is that drawing?”
“Franklin.”
“He has six legs.”
“He was running.”
“Anatomically ambitious.”
Sophie rolled her eyes.
Then she shoved the handbag into Alexander’s hands.
“Hold this.”
He took it automatically.
Sophie dropped to the floor to tie her sneaker.
Victoria looked at the metallic silver bag hanging from Alexander Reed’s hand.
A year earlier, it had contained proof that a child had been hidden from him.
Now it contained a rock, a dead marker, two quarters, and a badly drawn dog.
Alexander caught Victoria looking.
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
He studied her face.
For once he let nothing remain nothing.
Sophie stood.
“Ready.”
Alexander opened the door.
Victoria locked it behind them.
Sophie walked between them toward the car, talking rapidly about Saturn, Maya, poster-board rules, and why adults should not be trusted with glue.
Alexander carried the silver handbag without complaint.
Halfway down the sidewalk, Sophie reached for his hand.
He took it.
Then she reached backward for Victoria’s.
Victoria hesitated only long enough to feel the choice.
May you like
She took her daughter’s hand.
And the three of them kept walking.
