73 Sophie
Sophie
“Mama.”
Sophie nearly bursts into tears when she sees Leah on the screen.
She’s lying facedown on her childhood bed with her feet kicked up behind her, like she’s a teenager.
Leah’s little face lights up when she sees Sophie, and she starts babbling nonsense, but very seriously, like she has something critical to share with her mother who’s been gone.
Talia is there too. She’s holding the phone and turns it around for a second.
“Hey, love. All good here,” she says. Her hair is a mess, and she’s wearing Sophie’s sweater with an indistinguishable green stain.
She looks about as unkempt as Sophie has ever seen her, and she swells with gratitude that her daughter has two moms to make her feel safe.
“No more fever,” Talia says. “Back to our old selves.” Sophie feels something tight inside her body relax, something she’s been holding on to for too long.
“I’m coming back tonight,” Sophie says, but she’s cut off by a whine.
“Okay, here’s Mama,” says Talia, and Leah appears on the screen again.
“Hi, baby.”
Leah’s face beams at the word she recognizes. “Baby,” she echoes.
“Tell Mimi I’ll be home tonight. Oh, and Tal, I invited my dad to come if that’s okay…with his new girlfriend.”
Somewhere in the background, Talia gives a surprised “Ooo.” There’s so much to explain, Sophie knows.
And she isn’t sure how much she’s going to share, but she does know that she loves her family more than anything in the world.
No matter what happens, that will never change.
She suddenly longs to lie in bed with Talia’s warm legs entangled with hers, to watch trashy TV and eat bed snacks, with Leah asleep in the next room.
She wants it so bad, it takes everything in her not to run and jump in the car this instant. But she can’t. Not yet.
“Are you planning to go back soon?” Talia asks.
This is the question that Sophie has been batting around the whole time she’s been here.
She has stayed away for fifteen years, and for what?
To avoid retraumatizing herself with reminders of her friend’s death?
But Barbara stayed. Tom stayed. Joey stayed.
Sophie could have stayed. She understands now, with the kind of clarity you only get after an emergency virtual therapy session, that her avoidance of Whisper Ridge has been tied to Tanner and her fear of him.
She told her dad this morning about what Tanner did to her, and he vowed that he would “make that boy’s life hell” for her.
She told him not to, but secretly, she was overwhelmed with the lightness of having let just a piece of it go.
She smiles at the screen. “Actually, I thought we could come up here in September, all of us, when the aspen leaves change. It’s the most beautiful thing. Leah will love it.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Oh, and we’re doing a girls’ trip,” Sophie says. “Over the summer. I promise I’ll give you advanced notice this time.”
“That sounds really great, Soph. I’m happy for you.”
“Mama!”
Sophie looks at the time and climbs off the bed. “Mama will be home soon, baby. I love you.”
“Lo’ you!”
Sophie’s eyes dampen.
“Love you, Soph. See you soon,” says Talia, and they click off. Sophie wipes her face. She grabs her shoes and heads for the door.