Lloyd dismissed me with a shrug. “She talks a lot about people she’s proud of. You getting all hot under the collar ’cause she’s proud of you?”
I ran my palms against the flat of my legs. “Fine. What does she talk to you about then? The weather?”
Walt nodded his head slowly and leaned back on his chair. “Well, yeah. Sometimes she talks about the weather. Sometimes she talks about what needs to be done in the house. Sometimes she talks about what she’s planning on making when she opens the bakery.” He shrugged. “Sophie talks about all sorts of things.”
I stared steadily at him. “You’re lying.”
Walt let his chair down with a thud and raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? And what am I lying to you about?”
“Sophie said you give her advice. About important things. She said that’s why you’re called the Table of Knowledge.” I stared at the three of them. “You must think I’m an idiot if you think you can sit there and tell me that you’re giving her advice about how many inches of snow you’re going to get this winter.”
Lloyd laughed and took the toothpick out of his mouth. “That about sums it up, darlin’. Studying the Farmers’ Almanac gives us lots of credibility in this town!”
Walt, who had been watching me with a look of increasing concern, took his spoon out of his coffee. “What’s going on, Julia? What’re you so upset about?”
I shook my head. If they didn’t know anything, I certainly was not going to be the one to tell them.
“You two have an argument?” Lloyd asked again.
“Yeah.” Struggling to hide my embarrassment, I turned to go.
“Julia!”
I turned as Walt called my name. “Best thing to do when you’re angry is to sit a while.” He nodded. “Just sit. Don’t do anything crazy.”
“Crazy?” I thought. “You want to see crazy? Let me tell you about the time my big sister got locked up in a loony bin—then you can talk to me about crazy.”
I pushed open the door and walked back into the rain.
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I decided to go back to the house and wait for Sophie, afraid that if I started traipsing through town looking for her, she’d come back, find me gone, and leave again. I stayed in the kitchen for a long time, rummaging aimlessly through her cupboards, opening and shutting her refrigerator door. What was I looking for? Did I expect the answer to the terrible question I had in the back of my head to just come falling out of a cabinet?
How had Maggie drowned?
Had it been an accident?
Sophie had been seven. Maybe she and Maggie had been swimming at a pool together. Mom would’ve been sitting in a fold-up chair off to the side, reading a magazine, watching them with one eye. Maybe Maggie had slipped and gone under. Would Sophie have held her under? It couldn’t be. It was impossible. Sophie wasn’t capable of something like that.
Was she?
I thought about the explosive scenes between her and Mom and Dad over the years, how she screamed and cursed at them, clenching her fists as if trying to restrain the violence inside them. Or the hatred in her eyes the day she had ripped that spelling trophy out of my hand and flung it down the hall. She’d even told me about the time she’d slapped Maggie across the face. Could the jealousy she felt toward her little sister have propelled such rage? Was something like that in her?
I stared at the front of the refrigerator. A picture of a caterpillar Goober had drawn was tacked to the front with little strawberry magnets. Next to it was a torn-off piece of paper with the name Greg and a phone number written beneath it.
I went back upstairs, walking around restlessly. It was still gray outside. The empty bedrooms felt darker and more ominous somehow, and when a car backfired outside, I screamed. Shaken, I went from room to room, turning on all the lights, and then came back and sat on Sophie’s bed. My eyes roved around the room like an afterthought: walls, floor, dresser, bed…
Wait.
I stood up slowly. There was something different about the dresser, something I had glimpsed before, but not registered. I walked over, trying to place what it was.
And then, like a cold hand settling on my shoulder, it came to me.
On wooden legs, I walked out of Sophie’s bedroom and into the spare one across the hall. Sophie’s empty sleeping bag was still flung on the floor next to the lamp. The drop cloth was still bunched in the corner, and the windows were streaked with rain. The only things missing were Sophie’s shoes.
I squatted down slowly next to the sleeping bag, and felt around until my fingers came into contact with something hard and sharp. Drawing the picture frame out, I stared down at Goober’s face, and then clutched it against my chest.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “Goober. Where are you, baby?”
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