“Asthma attack?” Sophie looked startled.
“Yeah. That’s what Mom and Dad told me. That Maggie had terrible asthma. They said that’s what she died from. She got all worked up and started crying really bad, and…” Sophie’s face paled. She had dropped her cigarette. “That’s what they said, Sophie.” I took a step toward her. “When she was four. What’s the matter? Why do you look like that?”
“What else did they tell you?”
“Not much, really.” My voice shook. “Sophie. What’s wrong? Isn’t that what happened?”
Instead of answering, Sophie turned around and began walking back toward town. “Sophie?” She kept moving, faster and faster. Little clouds of dust kicked up around the backs of her boots and the cuffs of her overall pants drooped against the sidewalk. “Great! You’re just gonna turn around and leave? Without answering me?” She moved farther ahead, creating more distance with every step. I lifted my hands and then let them fall against the sides of my legs helplessly. “Fine! Go ahead and leave then! It’s the only thing you ever do when things get hard!”
She stopped. Her hands clenched into fists as she whirled around and marched back in my direction. Pieces of her hair had come loose from underneath the bandanna. She was breathing hard. “That is not what happened to Maggie.” Her words came out with great effort, as if part of her was trying to old them back. “They did not tell you the truth.”
“Then what is the truth?” I whispered.
She stared at me, her eyes as big as the cornflowers on the road. “You know what?” she said. “I don’t even fucking know anymore.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Of course you know! Dad said you were there! He said you saw everything!”
“Dad said that?” Sophie’s voice was hoarse. “That’s what he said?”
“Sophie.” I put my hands on her shoulders. My fingers were trembling. “Sophie, just tell me about Maggie. That’s why I came up this weekend, okay? I wanted—I felt like I needed—to get your side of the story. That’s all. It’s not a big deal, Sophie. Whatever it is. Just tell me, okay? Tell me what happened.”
Later, it seemed that the whole world fell away from us in that moment. The wind stopped blowing. The insects ceased their humming. Even the trees and the flowers shrank into the distance, fading against the tall grass, disappearing into the green.
It was just Sophie and me on that road, under the hot sun, looking at each other for the very first time.
“I can’t,” Sophie said, shrugging my hands off. “I thought I could, but I can’t. I just can’t.”
And then she turned and walked away from me again. This time I let her go.
chapter
19
A huge part of me wanted to run after her, to yank her by the arm, spin her around, and scream, “What do you mean you can’t? This is our family we’re talking about! You can and you will!”
But I didn’t. Those kinds of words might have worked on me, but Sophie was someone else entirely. I was afraid to keep pushing, afraid of what it might do to Sophie, afraid of what Sophie might do to me.
Instead, I watched as she raced back into town, her legs making long, determined strides over the sidewalk, her spine tall and rigid. She had shoved her pack of cigarettes into her back pocket, hitched up the waist of her overalls, and her arms swung by her sides. Only her chin, which was lowered slightly, gave the slightest indication that anything was wrong. When I couldn’t see her anymore, when she made the turn into the driveway of her little ramshackle house, I turned around and started walking in the opposite direction.
I didn’t have the slightest idea where I was headed. From what Sophie had said earlier, if I kept going straight I would either end up at some mom-and-pop store in East Poultney or at the bottom of a gorge. I didn’t even know what a mom-and-pop store was, and I sure as heck wasn’t interested in hanging out in the bottom of a gorge. I made a sharp right instead, and walked swiftly down a shaded dirt road behind the high school.
It felt good to move again after so much time in the car, even if my legs did feel like tree trunks and there was a sour taste in the back of my mouth. What was I supposed to do now? There was no study guide in the world that would show me the steps to follow after a family secret had been exposed. Another one of Dad’s attorney mantras drifted through my brain: “Well, what are your options?” My options? I didn’t have options. I was here in Vermont for thirty or so more hours and then I had to go home. I had to start an internship at the courthouse, get ready for college, finish registering for fall classes at the University of Pittsburgh.