Chapter 2
We were still on the sidewalk and people had started to stare.
A woman across the street slowed with her groceries. A guy in a work truck idled by the shutter and didn't pull away. My son had both arms locked around Sophie's neck and she had one hand on his back like she was afraid to hold him too tight, like he might break or she might. The white paper cup was on the concrete by her knee where she'd set it down. A little coffee left in it, shaking slightly every time a car passed.
I should have called someone. That was the thought that kept coming up and going nowhere. Sheriff, shelter, anyone who would know what to do with a woman who looked like my dead wife and knew my son's nickname. Instead I reached down and picked up my keys. My dark SUV was twenty feet back, parked crooked because I'd stopped so fast when he'd yelled.
"Can you stand?" I asked.
Sophie looked up at me. Her eyes were red all around, her hair stuck to her cheek where tears had dried.
"I think so," she said. Her voice was hoarse.
He didn't want to let go. I had to crouch and touch his shoulder. "Buddy, let Mom— let her stand up. Come on."
He loosened his grip enough for her to shift her weight. I put a hand under her elbow. Her coat was damp and smelled like the street, like wet wool and old smoke. She was lighter than I remembered. When she got to her feet she wobbled once and I held on.
"Easy," I said.
She steadied herself against the metal shutter for a second. Her hand left a faint print on the dusty roll-down. Then she looked at the cup on the ground like she was deciding whether to take it. She didn't.
We walked to the SUV together, the three of us moving as one awkward shape. My son held her hand now. I unlocked the passenger side with the fob and the lights flashed. The door stuck a little in the cold. I pulled it open.
For a second I just stood there with my hand on the door. That seat had been empty for three years. Groceries, his booster seat in the back, my work bag. No one had sat there since the funeral. Putting her in it felt like making a choice I couldn't take back, like signing something without reading it.
"Sophie, get in," I said quietly.
She hesitated. Looked at the clean floor mat, at her own boots. They were worn through at the toe, caked with gray sidewalk dirt.
"I'm dirty," she said.
"Get in anyway."
I helped her up. She had to lift herself with the grab handle, and I kept my hand at her back until she was settled. She pulled her coat tight around her and sat with her hands knotted in her lap, trying to make herself small. I reached across her to pull the seatbelt. Our faces were close. I could see the fine lines around her eyes that hadn't been there before, a thin scar at her hairline I didn't remember.
"Where you been these three years?" I asked before I could stop myself. It came out flat, harder than I meant.
She didn't look at me. She stared straight through the windshield at the shutter storefront.
"Around," she said. "Just around. Different places."
It was a lie. Short and practiced. The kind you give when you don't want the next question.
I didn't push it. Not with him standing right there behind us. I closed her door and the sound was loud in the cold air.
My son was still on the sidewalk holding the strap of his backpack. He looked from me to her inside the truck.
"Dad, is Mommy coming home with us now?" he asked.
My throat went tight. I knelt down so we were eye level. His blue jacket was zipped crooked, his cheeks red from the cold.
"Hey. Can you just wait, okay?" I said. "Just wait till we get home and we'll figure it out. Can you do that for me?"
He nodded, but his eyes were already back on her through the window. I got his door in the back, lifted him into his booster, clipped the buckle. His legs didn't quite reach the edge of the seat.
I walked around and got in the driver's seat. The keys were cold in my hand. I started the engine and the heater kicked on with a rattle. For a moment none of us moved. In the side mirror I could see the white paper cup still on the sidewalk, getting smaller as the heat shimmered off the exhaust.
"Ready?" I said, not to anyone in particular.
Sophie gave a tiny nod, her hands still knotted.
I pulled away from the curb. The shutter storefront slid past the passenger window, then the parked cars, then the bare trees. The overcast light was thinning out, that flat gray that comes before it gets dark early. I turned at the corner toward town, toward our house, and didn't look back.
May you like
In the mirror my son had reached forward between the seats and Sophie had let him hold two of her fingers. She was crying again, quiet, without making a sound, looking out at the street like she wasn't sure it was real.
I kept both hands on the wheel and drove.
