Sophie's Heart (71 page)

“Vi left me with instructions,” Mr. Kent told Sophie. She was surprised because he never mentioned his dead wife. “Said I was to buy something very special for these babies—something they would use and remember.”

“Okay.” Sophie thought a minute.

“Well, you don’t have to decide today, but just so you know.”

“All right,” Sophie smiled. “I miss Mrs. Kent,” she then added.

Mr. Kent nodded. “You were a good friend to her.”

“Who is renting the cottage now?”

“An older man. Mr. Blackenship. He keeps to himself.” He fell silent then, his eyes turned to the window.

Sophie studied his profile and, not for the first time, begged God to soften his heart and save him.
Please let him see You, Father. Please let him acknowledge that without You he is lost. Help me to help him as much as I can.

“Well, you sure picked a pretty time of year to have those boys,” he said suddenly. “You’ll have some great birthday parties over the years.”

“I had not thought of that, Mr. Kent. How fun that will be.”

He stayed a while longer, and then the next hour Sophie was alone. She had much to think about and pray for, so the time was well spent. She finally dozed off, and her last thankful thought was the fact that she hadn’t cried since the boys had been born. She told the Lord that it was lovely to be “Sophie” again.

“Oh, Alec, are they not the most precious things you’ve ever seen?”

“Indeed, they are.”

Sophie was sitting up against the headboard in their bedroom at home, Alec beside her. In Sophie’s lap was Jordan Wade Velikonja Riley and in Alec’s lap was Payton James Velikonja Riley. Jordan was sound asleep, but Payton was watching his father with eyes that struggled to focus. They were six days old, and Sophie could not stop staring at them and touching them. She was still stiff and sore, but ready to take on the world. All attempts at nursing had been a dismal failure, but Sophie had not let that slow her down. It had been her deepest wish to breast-feed her babies, but God had other plans, and Sophie had accepted this fact.

“Look at his fingers, Alec,” Sophie now said as she tenderly raised Jordan’s limp hand. There was a knock on the door before it opened a tiny bit and Craig’s head poked in to see if anyone was awake.

“I wondered where these two were. Hey, Payton,” he said when he saw the baby’s eyes open and bent to kiss his silky head. Without permission, he stole him from his father’s lap and cuddled him close. Alec didn’t object; he had to get to work. Craig came right onto the bed with Sophie when his father exited.

“Hey, Jordan, wake up and talk to me.”

Craig was roundly ignored as the infant slept on, and Sophie laughed. Craig’s face was close to her own, and she turned to smile at him.

“How does it feel to be 15 years older than your brothers?”

Craig grinned. “It’s all right now, but when they’re 15, I’ll be 30. Now
that
feels weird.”

Again Sophie laughed, and Rita joined them. Jordan was taken from his mother’s lap as swiftly as Payton had left Alec’s, but Sophie didn’t mind. She had heard horror stories of older children resenting the intrusion of babies, but this had not been the case with the Riley children. Of course, the boys were less than a week old, but if she and Alec handled it well, Sophie was confident that there would be no hard feelings.

And Sophie was correct. This time marked the beginning of a love relationship between older and younger siblings that only grew stronger as the months progressed. Within six weeks the kids were as proficient with diapers and bottles as Alec and Sophie were. When the boys had a hard night, people were crabby with each other the next morning, but things were always resolved swiftly.

It caused an ache to see Rita leave again in the fall for school, and it was made worse when Craig and Tory had to be gone all day as well, but it also gave Sophie time alone with the babies. As the weeks passed, Sophie learned that a clean house was not that important. She was oftentimes tired, but rarely discouraged as she thanked God daily for allowing her to do what she loved best. She knew she must never take for granted the privilege of staying home with her family.

It was something Alec wholeheartedly supported, but he often prayed that someday God would once again use Sophie’s languages to honor and glorify Him. Sophie’s Czech heritage was important, and Alec never lost sight of this, so he was thrilled when Craig’s German teacher asked her to go with the class to Germany the next summer. The twins would still be young, but Alec encouraged her to go. He also encouraged Sophie’s ability on the piano, and she willingly serenaded him and the kids as they fed the babies their last bottles in the evening. It was always a special time, and Alec was often reminded of the frightened young woman who came to his front door applying for the job of housekeeper.

Well, she’d kept house all right, but she had also kept a whole lot more, such as her commitment to God as His child, and her vows at the marriage altar. Tears had come to Alec’s eyes the first time he had heard Sophie tell Tory that she was in her heart. It had taken months of hurt and blindness, but Alec now knew better than anyone that to reside in Sophie’s heart was very special—very special indeed.

Epilogue

April 1994

“Boys, boys!” Sophie shouted and clapped her hands loudly.

The two dark-haired toddlers climbed off each other and looked at their mother; she
never
yelled at them.

“I want you to sit down right now! There will be no more wrestling! Do you hear me?”

The boys dropped their well-padded bottoms onto the carpet, right where they had stood in front of the TV, and continued to stare up at her. Sophie pressed the nails of one hand into her palm to keep from smiling at them. They were so precious. Their faces were identical with their huge, dark eyes and pudgy cheeks. They also had dark curly hair that hung down their foreheads, and Sophie’s heart melted each time she looked at them. But the wrestling had to stop. It had been going on for hours. They had taken a very short nap and had been racing through the house ever since. Sophie was at the end of her energy. She should have taken them outside, but she couldn’t make herself push boots onto their feet one more time.

