Chapter 4
There was someone sitting on the front steps of the house next door.
Zoe clocked them as she took out the trash, after settling her parents in front of Wheel of Fortune, one of their favorite shows.
Twilight was stealing across the sky in vivid violet streaks and lengthening the shadows, but even in the oncoming darkness Zoe thought there was something familiar about the hunch of the person’s thin shoulders, the way they drew their knees up to their chest. Or was she just being fanciful?
Zoe put the trash in the bin, slowly lowering the lid as she kept her gaze on the figure lurking on the stoop of the house, in the deepening shadows. The oversized hoodie and baggy jeans… they definitely looked familiar, and, with a sudden jolt of realization, she knew why.
The girl sitting on the steps was the infamous Sophie of shoplifting fame.
Why was she sitting there? Zoe knew the owner of the house, Juliet Reese, who rented it out occasionally while she was in Colorado, visiting her grandkids.
But she usually told Zoe when someone was moving in, and she hadn’t messaged her recently.
Plus, Zoe hadn’t noticed any activity, but then she’d been pretty busy.
And Sophie and her dad had moved to Starr’s Fall around a week ago, so it made sense that they’d have moved into a rental.
In any case, whether Sophie was her neighbor or not, it had nothing to do with her…
even if the sight of that huddled figure sitting alone on the darkened stoop made something in Zoe ache with both remembrance and regret.
A sigh escaped her, and resolutely she turned back inside. Sophie, troubled teen she might be, was not her problem. And she had enough problems to be dealing with, anyway. She didn’t need to bother with a girl she didn’t know and was pretty sure she wouldn’t like.
Back inside, to the tinny soundtrack of Wheel of Fortune with its scattered applause, Zoe went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of water to give to her parents.
“Pill-popping time!” she sang out cheerfully as she came into the living room, where they were both tucked up—her dad lying on the sofa, since he usually dozed off around eight, her mother in her recliner where she spent the majority of her days, save when Zoe could coax her out to the backyard to enjoy the sunshine.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” her dad murmured sleepily as Ryan Seacrest encouraged a contestant to take a spin.
Zoe pulled a drawer out of the mobile medication cart she’d bought a few years ago, to make her life easier. Her parents were on half a dozen meds each, and they all had strong side effects, which meant she had to be very careful who had what and when. It was far too easy to make a mistake.
She glanced at the TV as she put her dad’s pills into a plastic cup. “Anyone buy a vowel yet?” she asked.
“Just an E,” her mother murmured, “and there weren’t any.”
“Ooh, unlucky.” Finished with distributing the pills, Zoe went over to perch on the edge of the sofa to help her dad sit up a little so he could take his dose.
He gave her a grateful smile, looking far older than his fifty-four years, his hair gray and thin, his weathered face looking paler than usual.
It had been four months since his last blood transfusion, and Zoe suspected he needed another.
She made a mental note to call his doctor tomorrow.
“Thanks, honey,” he murmured as he took the glass from her, along with the plastic cup of pills. Zoe waited patiently as he swallowed one pill after the other before handing her back the glass of water and the empty cup with a grateful smile.
Now onto her mom, who had started having difficulty swallowing a couple of months ago.
Her doctor had said it was a normal progression of the disease, and that prospect filled Zoe with dread because she knew from what she’d read online, and what her mother’s doctors had told her, that once you couldn’t swallow, you basically couldn’t survive.
Fortunately, they weren’t there yet. In many ways, her mother had more energy than her father, who tired so easily now, but her mobility was severely limited, and she’d probably have to move from a walker to a wheelchair soon, another prospect that Zoe dreaded.
She knew, after all this time, she should be used to her parents’ decline but she stubbornly wasn’t.
They were only in their fifties. It all felt so very unfair.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” her mother said as she took the first pill.
Despite her trouble swallowing, she was insistent that Zoe not crush them up.
But watching her attempt to choke them down was a painful process in itself—her mother’s mouth working, the wince she couldn’t help but give, as she finally forced the pill down.
This never got easier, Zoe acknowledged, and in fact, she knew full well that it would only get harder.
She was twenty-eight years old, and she’d been her parents’ carer since she was nineteen.
Still, she could not begrudge them a single thing, ever.
