[title subtitle=”WORDS Liesel Schmidt
IMAGES Africa Studio/Shutterstock”][/title]
This is the first installment of a two-part fictional story. Part two will be featured in our November issue.
She’d been fine until she saw it.
She’d been strong, recovered, adjusted. And then it all came crashing down.
One simple little scrap, one unevenly torn sheet of yellow legal paper with chicken scratch notations on it. Slightly smudged letters in mechanical pencil, hastily written by a hand that would never write another word.
Sophie stared out at the water, unblinking and unseeing, as people walked past her in a blur of activity that seemed a million miles away.
“Need a push?”
A voice behind her startled her out of her reverie; almost a violent assault on her concentration, so unexpected was the question.
She turned her head to discover the source and found herself looking into the smiling eyes of a man who looked to have about ten years on her, his blue-grey eyes offset by tanned skin. A well-worn baseball cap hid his hair and cast a shadow across his face, strangely at odds with the Oxford cloth shirt he wore. There was a boyish sense of vibrancy in him that seemed almost irrepressible, despite the fact that he’d barely spoken.
Milk.
Peanut butter.
Coffee.
Don’t forget I love you!
––Mom
Words seemed stuck in Sophie’s throat as she stared into the stranger’s friendly face, a forming response just out of reach. Thickly coated in peanut butter and floating away in a white river of milk.
“I see your mother taught you never to talk to strangers, huh?” he posed, chuckling softly.
Don’t forget I love you!
The invasion on her thoughts was almost too much for Sophie’s brain to process. She blinked rapidly, trying to regain her grasp of the present, of what was happening here, right in front of her. Tugging her lips into the beginnings of what she hoped was a smile, she pushed words past everything that seemed to be keeping her silent.
“Yes, she did. Though I hardly think that the rule still applies.”
The words sounded much more flippant than she felt, but it was a technique she had mastered. Hiding behind coy phrases and a constant flurry of activity. She was a social butterfly, never still long enough for anyone to see that the colorful wings perpetually in motion were riddled with holes.
“So, does the lady need a push?” he asked again, his smile widening to reveal even, white teeth.
It was a strange offer, no doubt a shameless flirtation, but it was a distraction Sophie desperately needed. One more thing to push away the looming thoughts, the memories and the feelings that always seemed just on the verge.
“Why not?” she replied, her own smile deepening and becoming more genuine.
“And what would the lady’s name be?” He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt as he spoke, unbuttoning the cuffs and making quick folds.
“Sophie,” she said, turning back to face forward and repositioning herself in the swing’s sling seat. It had been years since anyone had pushed her on a swing set, years since she’d even set foot on a playground. It seemed like such a frivolity, yet here she was.
“Well, Sophie, I’m Charles. Charlie.”
The chains on either side of her moved as he took them in his grip, his hands just on the periphery of her vision.
Charlie. It was a nice name, though not one she would have necessarily guessed for him. He looked more like a Jack or a John. Charlie. Sophie wondered idly what his last name might be.
“You ready?” he asked, and she felt him tugging the chain back.
Sophie nodded. Yes, she was ready. As ready as she’d ever be, she supposed. And soon, she was soaring, up and back, her hair whipping in the wind as she moved. She was free of the earth, rising high into the air toward the sun.
High toward the heavens, where her mother watched––just out of reach.
Don’t forget I love you!
Charlie stood, his feet firmly planted, pushing Sophie higher as her legs pumped, watching her arc through the air. He thought it odd that she made no sound––no squeals of delight or whoops of exhilaration escaped her. But he said nothing to this odd young woman who seemed silently in need of something. Instead, he continued to push, unaware of the silent tears that finally escaped her tightly closed eyes.
*******
She’d been driving, slowly creeping down one of the residential streets downtown, one hand on the steering wheel while the other rifled through the glove box in search of sunglasses. They were there––somewhere––she knew they were. Sophie’s hand disappeared further into the recesses of the glove box, past the collection of assorted paper napkins, past the jumbles of pencils and pens and paperwork, until they closed around the familiar plastic shape of her sunglasses. She pulled them out, only slightly aware of the scrap of paper that had somehow become adhered to one of the oversized lenses.
How did that get stuck there? she wondered, catching sight of the torn yellow paper.
Braking at the stop sign, she took a moment to examine her sunglasses and remove the paper.
And then, she saw it. The handwriting. The familiar script of her mother.
Her throat closed, and the world around her dulled and darkened. She had to pull over. She had to pull over and get out of the car. Now.
Sophie forced her eyes to focus and took a gulp of air, feeling her nose burn under the threat of tears. Not now. Why now?
Up ahead, there was a little park. A playground with shiny swings and a jungle gym. A sandy plot bordered by lush green grass and wooden benches painted a cheery yellow.
There, Sophie thought. There. I can stop there, and I can be alone. I can be alone, and I can get my head on straight.
It was there that Charlie found her, a solitary figure sitting on the swing, staring ahead and motionless. Alone, like a little lost child too frightened to move.
*******
Ordinary life had been shattered two years before, on a morning that had begun just like any other. One more morning of a million unremarkable mornings strung together in the normal life Sophie had been taking for granted.
The cell phone tucked in her purse interrupted her thoughts as she navigated her Inbox, annoyingly inundated with junk after a weekend of idle collection.
She bounced up from her chair, hurrying to catch the phone before it disturbed any of her other cubicle mates. Especially the snarky ones. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to have it with her, but she knew for a fact that most of the other people in her office were consummate rule-breakers and just kept their phones on vibrate. Which usually, Sophie did––only she’d forgotten to switch it over from its bouncy little ringtone to silent mode before she’d clocked in that morning.
“Hello?” she said, keeping her voice low.
“Is this Sophie Watson?” There was an unfamiliar voice on the line, and Sophie felt her eyebrows knit together in puzzlement. She wasn’t positive, but she thought she remembered seeing Mom on the display as she’d hastily flipped the phone open. So why was the voice on the other end coming from a man?
“Yes?” It sounded more like a question than an answer, but Sophie was still running through all the reasons that someone else might be in possession of her mother’s cell phone.
Everything after that was an indefinable blur, melting together in a violent assault of clinical terms, sympathetic words. Strangers’ faces floated before her, offering empty condolences and meaningless platitudes. Paperwork loomed endlessly, stark and sharp-edged stacks that seemed to trivialize the most complicated moments of her life and lay them within the confines of their margins. The sound of sobbing became familiar, a background noise that she almost didn’t even notice anymore. Sophie wasn’t even really sure of where it was coming from most of the time.
She answered questions and made decisions that she shouldn’t have been making––not yet, not like this. There were arrangements and phone calls and a constant barrage of words. Words, words, words. She hated words. She just wanted them all to stop and let her breathe. Most of all, though, she just wanted her mother to hold her. But that was never going to happen now.
Read the finale of “Scrap Paper Hearts”, in our November issue.
