We had three biscuits apiece, warm and slathered with real butter, along with several hunks of cheddar cheese and cold slices of apple. It was, I thought as I lay in bed later, one of the most perfect meals I could remember having. The biscuits were ridiculously good, pillows of lightness that melted on my tongue, and the apple and cheese were crisp and flavorful. Sophie was still working downstairs, applying a second coat of primer to the front room. She never stopped. I felt guilty going to bed, but she had insisted and I hadn’t objected.
Now, after lying there, listening to her muted movements beneath the floor, I got up and padded across the room to the dresser. The sketch book Sophie had gotten me was in the bottom drawer, and I took it out. A soft laugh came from somewhere in the back of my throat as I opened it up and stared at the blank page. God. I couldn’t really draw. Drawing was just…something to pass the time. Something that broke up the monotony of studying and thinking and worrying all the time. Though I didn’t have to bury it completely. A lawyer was allowed to sketch, wasn’t she?
I dragged one of the milk crates over to the window and pushed back the curtains. For a moment I just looked out at the street. Ten feet ahead of me, one of the street lamps threw a small pool of light onto the sidewalk below. Beyond that, the Laundromat, the pizza place, and Perry’s sat in the dark.
Suddenly, beneath the street lamp, the squirrel I had seen earlier appeared. It paused for a moment, then sat up on its haunches, nibbling something in its tiny paws. Without thinking, I picked up my pencil and began to draw. First the tiny head and ears. A slightly bulbous stomach, and a thin, bottlebrush tail.
Would I ever be as good a trial lawyer as Dad? Dad had an assertiveness, an arrogant confidence about him that I did not. He’d always said you needed to have self-reliance to stand up in front of a jury. The words you chose could determine the outcome of the entire trial, so how you spoke was critical. You had to be staunch. Committed. Fierce. Things that—at least right now—I was not sure I was. Could those qualities be learned? Or did you just have to have it in you, the way Dad did?
The squirrel scampered on, but I kept drawing. The stretch of buildings across the street: the Laundromat, Poultney Pizza, and Perry’s, each one aglow under the street lights. I’d never sketched anything in the dark before. It was thrilling in a way, trying to capture the absence of light.
An hour came and went as I moved the pencil across the page. What if Dad had been a banker? Would working with money have appealed to me the same way the law did? What if he were an electrician? Or a cook? Was it possible that I would have latched on to whatever he did? It was hard to know. God, it was hard to know anything these days.
I held my breath as I heard Sophie coming up the stairs. She paused just outside my door. I sat motionless, wondering if she had heard me. But then she moved on, going into the room next to mine and shutting the door.
I kept my lights off and continued drawing.
Later, I woke to a strange sound. For about ten seconds, I couldn’t remember where I was. My eyes roved frantically around the darkened room, taking in the unfamiliar window and the enormous oak tree, like a peeping Tom, behind the glass. Then my eyes fell on the tiny neon sign blinking in Perry’s window across the street and I remembered. But the sound—what was that? I crept out of bed and tiptoed down the hall to investigate.
The door to the next bedroom was open just a crack. A tiny circle of light from a lamp on the floor revealed Sophie propped up on her elbows on top of a bright blue sleeping bag. There was nothing else in the room except for a wadded up drop cloth in the corner. The single window was bare, its edges chipped with old paint. Behind it, the thinnest sliver of a moon illuminated a circle of coal black sky.
Sophie was still in her T-shirt and overalls, but her shoes were paired neatly against the far wall, and she had taken the bandanna off her head. Her braids had been loosened and her hair hung in smooth, yellow waves alongside her face. She was looking down at something small and flat in between her arms—a book? a photograph? a card?—and weeping uncontrollably.
Suddenly, she picked up the object, pressed it to her chest, and rolled over on her side, away from me. She groaned, as if the movement had caused her physical pain, and brought her knees up against her chest.
I thought of going to her. It was probably something to do with Maggie, something she alone had to come to terms with. Over the last few nights, I’d found myself wishing that I had laid down better ground rules when we made the agreement about talking about Maggie. Something more definite than the “whenever she felt like talking about it” arrangement. It gave Sophie too much leeway.
But maybe leeway was what she needed. Maybe I was the one who needed to be more patient. I stood silently, rooted to the spot for a long time without moving, until the soft cries coming out of Sophie turned into slow, hiccupy breathing. Then I turned around and went back to bed.
chapter
34