Chapter 7
The phone didn't ring so much as it hummed, low and insistent on the nightstand. Sophia was awake before she fully understood why, reaching for it in the dark because she had trained herself over twenty-two years to sleep lightly and wake fast.
She didn’t need to look at the screen to know it was Mason.
She took one breath. Composed herself. Then she answered.
“Hey.” Her voice was quiet and even. A SEAL's wife knew how to answer a call at three in the morning without falling apart all over the phone.
“Hey.” Just that one word, and she could hear everything in it. That he was okay. That he was somewhere he could talk, at least for now. That he had been waiting for a window and had finally found one. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” she said, which was close enough to true.
He made a sound that meant he knew that was bullshit. “Go back to sleep after this.”
“I will.” She wouldn't. “How are you?”
“Good. Tired.” A pause. “Dirty.”
She laughed softly. “How dirty?”
“Let's say I'm looking forward to our shower.”
“Our shower,” she agreed. She shifted against the pillows and pulled the blanket up and let herself just breathe him in through the phone, because somehow, she could. Twenty-two years of this, and she still hadn't found a word for what it felt like to hear his voice in the dark.
“Tell me a story.”
She smiled. “Like what?”
“About the girls. About the bakery. About what you’re wearing. About what you thought about today.”
This was their thing. He asked, she answered. He wanted the details, the small ones, the ones that meant home was still home.
“We sold out of the cardamom rolls again on Thursday. I'm making a double batch on Monday.”
“Good.” She could hear the smile in it. “Lisa?”
“Thriving. Extremely loud. She put a footnote on a fourth-grade science assignment defending Pluto's status as a planet.”
A beat of silence. Then, “That's my girl.”
“It absolutely is.” Sophia smiled at the ceiling. “Kayla is playing attack in lacrosse and is failing art class.”
“She's not failing.”
“She's not failing. But she wants you to know she considers one-point perspective to be a personal attack.”
He laughed, low and real. She stored it away the way she stored all of his laughter when he was gone.
“What else?”
She considered. She could feel him settling in on his end, stealing whatever minutes he had, just wanting to hear about home. She knew exactly what she was about to do and she did it anyway, because she hadn't been able to resist for approximately thirty-six hours.
“Connor Walsh asked Kayla to save him a seat at the pep rally.”
Silence.
“Mason.”
“Who is Connor Walsh?” He asked it slow and low.
“He's the baseball team captain. He's a junior.”
“And?”
“And he’s apparently very shy, and very smitten, and Kayla has no idea what to do about it which means she's handling it perfectly.” She kept her voice light and easy. “He smiled at her in the hallway.”
The sound that came through the phone was not quite a word.
She couldn’t help the giggle that came out of her mouth.
“Don’t you dare laugh.”
“I’m not laughing,” Sophia laughed.
“A junior?”
“Mason Gault. Listen to me.” She used the voice. The one that had been talking him off ledges for twenty-two years. “She’s fourteen years old and she is handling it exactly right, and there is nothing to handle. You’ll come home and you will be a normal, reasonable human being about this.”
“I'm always reasonable.”
“You told a stranger's child to tuck in his shirt.”
“That shirt needed tucking.”
“Mason.”
A long exhale. “Fine.” Another pause. “Team captain. Bet he thinks he’s hot shit.”
“Unlike Navy SEALs.”
“Really, Soph?”
She was laughing again, quietly, her face turned into the pillow so she wouldn't wake anyone. “It’s nothing. I promise.” But it had provided something new for him to think about, in the middle of wherever he was. Just what she wanted.
He grumbled something she didn't quite catch, and then he let it go, because he always let it go when she asked him to. That was one of the specific, particular ways Mason loved her. He trusted her read on things even when every instinct he had was pulling the other direction.
“Our anniversary,” she said, after a moment. “I keep thinking about it.”
His voice changed. Went quieter. “Yeah?”
“The orchids. The dress.” She paused. “The shoes I am absolutely wearing again.”
