Be kind to yourself, the counselor had said.
Tonight that meant a mindless action movie and a bucket of popcorn. Sophie should be here next to you, my asshole brain suggested as I settled into my seat in the theater. Even if it was true, I needed this. Sophie might not be happy with me right now, but I needed to know if I could trust myself without her.
Tonight, at least, the answer was yes.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sophie
Internal DJ soundtrack: “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, the Jeff Buckley version
The first week of January crawled by while I looked for Jude in the grocery store and in line at Crumbs. I watched for him at the gas station and at the bank ATM.
It had been two consecutive Wednesdays now that Jude didn’t come to work at the church dinner. Father Peters assured me that Jude was still going to his NA meeting, though. “He’ll be okay, Sophie. Give him some space.”
The one place I found him was the only one I wouldn’t have expected: my email inbox. Jude wasn’t an emailer. But one cloudy January afternoon I found a PayPal notification. “Jude Nickel has sent you $2147.” There was one line of text to explain. He’d written, “From Porsche parts sold. For your music school fund.”
That was it.
I wanted to tip my head back and scream at the heavens, and maybe I would have, except I was at work and still hoping against all logic to get a full-time job at the hospital.
And yet Jude wanted to ship me off to New York. That asshole!
For a few minutes I sat at my desk thinking up angry replies, telling Jude exactly what he could do with his money.
“Sophie?”
I lifted my head quickly to see Denny watching me. “Yes?”
“Your eleven o’clock appointment is here.”
I jumped up from behind my desk, finally noticing that my client Mary and her daughter Samantha were standing behind Denny. “Hi!” I said quickly to the mom, adding a wave at her toddler. “Thank you for coming in today.”
“Anytime,” the young mother said, putting a hand on her daughter’s silken head. “She’s all healed up from the procedure. It took her only a day to feel better, I swear.”
“Children are amazing,” I agreed. “Shall we step into the conference room and talk?”
“Sure.”
I led the way, feeling gloomy because I’d failed this family. I’d found them some funding for the follow-up care for Samantha’s cochlear implant, but not enough. We were still a few thousand dollars short. The only news I had to share with Mary today was yet another entry on another foundation’s waiting list. Until something came through, the young mother would face mounting interest payments on her credit cards.
That’s when a wonderful idea occurred to me.
I whirled around. “Good news! I’ve found a private donor to help cover your out-of-pocket costs.” From across the room I saw Denny’s head pop up in curiosity. But I just ushered Mary and Samantha past him, closing the conference room door. “Let’s schedule Samantha’s activation date!”
*
“Do you want to talk about it?” Denny asked the next evening as he put on his overcoat at the end of the day.
“About what?” I asked, looking up from my computer screen.
He shrugged. “About whatever is causing you to make that kicked-puppy face all the time.”
“What face?”
“It’s like this.” Denny grabbed the lapels of his coat and scrunched his face into a pathetic frown with droopy eyes.
“Ugh. No. I do not look like that.”
He smiled. “Okay, not just like that. But still…” He cleared his throat. “Want to have crepes for dinner? My treat.”
That did sound good. Except I’d bought three chicken breasts to roast at home with baked potatoes. I started to say that I couldn’t make it, but somehow I said, “Fuck it,” instead. “Sure. Let’s go.” If my parents hadn’t figured out how to feed themselves by the time I got home at seven o’clock, I could still cook for them. They wouldn’t starve to death in ninety minutes.
We took Denny’s car to The Skinny Pancake, which was a Main Street Montpelier cafe not too far from the hospital. Denny ordered the lumberjack—a ham and cheddar crepe. I got the crepedilla because it was always fun to try to pronounce it.
Right after we sat down, Denny addressed the elephant in the creperie. “I just want you to know that whatever the hospital decides in January, I’m sure we’ll both end up with good jobs.”
I cringed. “Well, just try to remember the little people when you sit down behind the desk inside your new office.”
“Sophie,” he warned. “They might not choose me.”