If this had to be her life, then so be it.
They certainly had the greater challenge.
“There you go, Mom,” she said when her mother had finally managed the last pill.
Zoe rested a hand on her shoulder, giving her a sympathetic smile which her mother returned, her eyes creasing with the good humor that never left her, despite the miserable constraints of her life.
“And now look!” Zoe nodded toward the TV.
“They guessed it.” A hard day’s work had been the phrase the contestant had been guessing. Somehow it seemed appropriate.
Her mom smiled back faintly and then rested her head against the back of the recliner, closing her eyes.
The look of fatigue on her lined face gave Zoe a flutter of panic.
She was used to her mom being sick; she’d been sick since Zoe was eight years old.
But she still wasn’t used to this sense that her mother was fading, hour by hour and minute by minute, every moment both precious and fleeting.
As Wheel of Fortune continued, Zoe headed to the kitchen to clean up from dinner and read through the notes left by the day nurse.
Emma was always diligent about making sure Zoe knew what kind of day her parents had had—if they were more tired than usual, or her mother had had a memory lapse, her father a coughing fit.
She only came for four hours each day—which was all they could afford—but it gave Zoe a great peace of mind to know her parents weren’t alone all day.
Even though her dad insisted he could manage them both.
Zoe knew he couldn’t, not without it exhausting him, anyway.
She’d just finished loading the dishwasher when she decided to check on next door again.
Sure enough, Sophie was still sitting there in the dark, hunched over, her hands looped around her knees, even though it had to have been twenty minutes.
Was she locked out, Zoe wondered. She had a key to the house, since Juliet was away a lot and liked her to check on things.
She could let Sophie in if she really wanted to.
But did she want to engage with the girl, though, after this afternoon’s spectacle? The memory of Sophie hurling the magnet at her and then lying about it was still very fresh in her mind. And yet there really was something so sorrowful about that slight, lonely figure on the steps…
Something that reminded her of herself, feeling so alone at the same age.
Zoe ducked her head into the living room to find her parents both asleep, even though it wasn’t yet eight o’clock.
They’d probably be out for the count until she helped them to bed in a couple of hours.
Normally, she’d use the time to catch up on work or dishes, or even just spend a blissful half-hour watching something mindless on her laptop.
But the memory of Sophie’s forlorn figure was fresh in her mind and, sighing in resignation, she opened the front door and stepped outside into the balmy evening.
“Hey there,” she called over, and saw Sophie stiffen. “Sophie, isn’t it?” She really hoped she wasn’t going to get a squeal of protest and some exclamation along the lines of Are you actually stalking me? You’re such a creep!
But all Sophie said in a voice that wobbled was “Yeah…” She lifted her head from her knees to peer at Zoe uncertainly. It had grown dark, and Zoe wasn’t sure Sophie recognized her.
“I didn’t realize we were neighbors,” she remarked as she walked across the short stretch of grass that separated their two properties to stand on Sophie’s front walk. “Half this street is empty, so I’m not used to having people around. When did you move in?”
“A week ago.” Sophie was still eyeing her uncertainly, but Zoe was pretty sure the girl recognized her now. She probably just wasn’t thrilled that they were neighbors.
“I guess I’ve been pretty busy, though,” Zoe remarked.
“So I wouldn’t have noticed much going on at home.
Summer’s my busiest time at The Latest Scoop.
” She fell silent, waiting for Sophie to say something in return, but the girl just stared at her mutinously.
“Are you locked out?” she finally asked, her tone gentle. “I have a key, if you are.”
“You do?” Now Zoe heard the note of self-righteous outrage she’d been expecting earlier. “Why do you have a key to my house?” she demanded.
“Because I know the woman you’re renting from, Juliet Reese,” Zoe replied levelly. “She spends a lot of her time out in Colorado, and she gave me a key a long time ago so I could keep an eye on the place.”
“Well, I guess you didn’t do a very good job, if you didn’t even notice we moved in,” Sophie shot back, and Zoe let out a huff of laughter.
“I guess I didn’t,” she agreed. “But do you want me to open it up or not?”
Sophie shrugged, returning her chin to her knees. “I don’t care,” she muttered. “My dad will come home soon anyway.”