Chapter 34 – Liam
34
LIAM
B ringing Sophie into my childhood bedroom was not to try and get her to sleep with me. I felt like she couldn’t possibly grasp the gravity of my story unless she could get a glimpse into who I used to be. Now, as we’re lying here wrapped in each other’s arms, I know it was a fundamental step toward moving forward together.
Lucy is talking to herself in her crib, and I sigh into Sophie’s neck, not wanting to tear myself away from her. There is still no power, but I can no longer hear the pelting rain so maybe it is letting up. I give Sophie a tight squeeze from behind and sit up to throw on some clothes. I turn around to look at her lying there naked on my bed and she’s smiling up at me. “What?” I ask, feeling shy. I reach for her hand, unwilling to stop touching her.
“I’m just admiring.” She traces her fingers up my forearm.
I growl and lean down to kiss her again. “I gotta get Lulu. Take your time and meet me downstairs.” I leave the room feeling lighter than I have in years. Being with Sophie has awakened something inside me that I didn’t know was there. I can’t exactly say what but maybe it’s…hope?
* * *
The hours pass slowly when you have no power. Sophie and I play as many games as we can with Lucy to pass the time, but now it’s getting dark. “I should find some flashlights,” I tell her. “I know where I have one for sure.” I guess I wasn’t as prepared for this storm as I thought.
“Do you have any candles? I think Ellie left some for me. I could run over and get them,” Sophie offers.
I purse my lips and think for a minute. “You’re going to think this is nuts but I’m pretty sure there are a bunch of candles in one of Leah’s boxes.” I grimace. “If you feel like rooting through them.”
Sophie shrugs. “If you don’t mind, I’ll have a look.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and turns on the flashlight.
“I’ll make us some dinner,” I shout, walking to the pantry to grab the pancake mix. Then I pick up Lucy and put her in the highchair. I am trying not to open the refrigerator and let out the cold, but I reach in and grab yogurt for Lucy, milk, eggs, and butter. Everything still feels pretty cold. “How do you feel about breakfast for dinner?” I call to Sophie. She doesn’t answer me immediately, so I walk to the front room. She’s sitting on the floor with a wooden box of Leah’s, engrossed in what she has found.
“Did you find any candles?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.
Sophie is caught off guard. “Oh…yeah. Sorry. I got distracted. Breakfast sounds good.” She puts the wooden box back in the larger box she found it in, grabs the candles, and stands up. “I’ll help you.” She walks past me and into the kitchen.
I walk over to the box she was sitting by and peer in. I recognize the wooden box as Leah’s treasure box. When we used to go to Sunset Beach, she would put all the treasures she found in there, special shells, Cape May diamonds, that sort of thing. I feel a twinge inside my chest that Sophie was looking at it. Maybe now is as good a time as any to start going through them. Sophie could be my support. She’s already seen me cry more than any grown man would like. I will ask her after dinner.
When I get back in the kitchen, Sophie is whisking the pancake batter and humming happily. She already has the pan heating up on the stove. My heart swells watching her, and I’m frozen in the doorway.
“Do you mind if we put chocolate chips in them?” she asks hopefully. “If you don’t have any, I think Ellie does. They were my favorite when I was a kid,” she beams.
I walk over to the pantry and open it, reaching to the top shelf where I keep the bag. I turn back to her grinning and shaking the bag in my hand. “Mine too.”
* * *
We eat and talk about growing up in Cape May, our families, memories from our youth. We make silly faces at Lucy and before I know it, I’m singing her the ABCs. Who am I? Lucy is so happy because I am happy, and I can’t imagine going back to the way things were before. The rain has let up considerably, but Sophie hasn’t said she wants to leave. We have Leah’s candles lit all over the downstairs and we’re overwhelmed by multiple fragrances. I don’t care because Sophie looks beautiful in the glow of their light.
I find myself fumbling for words now that we’ve cleared the air. I haven’t kissed Sophie again since we were in bed earlier, but I really want to. I hope she’ll stay the night, but I also don’t want to get ahead of myself. I know when I put Lucy to bed, it’ll go one of two ways… She’ll either excuse herself to head home or she’ll snuggle into me and stay.
