Chapter 11 - The Staircase Where I Stood Alone
The kitchen door was still cracked open from the night before, just an inch, letting a thin line of cold air cut across the checkered floor. I noticed it first thing when I came downstairs. Dad had left early. His car wasn't in the circle drive, and his glass wasn't on the side table, and Mom's heels weren't by the stairs. The house was quiet in a way it never was after a party, like it was holding its breath.
I'd gotten dressed myself that morning. Cream sweater, brown pants, the same brown shoes. I stood at the top of the stairs and looked down at the black-and-white marble and the silver tray was gone — someone had picked it up — and the chandelier was off, but the morning light through the tall windows made the crystals throw little spots on the wall anyway. My block was warm in my hands. I held it against my chest with both hands, the way I always did.
I walked down step by step and stopped at the bottom and turned around to face the staircase. On purpose this time. Not because Mom had put me there for a photo, not because I didn't know where else to stand. I wanted to stand in the exact spot from that night. My back to the front door, my face to the white marble steps and the black railing. I could hear my own breathing. I pressed the block a little tighter and waited.
I heard her before I saw her. Mom coming down, her hand sliding along the iron scrollwork. She wasn't in the gold dress. She had on a pale gray robe, her hair pulled up messy, no makeup, her feet bare on the marble. She stopped halfway down when she saw me.
She didn't say anything right away. She just looked at me standing there alone on the checkered floor. Then she kept walking, slow, until she was right in front of me. She knelt down. Not the way she had that night for the cameras, with her back straight and her hand light on my arm so everyone could see. This time she dropped to both knees and her robe pooled around her and she had to catch herself with one hand on the floor. She was close enough I could see the little lines at the corner of her eyes.
"Sweetheart," she said, and her voice was hoarse like she hadn't slept. "Can I ask you something?"
I nodded. The wood of the block had two holes and I could feel the edges with my thumbs through my sweater.
She swallowed. Her eyes went to the block and then back to my face. "At school," she said. She paused a long time. I could hear the clock in the hall ticking. "When your teacher calls attendance. What do you want her to call you?"
It was such a small question. It was the first time she'd ever asked it like it was mine to answer. I felt my throat get tight. I didn't know if she meant my real name or the other name, and I was scared to say it wrong and make her stand back up and be the other Mom again.
I looked past her for a second. In the doorway to the hall that led to the kitchen, she was there. The maid. She'd come in quiet, her burgundy dress with the white collar, her dark hair still in its low bun. She wasn't moving. She was standing with her hands open, palms up, just like she'd done that night when she knelt for me. Only now she was staying back, letting Mom have the space. Letting me have it. When our eyes met she gave me the smallest nod. Keep going.
I looked back at Mom. My hands were shaking a little against the block.
"Sofia," I whispered. "I want Sofia."
Mom's mouth twitched. Not a smile exactly. More like she was trying not to cry and didn't know what shape her face should make. She nodded and her hand hovered near my arm but she didn't grab me. She let it hover.
"Sofia," she repeated, quiet, like she was trying it out. "Okay. Sofia."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. It came out shaky.
That's when the front door opened.
The air changed. A cold draft hit my back. I didn't turn around but I saw Mom's eyes lift over my shoulder and go wide, and I saw the maid straighten in the doorway.
Dad was back early. I heard his keys hit the bowl by the door and his shoes on the marble. He stopped right under the chandelier. I could feel him there without looking, that big black shape in the middle of the foyer.
He was holding nothing. No glass. His tattooed hand was empty at his side. He took in the whole picture — me standing on the checkered floor facing the stairs with my block, Mom kneeling on the floor in her robe in front of me, the maid in the doorway with her hands still open. Nobody was performing. Nobody was where he usually put us.
For a second nobody said a word. The crystals over his head glittered even though the light was off.
May you like
Mom didn't get up. She stayed kneeling. She kept looking at me, not at him. And that, more than anything I said, told him what had just happened.
He realized the split was not just between him and the maid anymore. It was in his own house, on his own stairs, with his wife on her knees in front of the child he'd told everyone was someone else.
