[title subtitle=”WORDS Liesel Schmidt
IMAGE Africa Studio/Shutterstock”][/title]
This is the finale of a two-part fictional story. Part one was featured in our October issue. You may click to read Part I here.
Because of that one day, that one horrible moment, Sophie’s mother would never be there to hold her when she needed comforting, never be there to listen, never be there to see her fall in love or walk down the aisle. There would never be any more laughter or the beautiful sound of her mother’s voice.
Never.
It was ironic how closely related never and forever had become in her mind.
Sophie made it through those next few months somehow. The funeral and the accident reports and the police reports. There were stacks of unopened sympathy cards that she wanted to burn––she wanted to smell the smoke and watch the flames writhe in their hot red, orange and yellow dance. She wanted to burn away all the pain. She knew it would always be there, though, forever tattooed on her heart. And her life would never be the same, never resemble the life she’d been living before that phone call. Still, she’d learned to move past it, to box it up and put it in a drawer, safe from sight.
Until that day. The drawer was upended, the box ripped open and spilled. And all it had taken was one little piece of paper, words written two years before by the mother she no longer had. By the mother who had been stolen from her.
*******
“I see that Sophie drinks coffee,” a vaguely familiar voice said.
Sophie was sitting in the corner of the Starbucks near her apartment, curled up with her legs pulled under her as she read the book she’d picked out at the library that morning. So far, she wasn’t impressed with either the writing or the plot line, but she wasn’t quite ready to give up on it. It was a Saturday, early afternoon, but she’d already been there long enough to amass a collection of crumpled napkins along with her empty porcelain coffee cup and French press.
She looked up from her book to see Charlie, the man she’d met at the park. It had been more than a month since that day, but she still recognized him; and he obviously remembered her. Then again, who would be able to forget a strange young woman they’d pushed on a swing set?
Sophie felt herself smile uncertainly, not sure whether she was glad to see him again or if she should be humiliated at how unstable he’d seen her. He probably thought she was insane.
“Yes, Sophie drinks coffee. And obviously you do as well,” she replied, nodding to indicate the paper cup he held in his hand. “It’s nice to see you again, Charlie.” He didn’t need to know that she wasn’t sure she meant it.
“You remember my name,” Charlie said, obviously pleased. “Do you mind if I sit?”
“No, no. Not at all.” Sophie closed her book and uncurled herself, straightening in the overstuffed chair so that her feet reached the floor.
Charlie crossed in front of her to take a seat in the next chair, adjusting the legs of his pants as he sat. The man certainly knew how to dress. He was wearing well-cut jeans and a French blue button down, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms and the tails un-tucked. A white tee-shirt peeked out from the neck, which was unbuttoned to the second button. Noticeably absent was the baseball cap he’d been wearing the last time Sophie had seen him, and she now noticed that he had light brown hair cut neatly and close to his scalp. Charlie may have been staring down the barrel at forty, but he wore it well.
“So, what are you reading?” he asked, noting the book that now lay, face down, on the arm of Sophie’s chair.
It was a casual question between two ordinary people, a man and a woman who could have been meeting for the first time, purely by chance. It was a question that held no indication of any awkwardness or judgment by its presenter, merely interest in this small aspect of her life. To Sophie, it was an outstretched hand, a gentle offer of friendship from someone who seemed to understand a need she had never expressed. She smiled sweetly and reached for the hand, wondering where it might lead her.
*******
Charlie and Sophie had been dating for two months before she told him all the details of her mother’s death. He’d listened quietly as she recounted the ordeal––the arrangements and decisions she’d had to make, the loneliness she’d felt. The anger and hatred she’d struggled with. Her mother––so lovely and generous and vibrant––was gone, while the man who’d been involved in the accident walked around unscathed.
He’d asked her what she knew about the man––if she knew who he was or where he was. If she’d tried to contact him since her mother’s death. Sophie shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes and stinging the back of her throat.
“I don’t know anything, really. They told me afterwards––what happened, how it happened. But I still feel like I don’t know anything. I know his name. I even met him––I could barely look him in the eye, but I met him. I met him long enough for everything official to be taken care of and reports to be filed. Officially, it wasn’t his fault. Officially, it was no one’s fault.” She swallowed the lump that seemed to be closing her airway, the bitterness that was building.
“Officially,” she said again dully. Such a hollow word. “But she’s still gone, and he’s still here.” Sophie shook her head again and looked down at her hands, resting limply in her lap. Hands with long fingers like her mother’s.
Charlie swallowed thickly and reached out a hand, crooking his index finger just under her chin. He tilted her face up so that her eyes met his––eyes that were moist and glistening with the sheen of tears. When he spoke, his voice was hushed and husky with emotion.
“What if part of her was still here?”
Sophie looked at him, puzzled by the question. “What do you mean?”
Slowly taking her hand in his, Charlie brought their entwined hands to his chest.
“Here, Sophie. Right here.”
And suddenly she understood. The scar she had asked him about, the heart he had been given after a tragic accident. Sophie searched Charlie’s eyes, wondering why he hadn’t told her. Why he had kept such a secret. He had become, in the past two months, a best friend. A confidante. More than that, she felt a connection to him that went deeper than mere friendship. Friendship and respect had grown into love, the kind of love she knew she could depend on.
It was the kind of love her parents had shared, once upon a time. Not that Sophie remembered it firsthand. Sophie’s father had died of leukemia before her fifth birthday, but she had vague recollections of happy trips to the zoo, falling asleep in her father’s arms as she listened to the rumble of his voice rising from his chest while he sang in church, the security she felt when he held her tiny hand in his. Her mother had been his steadfast companion through his illness, nursing him as he worsened, keeping his spirits up even when things were bleak. Family time never suffered, and story books were read every night to both the ailing man in the bed and the little girl curled up beside him, while Rosemary Watson’s heart swelled with love and pain.
Sophie’s mother had raised her alone, never tiring of telling her stories about her father and what a wonderful man he’d been. Rosemary seemed to draw her own strength from the stories, reminders of times with a man who had loved her passionately even when his body failed him. As the years passed and Sophie grew into an adult, the woman who had been her mother also became her friend––her best friend, really. An irreplaceable part of her life.
The accident had taken both her mother and her best friend, leaving her with a deeper hole than she would have ever imagined. A hole that she feared would never be filled.
But in this tragedy, she had been given a gift—a man who loved her with his whole heart, a heart that had loved her for her whole life and always would.
Don’t forget I love you!