Sophie gets up to clear the dishes, and I clear my throat.
She turns and eyes me, squinting at me curiously. “Did you want to say something?” She giggles. “You always clear your throat before you say something important.”
I laugh nervously. “I do not.”
She shakes her head and teases, “Yes you do.” She grins. “It’s okay, I kind of like it.” She opens the dishwasher and puts our plates inside. I can’t help but admire her as she moves so easily around my home. She is gorgeous. I want her to be all mine.
“Well, I was just wondering if…after I put Lucy to bed…would you want to help me start looking at Leah’s stuff? Deciding what to keep and what to donate?”
Sophie meets my gaze and smiles. “I would love to help you, Liam. Thank you for trusting me with that.”
I cough to fight off more emotion bubbling out of me and walk over to her, putting my arms around her and pulling her close. “You make hard things feel easy, Sophie,” I whisper in her ear. She looks up at me with so much desire I think I’ll carry her right back to bed, but Lucy interrupts us with an impatient screech to get out of the highchair. I plant a soft kiss on Sophie’s lips and stroke her cheek.
Then I turn away to wet a paper towel and clean up the toddler. “Okay, Lucy, let’s get you cleaned up for bedtime.” I busy myself wiping her face and hair, which is covered in yogurt. If we had hot water she would need a bath, but our water heater is electric.
When I look up, Sophie is watching me, almost as if she doesn’t believe what she is seeing. “If you want, you can pour us some wine while I put her to sleep,” I suggest. We’re both doing a lot of giddy grinning at each other. For me, it’s about being alone with Sophie again. I can’t wait.
“Liam?” She interrupts my thoughts. When I look up, she wears a hopeful expression on her face. “Can I put Lucy to bed?”
My heart fills with something I can’t explain. “Of course you can. She’d love that.”
* * *
Sophie is upstairs with Lucy and I can’t wait for her to come back down. As much as I want us to go back into the bedroom, I also am looking forward to going through Leah’s things with Sophie’s support. I pour two glasses of pinot noir and wait in the front room, tapping my foot and fidgeting in an armchair.
There are a lot of boxes in front of me. My parents packed most of them. I know some of them have her clothes and shoes because when I cleaned out her closet, I just threw them in boxes. I probably should have donated them right then but truthfully, I couldn’t imagine parting with her things that soon.
Sophie comes down the stairs so quietly she sneaks up on me. I jolt out of the chair, grinning like a fool, and hand her a glass of wine. We clink our glasses together and sip, eyeing each other. I notice a blush creeping up her neck. “You make me nervous,” she finally admits.
I set my glass on an end table and put my arms around her. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.” I kiss her forehead. “Why are you nervous?”
She pulls back to look at me. “I don’t think I have ever felt this way before,” she admits. “It’s alarming.”
I nod my head. “For me too.” We are quiet, looking at each other for a moment more. It would be easy to scoop her up and carry her to my real current bed but I also want her to help me with Leah’s things and for her to get a glimpse of who my sister was. I kiss her softly on the lips and smile. “Shall we get started?”
Sophie nods and crouches down to her knees next to an unopened box. “Okay, so how do you want to do this? Do you want to do it quickly by making donate and keep piles or do you want to examine each thing?”
I press my lips together in thought. “I think some things we’ll be able to make quick decisions on, like clothing and shoes,” I pause. “But her special things, her photos, and things that meant something to her… I think I need to save those for Lucy,” I say, walking over to a few boxes that I know have clothing in them.
I open one up and right on top is a bunch of bathing suits. I awkwardly hold up a hot pink bikini top that is very stringy. “Like this.”
Sophie bursts out laughing.
“See, we can donate this stuff,” I say, rooting through the box a bit more to see it is clothes, socks, and bathing suits. I’m grateful there isn’t any underwear in there—my mom must have taken care of those items. I shudder at the thought. It continues like that for a bit before I push all of the clothing and shoe boxes to one corner of the room, and we can move on.
