chapter 26
Beneath a Wyoming sky full of stars, Cara stared out over the river. Even surrounded by peace and beauty, she couldn’t relax. Turning on her twig porch chair, she saw Audra talking happily with Bud about fishing lures and spawning seasons. Her teenage daughter’s cheeks had regained their color, and the hollows were gone in her face.
“You okay, Mom?” Sophy leaned closer to her mother, twisting rope in the intricate knot Tate had just taught her.
“I’m fine, buttercup. Too much coffee, I suppose.” Cara sighed. She owed it to her daughters to relax. They had so little time together that it was criminal to waste it on groundless worries. She peered over Sophy’s shoulder. “Nice knot.”
At least her daughter wasn’t wearing her habitual pink gloves. Maybe that fashion statement was over.
“It’s harder than it looks. Bud can do one behind his back.” Sophy frowned when her mother leaned closer and turned Sophy’s hands, admiring the knot.
“You . . . shouldn’t worry so much.” Sophy took a sharp breath. “We’re all going to be fine. And you haven’t let us down.”
Cara turned sharply. “What do you mean? I didn’t say I’d let you down.”
“You thought it.” Sophy frowned at the knot gripped in her fingers. “Sometimes I know . . . stuff like that. The way I knew about Gabe’s training accident. It usually happens when I touch someone.”
Cara stared at her daughter. “I don’t understand.”
Sophy took a sharp breath and flung her body against her mother. “I don’t want to know things, but it happens anyway. First I feel strange, sleepy almost, and then everything goes kind of quiet. That’s when I know. It happened to me a minute ago, when you touched my hands.” Sophy’s body shook. “At first it was like a game, but n-now I want it to go away. Please make it stop, Mommy. I just want to be normal. No more waiting for people’s thoughts to flash inside my head. No more of their ideas that get tangled up with my ideas.”
“But I don’t understand, Sophy. This doesn’t make sense.”
“I know that, but it still happens, don’t you see? And I don’t want to be afraid of touching people.” The girl’s voice broke. “Especially you.”
Dear God, what to say, what to do? Cara stroked her daughter’s hair, deeply shaken. Was Sophy’s imagination out of control? Was this why she wore her incessant pink gloves and had trouble sleeping, because of some illusion that she could see into the future? “It’s okay, buttercup. Trust me, everything will be fine.” Tears burned Cara’s eyes as she held her sobbing young daughter. Why hadn’t she seen Sophy’s fear sooner? How could she have become such a bad mother?
“We—we’ll go see a doctor, but I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. Maybe you’re allergic to a certain food. Or maybe you have a low-grade infection. The mind can do funny things.”
Sophy struggled away from her mother, her eyes red and swollen. “It’s not like that. And stop thinking you’re a bad mother, because you’re not.”
Cara felt panic kick in. “What did you say, honey?”
“I said to stop thinking that you’re a bad mother.”
Cara shook her head. Her daughter had to be making all this up. She’d always been so bright, so creative. Maybe too creative, Cara realized suddenly. “Sophy, this is serious. You shouldn’t say things that aren’t real.”
“But it is real. I tried to tell Audra, and she laughed at me, too. I told her I knew about how she was afraid to eat, so she dumped her food when you weren’t looking. And I told her I knew how she went into the bathroom and made all the food come up.”
Cara could only stare, stricken by this new revelation. Not Audra, her dear daughter. I don’t believe it, she thought. It can’t be true.
Sophy flung herself back stiffly, away from her mother. Her eyes were haunted. “See? You don’t believe me, either.”
Cara swallowed hard. “I’m trying to believe you, but it’s just—hard.” She desperately wanted to believe her daughter, but none of this made sense. “Try to explain it to me, honey.”
“I can’t. It just happens, that’s all. Usually with someone I know well, but not always. Like last week, when Grandma Winslow came by to drop off the linen tablecloths. Do you remember?”
Cara nodded, unable to speak.
