After You (22 page)

39

S
ophie and I read
A Little Princess
. Not quite as good as
The Secret Garden
, but it does the trick nonetheless. We again have an orphan, which now seems to be a prerequisite for children’s literature, and again she’s a little white girl, born in India. Poor Sara Crewe must endure the ultimate twist of fortune: She goes from being the favored student at a fancy boarding school in England, when her rich father was alive, to being a lowly servant, when he dies and leaves her penniless. We blissfully ignore the imperialistic undertones in the book, as we did last time, Sophie not quite ready for a lit-crit discussion of the implications and lasting effects of the British Empire’s complex relationship with pre-independence India.

After we finish chapter five, where we learned about Sara’s mesmerizing storytelling capabilities, and I’m leaning to turn off Winnie’s torch, Sophie says my name—“Auntie Ellie?”—with a tone I’ve come to recognize. It’s her
I have a big question
voice.

“Yes?”

“Um, I have a question.” Greg should be up in a few minutes to smooth her forehead and to say good night. I wish he’d hurry up.

“Shoot.”

“Do you think Mum knew she was going to die?”

“What makes you say that?” I try to keep the alarm out of my voice. Pretend like I can grow accustomed to the reality of Lucy’s death, just as Sophie has become increasingly numbed to the terror of her dreams. I can be a grown-up too.

“Well, that day—you know,
That Day—
we were talking at breakfast, and Daddy went to work super early, and so it was just Mum and me, and she said that no matter what happened she would always love me. Even if she wasn’t around every day to say it. She even let me have Lucky Charms. She
never
let me have Lucky Charms.”

“I don’t think so. I mean, there is no way she could have known. No one could have. Just like no one could have stopped it.”

“I guess.”

“But it’s true, you know.”

“What?”

“That she will always love you, even if she isn’t around to say it every day. Just so you know, I love you too. Every day. Even if I’m not around to say it.”

“Okay. But you’re not going anywhere, are you?”

“Nope.”

And I lie straight to her beautiful face.

40

A
fter Thursday’s therapy, I give Sophie a couple of pounds and send her to the coffee shop downstairs for a hot chocolate again. In a few minutes, I’ll find her sitting at the counter chatting with Gus, the owner, who has a covert agreement with Simon to babysit his patients whenever they retreat downstairs alone; this way, Simon can give the parents an update and the kids the sweet gateway drug of independence.

“Sophie seems better, right? The nightmares are almost all gone,” I say.

“She’s doing great. This is a lifelong thing, though. Grief. Loss. She is not just going to wake up one day and be cured.”

“Well, that’s great news.” I’m tired, which sharpens the edge of my sarcasm. Even though I haven’t gained that much weight yet, every day now feels like moving day; this new working body feels like heavy equipment that follows me around. I want to lie down and sleep for the next seven months. “Sorry. I’m cranky.”

“You okay?” The sun is shining through the bay windows, and in the bright spotlight of day, Simon is less attractive, his rough edges exaggerated. His muscles are almost too big, bulbous ropy knots and hard-earned, and he seems a good ten years older than I had originally guessed. Nearer to fifty than forty. This new, less handsome Simon is easier to talk to.

“Yeah, but I need to ask you an important question. Will Sophie be okay if I go back?”

“What’s going on? You going home?”

“Well, it turns out I am … I guess I should just say it. I’m pregnant. But please don’t tell. I haven’t told anyone yet. My husband—my soon-to-be ex-husband—is back in Boston, and I’m here. And Sophie—”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Yup. It is.”

“So what happens now?”

“I don’t know. Any advice, Doctor?”

Simon looks pensive.

“You do what you got to do,” he says, in the worst faux-New York accent I’ve ever heard, but I give him points for the hand gesture: a good shake, mob-boss style.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I don’t know. Just trying to do a
Sopranos
impersonation. I just got the DVDs. Hey, did you know that I have three kids?” I have been staring at the big sheet of white paper spread across the table. Sophie’s drawing. A picture of her and me and a birthday cake with nine candles. A few sheep dot the background in white swirls of crayon.

Simon again has made hand turkeys. He apparently has a limited repertoire.

“Three? Wow. How old?” I am rearranging my vision of Simon’s life. Before, I pictured him young and single, taking those big arms and his bald head to the bars of London, swigging beers and bedding women; a plunderer, with a tender side. In the last five minutes he has aged a decade and spawned three children. Still no wedding ring.

“Two girls and a boy: six, nine, and twelve. My partner, Steve, and I adopted from Cambodia.”

I do my best to keep my face from betraying my surprise. I have been out of the dating world so long that it hasn’t even occurred to me to wonder if he’s gay. The revelation makes me like Simon even more, because his arms are no longer threatening.

“I guess my point is, when you start a family, you make real tradeoffs. You just can’t do everything. I’ve given up my work in Sudan for my family. Hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m not sure I had a choice.”

“But Sophie. I mean, seriously, will she be okay?”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Ellie. Yes? No? She’ll be heartbroken, she’ll miss you. No doubt about it, mate. But will she be okay? Yeah, she’ll be okay. She’s a fighter, that kid. And I assume you’d just be leaving the country, not her life entirely.”

“She needs me. How could I? How could I leave her?”