I can see the couch now, so I sit on the edge of it and open the box in front of me. It’s full of photographs—I swear she has three shoeboxes of loose photos and several photo albums here. Leah was sentimental. “This girl took so many pictures. She used to carry around those little plastic cameras you got at CVS and take photos of everything. I know I need to keep some pictures for Lucy, but this is a ton.” I give a half-hearted laugh. “How do you even decide what ones to keep and what ones can be tossed?”
“I bet there are a lot of duplicates too,” Sophie ponders. “You know, pre-digital camera when you couldn’t tell if you got the shot.” She purses her lips in thought. “You know, there are a lot of services online that you can send your photos to, and they put them on a jump drive or a website for you to save digitally and then I think they send them back to you. That’s an option.” She opens a photo album and flips through it.
“That sounds great but, I’m not sure I can handle the heartbreak that will come with that,” I murmur, putting the photo album I am holding back in the box.
“I’ll do it for you,” Sophie offers. “I have lots of time right now and it won’t be emotional for me like it might be for you.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes. “Let me help you, Liam. It’ll take my mind off the fact that I have no idea what the hell I’m doing with my life.”
I give her a half-hearted laugh. “Do any of us really know what we’re doing with our lives?”
She only shrugs in response, and I worry I’ve hit a nerve.
“Okay. If you don’t mind, I’ll carry them over to your house when the rain stops and you can do it. Please let me know what it costs though. I don’t want you paying for it.”
“I will,” she grins. “I’ll root out duplicates and bad photos before I send it off too, to minimize the cost.” She scoots closer to me and climbs in my lap, giving me a soft peck on the lips.
I smile into her mouth. “Thank you.” I wrap her in a squeeze. “This means a lot to me.”
She pulls back and cups my face in her hand. “I know,” she whispers. “Now, let’s get moving.” She hops off my lap and moves to the box she had been looking at before dinner. She reaches in and pulls out the wooden box.
I clear my throat to push back the sadness that is enveloping me. “That’s Leah’s treasure box,” I tell her, with a nostalgic smile that doesn’t meet my eyes. “She used to collect shells and Cape May diamonds and other treasures she found and keep them in that box.”
Sophie runs her fingers over the top of the box. The wood has a fine seashell border engraved on it and if I remember correctly, Eddie made it for her. “May I?” Sophie asks, treading lightly.
I nod my head but stay where I’m sitting. I am not sure if I can stand to look inside. Sophie gingerly opens the lid and rakes her fingers through the box’s artifacts. She smiles holding up a mini conch shell to me and then holds it to her ear. “I hear the ocean,” she says with a giggle. She holds up to her eye a larger Cape May diamond that is almost clear and peers through it. “I see you,” she teases. She continues going through the box and showing me what she finds for a few moments and then she gasps, holding up a necklace on a chain that is either made of black rope or is just so tarnished it looks black. The stone is held by a metal charm that is in the shape of a mermaid tail. “I swear I had one just like this,” she smiles. “You have to save this whole box for Lucy. She will love having her mom’s treasures.”
I nod in agreement, flashing back to that day in my mind. I remember the necklace well because my dad didn’t want to buy it. He said she had enough Cape May diamonds; she didn’t need one on a necklace. But we were with a few friends and their kids, and the other kids were all buying something in the gift shop. My parents used to tell us that gift shop purchases were for vacationers to remember the beach. But we were locals, so we didn’t need to buy anything because we’d always have the beach. Leah somehow got the pouty puppy dog lip and convinced him in a matter of minutes. I didn’t get anything that day, but I didn’t mind. I was happy just wrestling and throwing the football on the beach with my friends.
“Liam?” Sophie interrupts my thoughts. “You okay?”
I shake my head and give her a nostalgic smile. “I was just lost in a memory.”
Sophie nods. Just then, as if the heavens wanted to bring us back to the present, the lights and appliances turn back on and the house goes from nearly silent to loud enough to wake Lucy. We run around the house shutting off lights and the TV and blowing out an excessive amount of candles before she wakes up, meeting back at the bottom of the steps.
“Well, that’s probably my cue to go,” she says regretfully, gesturing to the front door.
I furrow my brow and step closer to her. “I don’t want you to go,” I rasp, embracing her and nuzzling her neck. “Stay with me tonight.”
She takes no convincing.