She swept herself into her tiny kitchen. “My father gave me one of those Keurig coffee makers for Christmas last year. I love it.”
Her father. My eyes did another sweep of the room and even in the fuzzy dawn I noted things I hadn’t the night before. Flatscreen TV, not new though nothing to scoff at. Ikea couch that I’d slept on. Ben didn’t have an obscene amount of toys, but from the ones that I saw, they looked new. Despite Sophia telling me that her dickhead brothers never passed on a dime of my child support, she seemed to be doing well enough for herself. This could have been her father – always Mr. Madano to me – or her job (she was an aesthetician) or the government. It should have made me feel good inside, to know she was doing okay without my money going through, yet for some reason it made me more mad. It highlighted the money that was wasted. It made me feel like a fucking chump.
The coffee machine whirred and spurted from the kitchen and in minutes I had a steaming cup of coffee in my hands. The mug had a picture of Ben on it, smiling, wearing reindeer antlers on his head.
“You still take it black?” she asked.
“Some thing’s don’t change,” I said with a nod, taking a sip. It tasted good. Not as good as I made it, but good enough. The way I did it took patience, as do all the best things in life.
“You’re wearing glasses now,” she noted.
I smiled and took them off, slipping them into my pocket. “I was just trying something. I’m putting my contacts back in.”
I pulled out my cell and glanced at the time. 630AM. No calls or texts. I wasn’t really surprised.
I cleared my throat as I sat down on the couch and Sophia hovered above me like a nervous bird, darting her head down for a quick sip.
“How fast do you think you can get yourself packed up?” I asked, feeling like the neck of the hourglass was starting to widen. “I’ll help of course.”
“Oh,” she said and shrugged, her face noncommittal. “Not long.”
I squinted at her. “Not long? You’re packing up your whole life, Sophia.”
I was getting the impression that the severity of what we were taking on wasn’t sinking in. I leaned forward, elbows on knees and tried to rein her in. “I know this isn’t easy. I know this doesn’t even feel real. But, Sophia, you know what your brothers did to you. What makes you think they wouldn’t do it again? What makes you think you’d ever be safe if you kept going on like you are? What about Ben?”
I know I reached her. A pain expression flashed across her eyes, then it was gone. She smiled politely. “I know what I have to do, Camden, and I will do it. Whether I’m calm about it or freaking out, it doesn’t matter, because it must be done. I’d rather do it now and worry about it later. Give me until 11AM. I’ll be ready to go.”
It was a specific time, but I liked that about her. After our coffees were done, the sun was up, trying aimlessly to cut through the Los Angeles fog that covered the city like parchment paper. I helped Sophia gather most of the important stuff – clothes, books, documents – while Ben slept. She was trying to keep his distress to a minimum, she said. I wondered how well a three and a half year old can adjust to a new life. If he was anything like his father, I figured pretty well.
After he’d had his breakfast of banana Cheerios, as Sophia was trying to clean him up, I asked her where the briefcase was.
“Why?” she asked, sounding strangely cagey.
“Well I don’t think it’s very safe to have fifty thousand dollars just sitting around in a briefcase, do you? I’m going to deposit some of it at the bank.”
She shook her head and patted Ben on the butt. “Ben, go to your room and get your Bubby.”
Ben nodded and ran off to his bedroom. I looked back at her. She was tugging at her hair.
“Look, you can come with me,” I told her. “It’s smart if we deposit it.”
“You can’t. We can’t. We’ll set an alarm off if we deposit more than ten thousand,” she said.
I chewed on my lip for a second, watching her. “I know that. We aren’t going to get dinged. The money technically isn’t dirty anyway. I can deposit nine thousand in my bank account and nine in yours. That gives us eighteen grand that we know will be safe. We can repeat this tomorrow. And then the next day.”
“No …” She kept shaking her head.
“Sophia, what is wrong with you?”
I watched her throat move as she swallowed hard. “You can’t do that.”
I threw up my hands. “What’s the fucking difference? Look, we don’t have time to squabble over money here. As much as I hate it, the money is ours. We need it.”
“Don’t you have the money that you and Ellie stole?”
I cocked my head. “What makes you say that?”