Chapter 26
26
Sophie
I know it’s none of my business, but ... I can tell something’s changed with you.” Natalie eyes me as she hands me another scalding-hot wine glass from the industrial dishwasher in the staff kitchen. The clean-up portion of the first of many private December events hosted in our tasting room has given Natalie and I ample alone time tonight. The perfect breeding ground for a painful conversation I’d rather not rehash—though talking about the breakup with Natalie will be quite different than with Dana. For one, Natalie probably won’t try to console me by suggesting my broken heart is likely a sign from the universe to go back into theater ... even though I’ve told her more than once that I don’t believe in “the universe.”
“At first,” Natalie continues hesitantly, “I wondered if it had something to do with the final quote Jasper gave you for the van rebuild. But you’ve been down for going on two weeks now.”
Eleven days , I silently correct. I was rejected eleven days ago by the man I loved. By the man I still love.
“You don’t owe me any kind of answer, I just—”
“August and I broke up.” The phrase rubs me wrong. I had nothing to do with that breakup. It wasn’t some mutual agreement or amicable arrangement. It was a hundred percent him, and I’d been a hundred percent blindsided. “No, actually,” I correct myself as I set a dried glass into the storage container, “August broke up with me.”
The death of a relationship has no body to bury or funeral to plan, but the absence of what could have been is a grief all its own.
“But why?” She crosses her arms. “And I’m not asking for whatever lame reason he gave first. That’s never the real reason.”
I straighten. Of all the questions Dana asked, this was not one of them. And yet, I know how to respond because it’s been brewing inside me since that night.
“The real reason is...” A swell of emotion hits me dead-center in my chest, and I wait for the tears to pass before I speak. “I think he’s afraid to let himself love me.” I blink my blurring vision away. “I think he can’t until he deals with stuff that happened long before I came into the picture.”
Natalie exhales audibly. “I’m sorry, Sophie.”
“Me too.” I feel a tear slip down my cheek. I wipe it away.
“What does that mean for his sister? She’s who you were learning ASL for, right? Have you seen her since?”
“Yes,” I say, recalling how difficult that first meeting was for us both. We met at the theater under the pretense of rehearsing her monologue when in actuality we spent the majority of the night talking and trying not to cry. Eventually, we gave up the fight and gave in to the tears. “I’ve made a commitment to her. Regardless of where I end up, I know God put her in my life for a reason.” I don’t understand much at the moment, but I do know that. I love Gabby, and not only because she happens to be the little sister of my boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—but because she’s an incredible human being who has blessed my life beyond what I deserve.
“Does that mean you’re leaving California?”
“What ?” I ask, veering into the present again.
“You said ‘regardless of where you end up.’” There’s a hint of something in Natalie’s voice I can’t decipher. “Do you have plans to leave?”
“Possibly,” I say honestly. “I have an in-person audition in LA on December 11th with a reputable traveling theater company. If I land the part, I’ll be relocating to company housing by New Year’s and on the road by spring.” I scheduled the flight for the morning after the winter showcase at Twilight Theater. It was the earliest I could leave without causing a disruption to the rehearsal schedule. The last thing I want to do is abandon Portia after all she entrusted to me. It was hard enough to tell her I might be leaving permanently depending on the outcome of my LA audition.
“But I thought you were praying ,” Natalie says, emphasizing the word, “about an opportunity at your friends’ theater?”
Honestly, I forgot I shared that with her in the hot tub, but by the pointed look on Natalie’s face, she hasn’t. “I did pray about it.” A lot is what I don’t say. I journaled my prayers nearly every day, asking God to bless the Pimentels’ vision for a deaf theater. Asking God to guide all their next steps. Asking God if He had a specific role in mind for me there. Thanking God for the provision He gave me in narration. Asking God to help me rebuild a life in California, full of thriving relationships, including the one that just disintegrated. “And I think God’s answer is no .”
Natalie doesn’t say anything for several long minutes as we continue with our wash-dry-stack routine, and I wonder, not for the first time, what she’s thinking about. I also wonder if she’d even be honest with me if I asked. While I haven’t spotted that Clinton guy around the house again, it doesn’t take a trained therapist to see Natalie is hiding a lot of secrets behind her flawless exterior.
“You can come to the winter showcase if you want; it’s on December 10th. I can get you a ticket.” I pause, hoping the discussion shifts away from my relationship woes. “There are some phenomenal acts, and Gabby is performing.”
Natalie doesn’t look up at me when she says, “I actually have plans that night with Jasper. A holiday art auction, for charity. But thank you for inviting me.”