“I was counting on it.”
“It meant everything, Mason.” She meant it simply and completely, the way she meant everything she said to him. “I just wanted you to know that.”
“I know, honey.” A beat. “I know.”
They were quiet for a moment, comfortable in it, the way you got comfortable in silence with someone after twenty-two years together.
“I keep thinking,” she said, “about what it's going to be like. When you're just here. Every night.” She paused. “I know it sounds small.”
“It doesn't sound small at all.”
“I just want to wake up next to you. Every morning. Without worrying about a call coming during the middle of the night.”
He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke his voice was rough around the edges. “You're going to get so sick of me.”
“I’m not.”
“I'm going to be underfoot constantly. I'm going to reorganize the garage.”
“You're welcome to the garage.”
“I'm going to eat everything in that bakery of yours.” She could hear the grin coming through now. “I'm going to get fat, Sophia. Genuinely fat. All those cardamom rolls. You're going to have to roll me to the promotion ceremony.”
She was laughing again, helpless with it, her face in the pillow. “Stop.”
“I'm serious. I have no self-control when it comes to your baking and you know it. This is a real concern.”
“Mason—”
“Sophia.” His voice shifted. Just slightly. The way it did when time was up. “I've got to go.”
Her chest tightened. She breathed through it. “Okay.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Fast, warm, the shorthand of people who had said it ten thousand times and meant it more every single one. “Be smart.”
The line went quiet.
She lay in the dark with the phone still in her hand and the warmth of him still in her chest and the silence of the house around her and she breathed in, then breathed out and let it be enough.
It was enough.
She set the phone back on the nightstand and stared at the ceiling for a long time before she finally, eventually, drifted back to sleep.
The early April sun was warm but not hot, it was a perfect spring day in San Diego. A lot of the experienced sports parents had carried in light, portable seating that even included shading because people in Southern California took skin protection seriously.
Sophia just slathered on a lot of sunscreen, and skipped the seats. She was always too anxious when she watched her daughters play sports to sit still; she had to walk up and down the side-lines. Standing still and watching was Mason’s strength.
But even though she was a walker, she knew enough to come early and stake out her spot. She’d brought a small blanket and Lisa was sitting there. Smirking.
“Kayla is doing great. Mom, you don’t have to watch every little thing.”
“I watch every little thing when you play soccer.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “I know.”
“It’s because I care.”
“We know.”
Sophia started down the field as Mandy took possession of the ball toward the other team’s goalie.
It was a good game. Eastlake was up by two and Kayla had been everywhere in the first half, moving with the kind of focused aggression that made Sophia simultaneously proud and slightly nervous.
She had her father's instincts on a field. She always had.
At the last minute Mandy passed the ball to Kayla, but it went way over her head.
There was no way Kayla could have caught it.
That so wasn’t Mandy. It went out of bounds and the other team took possession of the ball and ended up scoring on Eastlake.
Mandy looked devastated, and the coach took her out of the game, but not before Kayla gave her a hug.
Sophia watched as Kayla and Cat positioned themselves, during the draw. Then, Cat caught the ball and she and Kayla started running down the field. They continued to pass the ball between one another, their stickwork was fantastic.
Lisa was jumping up and down yelling her sister’s name.
As they reached the goal, it looked like Cat was going to go for the goal, but at the last second she passed it off to Kayla, who drove the ball past the goalie’s legs. Lisa went out of her mind; Sophia thought she might damage her vocal chords at the rate she was screaming.
“Did you see that, Mom? Did you?”
“I did, Lisa. I did.” She’d even gotten it on video for Mason to see it. He’d love it.
“I want to go talk to her.”
“After the game.”
Lisa sat back down on the blanket and Sophia shifted her position slightly, angling for a better view of the far goal, and that's when she saw Peggy Kowalski and Lettie Bowman. They were standing about twenty feet to the left of the main parent cluster, slightly apart from everyone else.
