Chapter 14 - The Shelf for the Block
I didn't notice it at first, the way the foyer had changed. The light was the same, warm from the chandelier, falling across the black-and-white floor, but the corner by the pilasters was empty.
For a whole week after the counseling office, the house had been quiet in a different way. Not the watchful quiet from before. My father wasn't standing under the chandelier anymore. His desk, his files, the heavy glass ashtray he never used, were gone from the little office nook that looked straight out into the foyer. When I came downstairs that Tuesday morning still holding my block against my sweater, I stopped on the second step and stared.
My mother was in the kitchen doorway with a mug in her hands. She saw me looking.
"He moved it upstairs," she said. "The small room by the laundry. He said you shouldn't feel like you're being watched when you come down."
I nodded and kept my hands tight around the wood.
Later that morning the four of us sat at the dining table that we never used for dinner. The enrollment packet for Jefferson Elementary was in the middle, and my father had his reading glasses on. The maid stood by the sideboard at first, until my mother pulled out the chair next to me and said, "Sit."
My father slid the first form toward me. Student Information Sheet. The top line said Legal Name / Preferred Name.
He didn't pick up the pen. He looked at me.
"You want to do it?" he asked. His voice was low. His right hand was flat on the table, no glass in it, and I could see the tattoos on his knuckles without the crystal tumbler around them.
I swallowed. I set my block down on the table for the first time without clutching it. It made a soft clack on the wood. I picked up the blue ballpoint. My hand shook a little. I printed in the big, careful letters they'd taught me in pre-K.
S O F I A.
I pushed it back toward him. My mother leaned over. She didn't correct me. She signed the line underneath that said Parent/Guardian Witness, her gold bracelet sliding down her wrist. Then she turned the paper so my father could initial the corner. He did. Just two letters, small and quick.
The maid let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. I heard it.
That afternoon the maid and I drove to town in her old Honda. My mother had given her an envelope before we left. I saw it happen in the foyer. My mother didn't make a show of it. She just pressed it into the maid's hand and said, "Get what she wants. Not what I think."
The shop was called Ellie's, on Main between the diner and the hardware store. It smelled like cedar and detergent. There were no chandeliers, just fluorescent lights and a rack of little dresses that spun when you touched it.
I still wore my cream sweater and brown pants. My block was in the pocket of the maid's burgundy coat because I'd asked her to carry it for me.
"Which one feels like you?" she asked, crouching beside me the way she had on the checkered floor that night, palms open but not reaching.
I kept touching the fabrics. One was navy with tiny white stars. One was pale yellow. I stopped at a soft green cotton dress with short puffed sleeves and a tie in the back. It wasn't shiny like my mother's gold dress. It wasn't a costume.
"This one," I whispered.
She helped me hold it up to the mirror. I didn't need to clutch anything. My hands were empty and that was okay.
At the register, the woman folded it into a bag and the maid paid with the cash from my mother's envelope. Outside, the sidewalk was cold and I could see my breath.
Back in my bedroom, I did something I hadn't planned. I took the block out of the maid's coat pocket and looked at it. For so long I'd held it against my chest like a shield, both hands locked, so no one could see what was underneath. The two holes stared back at me.
My father knocked on the open door. He didn't come in until I nodded.
"I cleared the shelf," he said. He pointed to the low white shelf by my bed where I kept three picture books. "If you want. You don't have to carry it everywhere now. It can stay and still be yours."
I thought about leaving it on the table. About sleeping without it pressed to my ribs. It felt scary and also, for the first time, like a choice.
I set it down in the middle of the shelf, upright, the two holes facing out. I stepped back. It looked small and important, like a thing that had done its job.
"I'll still have it," I said, mostly to myself.
"You will," he said. "I'm starting those sessions Thursday. At the county building. Your mom will go too, separate time."
He didn't say he was sorry in a big speech. He just stood there and looked at the block on the shelf with me. Then he said, "Do you want to wear the new dress for dinner? Just here, at home. No one else."
I nodded.
May you like
At six we ate in the kitchen, not the formal dining room. I wore the green dress over a pair of soft leggings. My mother had set four plates even though the maid usually ate after. My father drank water from his crystal glass, not amber liquid, and kept it by the sink when he stood up. The chandelier light from the foyer fell in a warm stripe across the kitchen doorway, but it wasn't watching anymore. It was just light.
When I wrote my name that morning, my handwriting was messy. My mother signed under it. My father initialed. The paper was still on the counter waiting to be mailed. I kept looking at it between bites. Sofia. It was there in blue ink and nobody had erased it.