“Of course, I—”
“Natalie!” The sharp bark of my brother’s voice turns both our heads toward the open doorway.
“I’m in here,” she calls out, lifting one of our stacked boxes from the floor and shoving it on the counter in front of her. I can’t help but notice how the exertion causes her to wince. Natalie is a runner—her build is lean and athletic. I’ve been hauling these storage boxes around for the better part of two days. They can’t weigh more than twenty pounds apiece. So why—
Jasper fills the doorway. For a man who goes to great lengths to present a pristine appearance at all times, he is, at this moment, the antithesis of a public-facing business tycoon. His bloodshot eyes and unkempt hair are a precursor to his untucked, wrinkled dress shirt. I’ve worked hard to keep our paths from crossing over the last few weeks, but even still, I’m not sure I’d recognize my own brother if I ran into him on the street.
“I thought I told you to stay in the office today. You have paperwork that needs to be signed and overnighted,” he says to his wife before his eyes shift to me and narrow.
“I know,” Natalie starts, “but there was still too much clean-up work for Sophie to handle on her own after last night’s event—”
“Your job is to assist me , not her.” His forehead gleams with a fresh sheen of sweat, though this room is cool. “And I needed you up in the office hours ago.”
My hackles rise at his degrading tone. I’ve never heard my brother speak to my sister-in-law like this before. But then again, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen them interact openly since their wedding. If they’re together, they’re usually behind closed doors, unseen and unheard.
“We’re almost done packing up the stemware—only a couple more boxes at most. I can come up after I take them down to the cellar and start a load of linens.” She turns to me. “If you don’t mind switching out the wash, I’ll fold them after dinner.”
“No, you won’t,” Jasper rebuffs. “You will let Sophie do her job, and you will do yours. Let’s go.” There’s something inhumane about the way my brother is staring at Natalie. Like she’s not a person, but an object. Like she’s not his wife, but his servant.
It takes me a moment to place where I’ve seen this expression before, but then I recall my many years in New York food service, particularly the smug faces of men who chose to use their influence to degrade an underpaid server for a simple mistake. A wrong dish or drink refill—or heaven forbid, a smaller portion size than they deemed appropriate for the price—could set them off and result in the humiliation of a coworker.
I step up to Natalie’s side. “She said she’ll be up after she’s finished.”
His warning glare drags back to me. “This doesn’t involve you.”
It’s a command, yet he has no authority over me.
“Actually, it does.” I raise my arms and make a show of looking around. “According to the bylaws within our family trust, this entire property and the work it involves is as much mine as it is yours.” I hope my expression looks as gritty as it feels. “You might be the operations manager and one of three trustees, but unless I commit a felony, forfeit my share, or am unanimously voted out, your authority over me is a moot point. And as a family member and cherished employee, the same rules and protections are true for your wife.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I finally took your advice and brushed up on the business side of things around here. Made for some pretty boring bedtime reading this last week, but quite informative all the same.”
But instead of the united front I’m anticipating from Natalie, there’s terror in her eyes when her gaze cuts from me to Jasper. The silence that follows pricks my fear.
Natalie grips the storage box on the counter and moves toward the door with it in her hands. “How ’bout I run this next door to the cellar and then I’ll be right up? You’re right, honey, Sophie can manage the rest of this on her own without me.”
The cords in my brother’s neck constrict multiple times before he finally exhales. “Don’t be long.”
As soon as he exits the room, I start to speak again, but Natalie cuts me off with a single shake of her head. We wait until the last of his footsteps on the stairs fade and the door to his office slams closed.
Natalie starts for the outside door when I grab the storage container from her. “You’re not taking this down there. I can see you’re in pain.”
“What? No.” Her eyebrows scrunch in confusion as she keeps her voice low. “I know you haven’t been down to the cellar since...”
“Maybe it’s time I change that.” It’s a declaration, one I’ve been battling since August challenged me to face my own fears before asking him to face his. I set the box at my feet, take hold of my sister-in-law’s shoulders, and speak with unrivaled fervor. “Natalie, listen to me, if you’re in trouble I will help you—”
“It’s not what you think,” she whispers. “I promise, Sophie. I can handle myself.” She throws a glance up the stairs. “Don’t worry about the linens. I’ll run a load of laundry after he falls asleep. It shouldn’t be too much longer now. He never went to bed last night.”
And then she twists out of my hold and scurries from the staff kitchen without a backward glance.
With Natalie upstairs with my brother, I take my time drying and boxing the last of the stemware alone. I listen carefully for any out-of-place creak or sharply spoken word. But there is nothing. After a while, my mind begins to play a riveting game of anxiety hopscotch, jumping over some squares while landing in the center of others. Each one marked with the name of someone I love.
