30 Sophie
Sophie
Otto is waiting for Sophie as she walks in the door, eager, like she’s just getting back from her first day at school.
“What’s up, Dad?” She slips off her shoes and hangs her bag on the rack, careful not to look too closely but certain the journal is burning a hole straight through the faux leather.
“Oh, nothing. How was your day?” He has a can of beans in his hand that he’s shaking back and forth mindlessly. She can’t maneuver past without bumping into him.
“Good,” she lies, taking the can from him. She guesses he hasn’t heard about Tom Winter’s outburst. He will soon, she knows. “Pinto beans?”
“Chili,” he says brightly. He looks at her with expectation. “You hungry?” She nods, and he strides away, mindlessly taking the beans back and turning the can over and over.
But she’s not hungry. She’s thinks of the slimy blueberry muffin she ate at Aspect, which is still churning in her stomach. She slides the journal out of her bag and clutches it to her chest.
In the kitchen, her dad stands with his back to her.
His jeans are a little loose around the waist, though he has tucked in his shirt in an attempt at tidiness.
He’s fussing with a big pot and spices and cans of tomatoes, moving quickly and clumsily, which seems just slightly counter to his usual routine confidence.
It’s been so long since he’s cooked chili for her in his kitchen.
He reaches for the can opener and knocks it off the counter.
When he bends down, she notices that his hairline is clumped and damp.
“Dad?” She lowers herself into a chair, setting the journal beside her.
He doesn’t respond, just cuts open a package of bacon, his secret ingredient, and nicks his finger in the process.
Sophie jumps up. Droplets of blood drip onto the floor beneath where he holds his finger out to her. He looks helpless.
“Band-Aids?” she says.
“Ah, sorry,” he says. “Look at me. Band-Aids, yes. In the cabinet under the sink in your bathroom. Behind the shaving cream.”
She finds one inside a first aid kit that she recognizes from decades ago.
Shockingly, it still has stickiness to it, and she peels off the paper and wraps it around his finger.
There’s a moment, while she’s making sure the cut is fully covered, that he stares at her for a beat too long.
She can feel him looking, and she peers up at him.
Before she can say anything, he looks away and turns back to the stove, and in another minute, the air is thick with the smell of bacon.
“Dad,” she says, but he can’t hear her over the sound of the fan, which is sucking up the pan’s smoke.
Or he acts like he doesn’t hear her. “Dad!” she shouts, and this time he has no choice.
He puts up his bandaged finger to tell her, “One sec.” He places a splatter screen on top of the bacon and turns the fan to low.
Then, with an air of resignation, he sits across from her.
“What’s up, Sophie-beans?” He doesn’t look her in the eye.
With what feels like a great effort, she pulls the journal from her chair and plonks it on the table, taking care to peel the sticky note off and shove it in her pocket.
He scratches his head. Then looks up in confusion.
“I found it in my room.” She speaks slowly, testing him, hoping he’ll…
hoping he’ll…what? Is she hoping he knows why it was there?
Hoping he’s the one who put it there? That he’s the one who has been writing in it at night?
She hasn’t let herself think yet about what that would mean, though she can’t lie to herself and say the possibility hasn’t occurred to her.
She can’t decide if it’s better than the alternative, which is the idea that someone came into the house while they slept. Her foot bounces under the table.
“Huh,” he says.
Sophie leans forward, opens the front cover, and points. “It belongs to Quinn Winter.”
He narrows his eyes at the book but does not speak.
“Why, why, why is this in your house?”
He swallows, picks at his teeth.
Sophie lowers her voice, anxiety crawling its tiny spider feet up her spine. “Why are you acting weird? What is going on?”
There’s a significant pause. He still doesn’t look at her. Why isn’t he looking at her?
Eventually, he closes his eyes and lets out a helicopter breath through tight lips.
“The clothes,” he says. “I wanted to tell you. I knew I should have told you. You’re a smart girl.
I knew you’d figure it out eventually, that I knew, but I was sure you’d think it was strange, and so I got scared and didn’t say anything.
Which, by the way, was much easier when you never came around.
I didn’t have to hide anything from you. But then…”
Sophie doesn’t move. She just watches him, waiting for him to finish.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter, does it? I know the clothes in your closet aren’t yours. They’re… They belong to someone else.”
“Oh,” she says, not sure what she thought he was going to say but not expecting this. “Whose are they?”
He closes his eyes again. “Barbara’s.”
She screws up her face. “What? Why do you have Barbara’s clothes?”
He buries his face in his hands. “I understand if you’re mad at me.”
She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to be mad about. She did not imagine the conversation going this way, and she’s honestly relieved. She’d thought they were about to cross into dark territory, and thankfully, they did not. But then it dawns on her. “Wait, are you dating Barbara?”
He winces but, hearing the lightness in her tone, uncovers his face. His sheepish expression is all she needs to know. Calm floods her now. It’s such an innocent explanation that she inwardly berates herself for letting her mind spiral.
“Why did you think I’d be mad about that?”
“I don’t know. You’re always saying how proud you are that I’m a rock star single dad who played two roles for you.
I got the impression I was some superhero to you, like you liked me better alone.
I didn’t want to dive headfirst off that pedestal.
And also…” He cracks his knuckles. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be upset on a different level, because it’s Barbara. ”
“Why would that bother me?”
“Well.” He leans back and scratches at his hair as if he’s not sure how to put it. “I know how hard it was when Quinn died. I didn’t want to stir up any undue pain for you by telling you I was seeing her mother.”
Sophie reaches out to take one of his hands. “That’s crazy. I would never, ever begrudge you for choosing to be happy. I’m thrilled for you, got it?”
His eyes are wet. It’s strange having a conversation that includes both her dad and Quinn, but she’s grateful they’re not discussing something else, something she feared but couldn’t quite name. “Did you put off asking Barbara out all these years because you thought I’d disapprove?”
He shakes his head. “No, no. Barbara and I connected a few years ago, after she sold the coffee shop and we got a little pickleball group together.”
“A few years ago?”
He grimaces. “You were busy with your own stuff. Talia, your wedding. I didn’t want to piss on your fireworks.
Besides, it took me a while to come around.
I didn’t recognize her intentions until…
” He coughs. “Well, anyway, she told me she liked me, and I, well I think she’s a great woman.
Not sure what exactly she sees in me…” He makes the kind of ridiculous, screwed-up face that would make Leah giggle, and Sophie knows it’s his way to diffuse the awkwardness.
“Me neither,” she says, making him laugh brightly.
Just like that, his anxiety has evaporated, and he turns his attention to the journal on the table between them.
“Still no clue about this, though,” he says.
“Maybe Barbara brought it over once and forgot to take it home with her. I know she misses Quinn something fierce, and it wouldn’t be unlike her to keep a little token of Quinn’s with her.
Why don’t you ask her? You can tell her you know about us.
I’m sure she’ll be ecstatic I finally fessed up. ”
Sophie helps him with the chili and manages to keep down a few bites.
Part of her is, of course, relieved that he doesn’t know where the journal came from.
And part of her still wonders about it. It makes sense that Barbara could have left it in the closet.
But then, is Barbara the one writing in it overnight?
That would be so strange, but maybe there’s a good reason.
Or is it actually infused with some kind of magic?
Finding out either way feels crucial. She’ll bring it to the spell circle tomorrow, just in case, and then she needs to ask Barbara.