“She gave me a hug. A long hug.” Sophy stared down at her dusty sneakers. “And I could see how she was confused, wondering if she’d forgotten to take her heart medicine. I couldn’t see clearly, but I know she was worried about something else. I think it was about Uncle Tate, something to do with a big building. It looked like . . .” Sophy hesitated. “Like the White House.”
Cara tried to cling to reason and logic, but she knew how much Tate’s mother wanted to see him in the White House, a goal she had shared with her late husband for two decades. But Sophy hadn’t known about Amanda Winslow’s detailed aspirations for her son.
“Go on, honey.”
Sophy took a deep breath. “Remember a few days ago when Tracey came to stay over with Audra?”
Cara nodded tensely.
“Tracey was acting funny and she bumped into me in the garage.” Sophy clasped her arms together tightly. “And I saw things. Bad things.”
“Like what, honey?”
“Fighting. Crying. A car at night.” Sophy closed her eyes. “Tracey was with someone in the car. They were doing strange stuff.”
Cara felt her heart begin to hammer loudly. “You . . . saw Tracey in the car? One night when you and Audra were outside?”
“No. I saw it in my head. It was like everything tilted, and then suddenly I was looking through Tracey’s eyes, not mine.”
Cara hugged her daughter fiercely, more frightened than she had ever been in her life. “What do you see now, buttercup?”
As she spoke, Cara willed her mind to one thought.
Sophy gave a low, hiccuping sob. “You. How you love me. I can feel it around me, bright and warm. You want me to feel it, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes.” Cara held on to her precious daughter. “I do love you, buttercup—more than forever, longer than always.” Cara brushed at her tears, sensing that nothing would ever be the same after this moment, that all their lives were going to change. As soon as possible, she had to talk to Audra about her weight worries, and something would have to be done about Tracey, too. Cara would ask their priest, Father O’Neill, to talk with Sophy about her visions. They would also find a child psychiatrist and maybe an internist who—
With an effort, Cara closed down the logical part of her mind. Sophy needed the deeper, primal part of her now. Most of all, her daughter needed honesty and the certainty of her unconditional love. “I believe you, honey. I’m just sorry it took me so long to understand.”
Sophy clung tightly. She didn’t ask any questions. With her mother’s arms locked around her and her love a deep, almost tangible force, no more questions were necessary.
Tate found them there on the dark porch, arm in arm. “What’s wrong?” He stared anxiously at Cara. “Did you fall? Is Sophy hurt?”
“We’re going to be fine,” Cara said fiercely, brushing her daughter’s wet cheeks, then wiping her own. “We weren’t before, but things will be different from now on. Won’t they, Sophy?”
Sophy nodded, leaning against her mother. Suddenly she shivered. “Aren’t you afraid?”
Almost by habit, Cara started to lie, but then she realized there could be no more soothing lies, no more evasions of any sort. Not with this unusual child who seemed to glimpse the truth in all its painful clarity. For Sophy’s sake, Cara would have to be honest, even if it cut into the established fabric of their lives. “Yes,” she said softly. “I’m afraid. I don’t want things to change, but they have to.” She looked at Tate. “For all of us, like it or not.”
He put his hand on Cara’s shoulder. “You two are starting to frighten me.”
“I’ll explain later.” Cara managed a crooked smile. “I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Tate put one arm around her shoulders and the other around Sophy.
The girl stiffened.
“Tate,” Cara said quietly. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”
“It’s okay.” Sophy took a deep breath and stared up at the stars. Her face tightened, as if she were grappling with ideas she couldn’t express or even understand. “I want it to be okay, and that means starting right here. I remember Summer told me that we all have to listen to the voice we don’t want to hear, the one that’s very quiet. She said usually that’s the most important one.” Sophy eased closer to her mother, but didn’t pull completely away from the senator. Her brow furrowed in a mask of fierce concentration.
Was she trying to block the outside thoughts, working desperately to be a normal, nothing-special nine-year-old in pink shoes and pigtails? Cara felt a stab of pain as she watched her daughter struggle to cope, facing a reality that seemed far beyond comprehension. There in the darkness Sophy was growing up fast, learning to listen to her heart.
Cara could only watch in awe.