Natalie.
Gabby.
August.
My pr ayers for each are simple, my words often fumbled and unsure, and yet I have faith enough to know they’re heard.
By the time I load the second round of laundry into the washer and have the first folded and put away, I’ve convinced myself that my brother is too smart to do anything untoward to Natalie while I’m present on the property. At least, that’s what I tell myself before I collect the storage boxes to carry across the path to the tasting room after dark.
When I enter the main dining area, I set the boxes on a table near the door and close myself in. It’s far from the first time I’ve been alone in the tasting room since the attack, but somehow my body knows this time is different. There’s a sticky anticipation building in my core, a tensing in my muscles, as if they’ve already begun to brace for an assault they’ve been overcompensating for since I was sixteen. I scan the familiar setting, not as it is now, but as it was back then, remembering the cloud of cheap cologne that hung in the air and the sound of clomping boots on the cellar stairs. And then the hushed duet of male voices—one more distinct than the other, hurling curses and insults at my unwelcome arrival.
I stop the memory there and grip the boxes like a shield at my chest. And then I cross to the far side of the room and stare down at the narrow staircase, proving to myself that there is no angry man about to assault me and no shards of glass beyond the door that once held me prisoner.
“I will not be afraid,” I speak aloud, taking each step at my own pace and in my own time. When flashes of old memory threaten to steal my progress, I replace them with the here and now. My hip against the safety railing. The steps under my feet. The song I hum for comfort, the same one my grandmother sang with me as a child long before I had any real understanding of its meaning.
It takes me a full minute to build up the courage to pass the threshold into the cellar, and when I do, my lips begin to quiver. “I will not be afraid.”
I think of Gabby’s testimony, of the many times we’ve rehearsed her dramatic narrative in these last few weeks, and how the more I speak out this truth, the stronger my faith becomes.
On sh aky legs, I move into the closet and set the boxes on the floor. I breathe through an overwhelming urge to bolt back up the steps and declare this a victory. But before I can, my mind turns to August once again, to whatever fear still holds him captive. To a prison so much worse than these four walls.
My pulse drums against my ribs as I take in my surroundings anew. Gone are the ominous shadows that scratched at the edges of my consciousness, replaced by the brightly lit display cases holding expensive wines framed by an art collection my brother has been curating since his promotion.
I will not be afraid.
Before I allow another negative memory to capture my thoughts, I part my lips and begin to sing. At first the verse is little more than a shaky rasp, but soon it becomes a prayer— my prayer .
“Why should I feel discouraged,
Why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart be lonely,
And long for heav’n and home?
When Jesus is my portion,
My constant Friend is he;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me.”
As my fear slowly ebbs, my voice builds and swells in full resonance. Not like an actress projecting a character on a stage, but like a woman who knows exactly who she is and why she sings. I also know I’m not alone. Not only in this moment, but on that dark night, too, and every night that came before and will come after.
“I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free;
For his eye is on the sparrow,
And I know he watches me.”
With my eyes closed, I repeat the chorus once more as warmth blankets me from head to toe. And as the last line comes to an end, I remain still ... until a quiet whimper alerts me to a presence not my own.
Natalie stands inside the doorway of the cellar, her arms wrapped around her middle protectively, as tears streak her cheeks.
“Natalie?” Alarmed, I move toward her.
But before I can say more, she pulls the heavy door closed behind her with a thud that echoes violently through the hollowed space, sealing us in.
“Do you really believe that?” Her accusation is a frantic sort of desperate, and it takes me a moment to grasp what’s she asking. “Do you believe that God watches over us?”
“Yes,” I say. “I do.”
Her chin quivers as she fights to suppress her emotion. “I told you that I gave up on the idea of redemption for myself a long time ago.” She wipes her face with the sleeve of her velour tracksuit. “But I want better for him.”
At first, I’m certain she’s speaking about my brother, her husband. But then she touches the small, rounding mound of her lower abdomen, and her tears fall in earnest.
“You’re...” I lift shaky fingers to my lips.
“Pregnant.” Her smile is the saddest kind of beautiful. “I’ll be fifteen weeks tomorrow. It’s a boy.”
I hold my breath as several scenarios battle for territory in my mind. “Does—”
“Jasper know?” She gives a slow shake of her head. “No. You’re the only person I’ve told.”
Words fail me as I move to wrap her into the first hug I can recall us sharing. “I’ll help you, Natalie. Whatever you need.”
When she pulls back, her dark eyes fill with a resolve that seems to radiate inside my own chest. “I need you to pray for my baby.”
And so I do.