It would be nice to talk to them. She hadn’t been completely comfortable with how she’d left things with Lettie the other afternoon, and Mandy’s mom was always a kick-in-the-ass.
She waved at them, but neither of them noticed, and she realized they were in an intense conversation. It had to be a lot more interesting talk than lacrosse statistics. When she looked closer she saw that Lettie’s shoulders were up near her ears again.
Dammit. Now she was really concerned. Lettie was not the type of woman to ever show a less than positive emotion. She always exuded strength, confidence and positivity. Now this was the second time she looked shaken and worried. Hell, at the coffee shop she looked cornered.
Peggy lifted her paper coffee cup to her lips. It was the same coffee cup that Lettie was holding. Which was strange in and of itself. You came to the field, you came with your Yeti mug, not with a paper cup from the coffee shop.
It was the same green and cream sleeve, the same cup she had been handed five days ago by a woman named Mary who had known her last name when she had paid with cash.
She stood very still for a moment.
It's a popular coffee shop, but it’s a bit of a trek from this field to the coffee shop.
“Mom, did you see that?” Lisa screeched.
“See what, baby?”
“Kayla intercepted a pass.”
“That’s great, Lisa. Stay here while I go talk to Bree and Mandy’s moms. Okay?”
“Can I have one of the lemon bars in the tote?”
Sophia gave an absent nod as she headed toward Peggy and Lettie.
She was about ten feet away when Lettie looked up and saw her.
Something crossed Peggy's face. Quick and unmistakable. It was gone in a second, replaced by a smile that was the right shape, but Sophia had already seen it.
Fear.
“Sophia!” Peggy's voice was warm and easy. “Hey, isn't this game great?”
Sophia hesitated a step. “Yeah, I guess. We’re winning,” she agreed. “I’m sure the coach will put Mandy back in next quarter.”
“He pulled Mandy?” Peggy was clearly surprised. She hadn’t realized her daughter had been pulled out of the game.
Something was not right.
“It was just a second ago,” Sophia lied. She tipped her head toward the coffee Lettie was holding. “Looks like you both made a stop before the game.”
Lettie glanced nervously over at Peggy, then smiled. “Yeah, it’s now my favorite place for coffee. I think the barista uses nutmeg or something.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Peggy muttered.
“Where's Dan?” Sophia asked. Conversational. Easy. “I haven't seen him.”
Something moved through Peggy. Small. Contained. “Working.” She shook her head. “He's been on crazy hours lately. This project they've got him on.” She waved a hand. “You know how it is.”
“Tom too,” Lettie offered, on cue, and it was just slightly too quick. “Same thing. Extra hours.” She glanced at the field. “So, it's just us girls today.”
“I know the feeling.”
Sophia looked at the field. Bree was moving into position, her ponytail swinging, nothing remarkable happening, but Lettie was watching her daughter with an intensity that had nothing to do with lacrosse.
She looked back at the two of them. Peggy was looking at the field too now. Both of them, cups in hand, eyes forward, done talking.
“Well,” Sophia said pleasantly. “I'll let you two catch up. Great to see you both.”
“You too,” Peggy said.
“Always,” Lettie said.
Sophia turned and walked back toward Lisa. She saw Cat’s little sister with her. She kept her pace slow and her expression easy. She watched Kayla cut across the field and make a clean pass and felt the surge of pride she always felt.
And underneath it, something cold was moving through her.
These were not women who were having a hard week. She had seen hard weeks. She had lived hard weeks. What she had just seen in Peggy Kowalski's face and Lettie Bowman's face was something different.
She had seen it before. Years ago, when she was being stalked.
She thought about the cups in their hands. She thought about Mary behind the counter, warm and smiling, knowing everyone's name.
She thought about Lettie's voice in the coffee shop. I told you I was trying.
She kept her pace steady, her eyes on Kayla, and her breathing even.
Then she took out her phone and sent a text to Angie.
Can you talk tonight?
The reply came before Kayla had passed the ball again.
Name the time.