Chapter 49
SOPHIA
Sophia was at her wits’ end on how to make it up to Willa for kissing Max.
Willa had given Sophia the silent treatment for a full week, even going so far as waking up an hour early so that she would be gone from their room before Sophia opened her eyes.
When Sophia ran into her around campus, Willa pretended not to see her.
“Awful” wasn’t a strong enough word to describe how Sophia felt.
Crushing Willa was never her plan, their friendship meant the world to her, but it had been impossible to ignore the connection she shared with Max.
Sophia and Max were from the same place, and they had found each other across the distance and against the odds.
It was a miracle, really. But on the other hand, Sophia had never had a friend outside of her brothers.
Let alone a friend as kind and giving as Willa.
If Willa had never invited her home, Sophia wouldn’t have read those articles in the library that had connected her to Mrs. Gathers. There had to be a way to remedy things.
“Cafeteria is now closing,” called the woman removing tin pans from the hot-food station. Sophia grabbed two sugar cookies from the dessert station and headed out.
Willa was lying across her bed facing the wall when Sophia entered the room. The new radio that she had brought back to school after Christmas was on low.
“Can we please talk? The silence is killing me.” Sophia sat on the edge of Willa’s bed and dug her nails into the down comforter.
“There’s nothing to discuss. Max already told me.”
“I want you to hear it from me, Willa.”
Willa sat up and turned her face toward Sophia. “What?”
“For starters, I’m not who I thought I was.”
“What does that even mean?”
Sophia took a deep breath. If she was going to get Willa back, she had to be honest. But she had to do it without incriminating Max.
“I found out that I was adopted,” she said slowly, and then told Willa about the Brown Baby Plan, going to Mrs. Gathers’s home and discovering the mix-up with her identity. When she was finished, Willa’s mouth hung open wide enough to catch a fly.
“That’s bizarre. Why didn’t you tell me you were going through all of this?”
Sophia shrugged. “I just had this gut feeling but no proof. I didn’t know for sure until I met Mrs. Gathers over winter break.”
“What have your parents said about all of this?”
“I haven’t told them that I know.”
“Seriously? This is a lot for me to take in. I can’t imagine how you feel.” Willa’s face softened.
“And then with Max… our connection to basketball… it just happened. I’m sorry for hurting you, Willa. I truly am.”
Willa pulled her knees to her chest and was quiet for a long time. Then she said, “Do I feel like you betrayed me? Yes. Am I hurt? Absolutely.”
“I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”
Smoothing her hair back from her face, Willa took a hair tie from her wrist and made a ponytail. “It’s fine. If I’m honest, Max never seemed that into me anyway. He’s a guy that my parents would like for me, so I pursued him.”
“You are my one and only friend. I would never intentionally hurt you.”
“I said it’s fine.”
Sophia looked up at the ceiling. “Our chemistry… it’s just been—”
“Ugh, spare me the details, please,” Willa blurted. “Just don’t be all mushy about it. That’s a surefire way to make me puke.”
“Deal,” said Sophia.
“But do you want to talk about the other thing? I mean, finding out that you were adopted? It’s gotta be rough.” Her green eyes were kind.
“Maybe later,” Sophia said, reaching into her bag and pulling out the two sugar cookies. “Peace offering?”
“It’ll take more than sugar to win me back.” Willa snorted. “But it’s a start.” She took a bite.
At the end of January, Sophia’s basketball season ended, with the girls making it to the first round of the playoffs.
They lost at home in overtime when Patty missed a buzzer-beating jump shot.
The starters said they could have won if Patty had thrown the ball to Sophia, who was all alone under the basket.
Sophia moped out of the locker room to find Max waiting for her on the bleachers. His smile made the details of the game turn murky, and when he draped his arm around her shoulder and said, “Don’t worry about it, Soph, you played well,” the loss was all but forgotten.
Once basketball season ended, Sophia and Max were inseparable.
They took all of their meals together in the cafeteria and studied in the library with their limbs linked under the table.
Max kissed her on the bench behind the Magnolia Clubhouse, carried her books through the breezeway between the boys’ and girls’ schools, and on Saturday nights, they’d sneak into the belfry tower to watch the sunset while he made her laugh until her belly ached.
At the end of February, Sophia finally received a letter from Mrs. Gathers.
Max had gone off campus with the Debate Club, and she would not allow herself to open it until he returned to Forest. She watched for the school van from the cafeteria window, and when the club members piled off, she waved him over.
“Hey there,” he said.
A light snow had begun to fall, and Sophia flicked the flakes from his hair.
“I’ve been waiting for you all day to open this.” She held the letter up. “Come inside.”
Max followed Sophia to a table inside the cafeteria. “Should we get some cocoa or something?”
“Afterward. I need to know what Mrs. Gathers found out,” she said, slipping her finger beneath the seal. Her eyes darted over the page, and Max scooted his chair in closer so that he could read over her shoulder.
Sophia put the letter down. “It says my mother’s last known address is in America. She’s not in Germany but here in the States.”
“I didn’t see that coming,” Max said as he took the letter from her hand and read it again more closely. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to find her. Mrs. Gathers said she’d help. She wants me to call her; she said I could reverse the charges.”
February melted into late March, and before Sophia knew it, she was studying for midterms and then packing for spring break.
For once, she didn’t need Willa to save her.
She had her own plans. True to his word, Unc was there in the roundabout to pick Sophia up and drive her back to the farm for her final break before summer.
At home, she found Walter behind the shed with his head under the hood of an old Ford Six.
“She ain’t much to look at,” he said, gesturing to the mismatched doors and parts. “But she’s enough to get me around town.”
“Do you think she could get us to Williamsburg and back?”
“What’s in Williamsburg?” Walter sneezed.
“Allergies?” Sophia reached into the front pocket of her dress and held an envelope out to him.
“You know spring’s not my season.” He sneezed again, then reached for the cloth hanging from his overalls pockets and wiped the grease from his hands.
He skimmed the letter. “Your birth mother is in Williamsburg, Virginia? That’s only a state away.
Rusty, when you put your mind to something… ” he said, reading the letter again.
“I already tried the telephone number, but it’s been disconnected.”
“What do you want to do?” He handed her back the letter.
“You think this pretty baby would make it down to Williamsburg and back?” She patted the hood of the car.
“I reckon all we can do is give it a try.” Walter smiled at her in his easy way. “What do we have to lose?”
Sophia could list a whole bunch of things, but the biggest obstacle would be Ma Deary finding out and sabotaging their plan. She didn’t want the twins to know either; she couldn’t disrupt their lives as hers had been. Not yet, not until they were a bit older and could understand.
“Ma Deary has been working doubles on Thursdays. She leaves like five in the morning and doesn’t return until the middle of the night. Thursday would be our best shot,” Walter responded as if reading her thoughts.
“And the Old Man?”
“He’s in D.C. delivering the eggs on Thursday, remember? Lately, he’s been stopping off to catch up with old friends and not returning till late.”
She relaxed a bit. They had a working plan. Sophia just hoped her mother still lived at the address that the German orphanage had provided to Mrs. Gathers. That she hadn’t moved or, worse, that she wouldn’t take one look at Sophia before turning her away.