Chapter 4
I didn't put the note down. I folded it once and slid it into the chest pocket of my uniform and kept my other arm under Sophie.
"Can you show me your room?" I said.
She nodded against my shoulder, her breath warm on my neck. Her bare feet were cold where they pressed against my side. I hitched her higher and started down the hallway, past the duffel bag still sitting by the door where I'd left it. I hadn't earned moving it yet.
The hallway smelled the same. Laundry detergent and the faint lemon cleaner Lauren always used, and that old house smell that came off the heater vents in November. It hit me harder than anything at the door had. I'd walked this hall a thousand times, but now the light was too low and my boots were too loud on the wood.
Halfway down, I saw them. Pencil marks on the doorframe to her bedroom. Little horizontal lines with dates beside them in Lauren's handwriting. Sophie Reyes, with an arrow.
The last one was dated January 12th. My goodbye date. She had been just under three feet tall, the line at my knee. Above it, two new lines. March and August.
I stopped without meaning to. Sophie lifted her head.
"Mommy measured me," she said.
"I see that," I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. "You got tall on me."
She patted my cheek like she was comforting me. "You were gone."
I carried her into her room. It was too neat. Bed made, stuffed animals lined up against the pillow the way Lauren did when she was keeping things orderly for someone else. The blanket from the doorway - her light patterned one - was still trailing from her foot, dragging on the floor. I set her down on the edge of the bed and knelt so we were level.
"Your feet are ice," I said. I pulled the socks I'd seen balled on top of her dresser. White socks with little gray cats on them. I hadn't bought them. I slid one over her foot, then the other, carefully pulling each cuff up. She wiggled her toes and watched my hands.
"Warm milk?" I asked. Lauren's note had said Sophie liked warm milk when she couldn't sleep.
She nodded. "With the blue cup."
I lifted her again, blanket and all, and carried her to the kitchen. The blue cup was in the drying rack, exactly where Lauren would leave it. I poured milk from the half-gallon in the fridge, put it in the microwave for thirty seconds, and tested it on my wrist the way I had when she was a baby. It was strange how my hands remembered before my brain did. The muscle memory of holding her, supporting her head, checking a temperature - all of that was still there, but the weight was wrong. She was heavier now. Longer legs. She didn't fit tucked against my chest the same way.
"Here," I said, handing her the cup as I leaned against the counter. She held it with both hands, socks dangling off the edge of my forearm where I held her.
January came back to me without asking. Last time I'd stood in this kitchen in uniform, Sophie had been in flannel pajamas with ducks on them, crying because I wouldn't let her zip my duffel bag closed. I had knelt then too, promised I'd be back before her birthday, told her to be good for Mommy. Lauren had stood in this same spot by the sink, arms crossed, not crying, which was worse. I'd kissed both of them and walked out that door like I knew how long it would take. I did not know they'd extend us from August to November. I did not know Lauren would have to call her mom to take Sophie because she couldn't keep the apartment alone another three months.
The microwave had beeped and the house was quiet again. Sophie's milk left a little mustache on her lip.
I wiped it with my thumb. She giggled, a tired sound.
"Okay, couch," I said.
I carried her, the cup, and the blanket to the living room. The couch was empty but dented where Lauren usually sat. I didn't sit there. I sat in the middle, settled Sophie sideways across my lap, her head on my arm, her blanketed legs over my knee. Her socks were bright against my camouflage pants. The blanket I tucked around her shoulders, then over my own arm where she was holding it tight with one fist.
She wasn't asleep. Her eyes were open, heavy, looking at the hallway that led back to the front door. The duffel was still there if you looked straight down the hall. She kept glancing at it.
"You staying?" she whispered.
That was the question Lauren had been afraid to ask in writing. That was the question I had been afraid to answer with just showing up at the door and saying I'm home.
I wasn't just home for a night between orders. I was home. But saying it didn't mean anything. She'd heard me make a promise in January and watched the calendar prove me wrong.
"I'm staying right here," I said. I pulled the blanket a little higher around her. "I'm not going anywhere tonight. We're gonna wait for Mommy together. Right here on the couch."
She nodded, her eyes closing slower and opening slower each time, but her fist stayed clenched in the blanket and her other hand held onto my sleeve.
"Don't leave the blanket," she murmured.
May you like
"I won't," I said.
I sat back and let the couch hold both of us. The porch light was still on down the hall, warm against the gray siding I could see through the door's window. I could hear the heater kicking on. I kept my boots on the floor and my arms around my daughter and waited.
