Chapter 16 #2
“Your mother says I’ve made you throw away your inheritance.” Sophie hadn’t meant to mention it. She’d read the message that afternoon and deleted it, then gone looking in the deleted folder to read it again.
“She sent that to you?” he asked. “Today?”
“I don’t want another post.” Sophie gripped the folded bag. “I don’t want everyone watching you prove something.”
“I wasn’t going to post.” He took out his phone, then stopped with it in his hand. “I’ll deal with it later.”
“Is that what this is?” she asked. She gestured toward the half-assembled desk, the photograph, the wet footprints on the floor. “Something you can show me?”
He looked around the room. “I hoped you’d be glad,” he said. “I thought about that, yes.”
Jesse sat on the chair she had declined. Sophie could see the empty doorway of his new office behind him, with no desk inside yet.
“You’ve really paid for this place.”
“First quarter. Deposit. The electrician’s going to charge me a fortune.” He gave a strained smile that died when she didn’t return it. “Sorry. I’m talking nonsense.”
“Denise looks cold,” Sophie said. She’d kept her own coat on, and the little heater seemed to warm only the floor beneath the counter. “That won’t do much.”
“The proper one’s coming Monday.” Jesse glanced at the heater. “She picked it. Said if I could pay rent out here, I could pay to thaw her out.”
Sophie took off her gloves. She had an old heater in the garage, but she stopped herself from offering it before she’d decided whether she wanted to come here again.
“I still want you back,” he said. He kept looking at his hand. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to say this that doesn’t sound like I’m waiting for a reward. I am waiting. I check my phone like an idiot.”
Sophie leaned against the counter. She’d checked hers three times in the car before she came inside, though she hadn’t been expecting a message.
“I check mine too,” Sophie said. She regretted it when he straightened in the chair. “You know I do. You know why I came.”
“Then stay a bit.” Jesse stood. “Please. Denise left tea. I can make some.”
Sophie nodded. He stayed across the counter from her while a truck’s lights passed over the window.
“I had all this worked out,” he said. His voice sounded strange in the empty shop. “What I’d say if you came. I can’t remember any of it.”
“Don’t try,” she said. “You’ve written. You’ve called people. I know what you’ve said.”
“I’ve said things before. You believed me. That’s the part I can’t?—”
Sophie put the empty bag on the counter. He watched her, and she kept her hand beside it until he looked up again.
“I waited in that dress,” she said. “I thought once you saw it, once I told you, you’d go out there and deal with her. I was so sure.” She had pictured him coming back through the bridal-room door with the problem settled, impatient to see her in the garden.
Jesse covered his mouth. When he lowered his hand, she made herself keep looking at him.
“I saw it before you,” he said. “She asked if she looked all right. I said yes.”
Sophie stared at him. He’d told the family he’d let Lorraine stay, but she hadn’t understood that he’d had time before Sophie arrived, time when he could have asked without anybody watching her ask for him.
“You could’ve stopped it,” Sophie said. She could remember exactly where she’d been when his reply arrived, the car stopped at the lights beside a bus. “I sent you that picture of my flowers in the car.”
He nodded. His face had begun to crumple, and he turned away before she could see him properly.
“You told me to hurry. You were standing there with her, telling me to hurry up and marry you.”
“I wanted you there.” His voice broke on the last word. “I thought we’d get through the ceremony. I thought she’d have had her way and she’d leave us alone afterward.”
Sophie shook her head. He crossed to her, stopped before touching her, and sank onto the chair.
“I want another chance,” he said. He was looking straight at her now. “I want to be home with you. Every time you ring, I think you’re going to ask me to come back.”
The heater clicked, then began humming again. Sophie couldn’t answer.
“I don’t know how long you’ll need,” Jesse said. He wiped his face with the heel of his hand. “I don’t know if you’ll ever want to. But please, Soph. I’ll keep the room. I’ll keep paying. I’ll come when you ask. Please don’t be finished with me.”
Sophie turned toward the old photograph. Ben was grinning beside Jesse’s first van, years before the restaurant and the baby, and Jesse had an arm thrown around the boy’s shoulder.
“I loved being your wife,” she said. Jesse started to answer, then stopped when she went on. “For about an hour. Behind that hedge, with the bread. I thought we’d got past it.”
He bent forward until his forehead nearly touched his hands. Sophie stood beside him, gripping the counter, and when he tried to say her name again she touched the back of his neck.
He turned into her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling her fingers against his cheek. “I am so sorry. I can’t get you that day back.”
She could feel the stubble beneath her palm and the warmth of him through the hand holding hers. She’d missed him most in small, stupid places: reaching for a second mug, finding a sock inside a pillowcase, hearing a truck outside and looking up before she could stop herself.
“I’ve got about twenty minutes,” she said, her hand still against his cheek. “Kelly’s expecting me.”
He nodded and held her hand against his face until she moved it. She stayed while he made the tea, then sat beside him while he drank his. When Kelly called, Sophie told her she’d be late and said where she was.
At the door Sophie paused. “Put our picture up too,” she said, looking back at the empty wall beside his desk. “If you want to.”
“I brought it,” he said. He went to the box beneath the chair and took out the small frame, still wrapped in his work sweater. “I didn’t want it broken in the van.”
Sophie recognized the photograph from the lake, the old one she’d replaced in the hall. She nodded, went out to her car, and sat until she could see clearly enough to drive.