He doesn’t respond. Lucy, I realize, would tell me to go home. Chase the happiness to which we are all entitled. She may even disagree with Simon—that we all have a choice. And Phillip. What will Phillip say?
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. What will Phillip say?
is a new refrain for me, like my old standby,
What would Lucy do?
Both make my stomach hurt.

But Sophie—and I imagine her right now, just below me, sipping her hot chocolate in a deliberate manner, enjoying the heat of it, the sweetness as an ephemeral pleasure. I should teach her that word,
ephemeral
. She’d like it.

But Sophie. But Sophie. But Sophie.

I’ve thought through the variables. The tidy ending we all hope for. Boarding school in New England? Phillip loves me and wants me back and transfers to the London branch? I spend six months here, six months there? None works.

I want to smuggle Sophie home, make her belong to me.

But she doesn’t belong to me.

“I miss Mum,” she says now on a daily basis, the words bubbling up when we least expect them. Like cartoon speech: a circle of air between us, a string of letters. When she says it, she doesn’t look like a nine-year-old girl, doing normal nine-year-old things—playing in the leaves that have started to fall and gather, reading Harry Potter, waiting in line for a Flake 99—she looks like a resigned adult.

“I miss her, too,” I always parrot back, because it’s the truth, and there is nothing else to say. I try to tamp down the visions that come up unbidden; Sophie making her way through adolescence and then on to the marathon of adulthood without a mother. Sophie’s first heartbreak, her first business suit, her wedding, and also the everyday, every day, the sweet beat of life that beats us down. The alarm clocks, the apologies, the passive-aggressive put-downs. Canker sores and menstrual cramps. The stomach flu, the good old-fashioned flu, and that thing that is almost-but-not-quite a flu. And the victories, too: the season finales, an e-mail back, getting the job, falling in love. The possibility. All that possibility.

Here is the truth, again, unbidden. The one thing that will never be said out loud: Sophie needs—will need—the only thing in the world I can’t give her. And this, too, a destructive confession that I have no choice but to make out loud, soon: I need—will need—to go back, to leave behind that which doesn’t belong to me and finally take charge of what does.

* * *

We take a long, nonsensical route home and lap up the surprising heat of the day. Sophie and I follow Portobello Road to its end, loop through Westbourne Park, and then take the big hill down until we reach the mansion blocks of Holland Park, identifying the flags that salute us from the guarded embassies. We then make our way back east through the Notting Hill side streets, allowing ourselves detoured circles around the grandest private gardens. Sophie decides to play one of the games we usually reserve for the school run. She points out her favorite houses and makes up stories about the people who live there.

The pink one on the corner is an orphanage for seven kids whose parents were wiped out in a hurricane. (Note to self: Consider limiting Sophie’s news-watching and orphan-reading.) Next door is a childless couple who wants to adopt. We imagine the two groups meeting; one day the couple will buy lemonade from the stand the kids set up to make some money for shoes.
We’ve always wanted seven children!
they will say.
We’ve always wanted parents to take care of us!
the kids will say, and then pack their meager belongings into plastic bags and carry them next door. Of course, everyone will live happily ever after, riding away into the sunset in bunk beds. We’re both suckers for
happily ever after
.

“You know what I figured out today?” Sophie asks, after we send our fantasy family on a trip to Hawaii as an alternate director’s-cut ending.

“What?”

“Magic isn’t magic.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, I’ve always known it wasn’t
real
, that they were tricks. But they’re not even tricks. They’re secrets. According to that video that Uncle Phillip sent, ‘Magic only works when the magician knows something the audience doesn’t.’”

“Give me an example.” This is a teaching tool I picked up from Claire. The real-life equivalent
of show your math
.

“Okay, that card trick I did yesterday? The secret was that I hid the queen of hearts in my sleeve. But you didn’t know my secret. And if you knew it, it would have ruined everything.”

“That’s a clever way to look at it. But what about
real magic
? Do you think that exists? Like how Dickon can talk to animals? Or is that just like a card up the sleeve?”

“I don’t know. Dickon is a character in a book.”

“So?”

“So he doesn’t count.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s not real either, silly. Frannie made him up.”

“Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t.”

“Come on, Auntie Ellie. A little boy who can talk to animals? And if magic existed, my spell would have worked.”

“What spell?”

“The one I did for, you know, Mummy. I tried twice. Even on the day of the accident, I tried to make it a trick. I even believed it was a trick. But it wasn’t a trick.”

“No, no, it wasn’t.” I put my arm around her, move her closer to me. Always more for my comfort than hers. She’s the bravest person I’ve ever known. Even braver than her mother.

“So, to tell you the truth, Auntie Ellie? I’m not so sure about magic. I think I’m pretty much done with it.”

“But don’t you think certain things are magical? And if we believe certain things are magical, maybe then it’s easier to believe in magic?” I am not sure why it is important to me that she believe, but it is. She’s been forced to surrender too much of her childhood already, told to accept as fact the unacceptable: Her mother is not coming back. The least I can give her—the bare minimum—is something to hold on to.

“Like what?”

“Well, for starters, the Secret Garden.”

“The book or the actual place?”

“Both.”

Sophie smiles. “Good one. What else?”

“You?”

“Me?”

“Yup. You, my favorite goddaughter, are pure magic.”

“I’m your only goddaughter.”

“Still my favorite.”

“And I’m not magic.”

“Yes, Sophie. Yes, you are.”