“Now, listen.” Sophie was going to do something she had told herself she would never do—use the TV for a baby-sitter. “I am going to put on a Barney tape and you are not going to move. Do you hear me?”

Little heads bobbed in unison.

“You will not touch each other or get up or ask for a cookie. Do you hear me?”

Again the nods.

Sophie adjusted the sound and then dropped into a chair. Even after the music started, the boys looked at her.

“Watch the show,” she told them a little softer now, and they turned toward the TV.

Sophie let her eyes slide shut. It was her own fault. These past few days she had worked on the house instead of napping with the boys, and it simply wasn’t leaving her with enough energy to get through the day. With an occasional peek at her cherubs, Sophie dozed. She heard the boys talk once in a while, something only they understood, but at least they sat still. The show was just finishing when Craig came in. At 17, he was almost Alec’s height. Sizing up the situation quickly, he asked, “What’s up?” His book bag landed on the floor as he took a seat on the sofa.

Much could be said for Alec and Sophie’s parenting with the way the boys had kept their places. They had turned from the TV and were on their knees facing Craig, but they had not moved.

“I am tired and all they’ve done is wrestle.”

“Well, I don’t have any homework. Why don’t I do duty for a while?”

“Oh, my Craig, you are a gem.”

He grinned and turned to the boys.

“All right, boys,” Sophie said. “You may play with Craig.”

They came at him full force, and he only laughed. They wanted to wrestle, but he talked them into cuddling for a little while, and then they wrestled. It wasn’t as much fun without Alec, because then they could play tag-team, but Craig still managed to wear them out.

Tory had gone to a friend’s house after school, but she came home in time to help with supper and take the boys for a walk. At 14½, she was quite the young lady, and Sophie’s heart burst with pride over the gentle way she handled the twins.

Supper was on the table when Sophie realized that Alec was running late. She hated to serve the meal without him, but he had told her if the kids needed to eat, then don’t wait. They were in their high chairs, bibs in place, and food in front of them, when the front door opened. Tory and Craig were seated as well.

“Oh,” Sophie said. “That must be your dad. I’ll be right back.”

Sophie slipped around the corner to go to the front door, but didn’t make it. Standing just inside the portal was her grandmother, looking smaller, older, and more fragile than ever before.

“Am I dreaming you?” Sophie said automatically in Czech.

“No, my Sophie,” came the gentle reply. “I am here.”

Sophie’s breath left her in a rush. Her hands came to her mouth, and then she slowly held her arms out. They walked toward each other and embraced. A sob broke out of Sophie’s chest.

“I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

“I know, my darling, I know. Your Alec, he was most persistent.”

“Alec did this?”

Sophie looked up then to see him coming in the door. He came forward, and Sophie went into his arms.

“Oh, Alec,” she cried. “You have brought a miracle.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t understand her since she was still speaking in Czech. The next minutes were a blur as Sophie performed the introductions and watched as Kasmira cried over the curly-haired babies who had their mother’s huge, dark eyes and dark hair. Tory and Craig beamed at her when she said their names in her thick accent, and Sophie turned to Alec wanting to know how he had accomplished this.

“It was interesting,” he smiled. “You’ve always told me that Kasmira understands English more than she speaks it, so I did a lot of talking and she did a lot of uh-huhing. As you can see, we finally pulled it off.”

“So this is a visit? You can stay a while?”

“Until you kick me out,” Kasmira told her, and Sophie’s eyes widened.

“The apartment!” she said to Alec. “You said you wanted to clean up the apartment in case we wanted to rent it.”

Alec only smiled, and a short time later they were gathered around the table. Sophie was a riot as she rattled off in Czech to Kasmira and then in English with a few Czech words thrown in to the rest of her family.

Kasmira laughed in delight when she spoke in Czech to the twins and they understood her. “I wondered if you were speaking to them in your native tongue.”

“Ever since they were babies. But I must confess, it is most often when I am upset.”

“You get upset, Sophie?” Kasmira’s sarcasm was quite amusing. “No, I do not believe it.”

Sophie only laughed and called her a stubborn old woman.

The evening passed in lovely chaos, and Sophie spent a long time in the apartment making sure her grandmother was settled in. Finally the elderly woman said, “Sophia, I am tired. Return to your family.”

“But you are my family, too.”

“True, and I shall be here in the morning. Be off with you.”

They parted then, and Sophie returned to find the kids in bed and Alec waiting for her in the family room. He was reading his Bible, but put it aside as soon as she came in. She sat on the other end of the sofa and looked at him.

“How did you do this, Alec?”

“I called and talked to Eduard, if you can believe that. I asked him just what kind of chance he thought I might have of convincing her to come. He encouraged me and said he would work on her from his end. So by the time I called and talked to her, she was growing more used to the idea.”

Sophie shook her head. “How long ago was this?”

“Almost a year.”

“I can’t believe you kept it a secret.”

“The kids have only known for about a month, so that helped.”

Again Sophie only stared at him.

“I don’t know how to thank you.”