“That’s what bothered you,” Sorrow said slowly. “That she quit law school.”
“What do you want me to say, Sorrow? Hannah was always going to marry a man her family approved of. Paul Abrams may have been barely one generation removed from farmers, but at least they could trace their roots back before the Revolution. And I was always going to go home to the orchard. I had already decided to have daughters by then. Our lives were on different paths. I met your father when he was hiking through one summer.”
Sorrow knew that part of the story: Dad was an Appalachian Trail hiker who never made it to Maine because he got distracted in southern Vermont. She had always imagined it as a summer fling that led to an unexpected pregnancy. She had assumed Patience was an accident, and her too, eight years later.
“Michael and I were never going to want the same things,” Verity said, as though she knew what Sorrow was thinking, “but we both wanted you and your sister. You were supposed to come along a bit earlier, but these things don’t always go according to plan. Whatever else you think about the choices I’ve made, don’t ever doubt that. We always wanted you and Patience.”
Sorrow’s face grew warm and she looked away quickly. She knew Verity wasn’t being entirely honest with her—there was heartbreak beneath her dismissal of Hannah’s callousness, hurt and embarrassment and regrets, the inevitable act of moving on. There was more to her history with Dad than their daughters and the eight years between them. But Sorrow could let her have these small lies. She didn’t have to tear the scar tissue away from every one of her mother’s old hurts. She had done enough of that already.
Sorrow leaned forward to take the photo back. Julie hadn’t known the story behind that picture; she hadn’t known anything about it. To her it was a curiosity, an artifact of a forgotten age hidden away in an attic. Sorrow didn’t know why Julie would have taken time out of her last day alive to find it for her. Sorrow wasn’t anybody to her except the little sister of her long-dead once-upon-a-time friend. It probably didn’t matter. Julie was still dead. The girls in the photograph had grown into women who could barely speak to each other. Their families were still torn apart by rifts that would never mend.
“You know,” said Verity, “I really hate this place.”
Sorrow looked up. Verity was staring out the window. The view was unremarkable: parking lot half-filled with cars gleaming in the sun, strips of grass and trees locked in concrete curbs, roads pulsing with weekday traffic. Nothing from outside filtered into the room. Not the sounds of the traffic, not the heat of the day, not the scents of gas and asphalt and cut grass.
“I hate this place,” Verity said again. “I hate the rooms. I hate the beds. I hate the food. I hate wearing this stupid thing on my wrist.” She plucked at the patient ID band. “I hate that the windows don’t open. I hate that the plants are plastic. I hate that nobody who’s here wants to be here. I don’t want to be here.”
Sorrow opened her mouth, but Verity lifted a hand to stop her.
“Let me finish. I hate this place so much I start thinking about leaving the second I get here. But as much as I hate being here, sometimes I need to be. I need . . .” Verity considered her words. “I need somebody else to make decisions for a while, when I can’t trust my own judgment. When I can’t trust that the way the world looks to me is the way it actually is. I know you think I’m selfish, but all I could think—I kept thinking about when Patience died. You were so worried all the time.”
Sorrow nodded.
“I hated that. I hated how scared you were. It wasn’t that I didn’t notice. I did. But everything was cold and gray. Everything I ate tasted like ashes. It was all dust. Nothing had any texture to it anymore. And sometimes—sometimes I start thinking like that again. Like nothing has changed. When it starts to feel like the world has gone flat and dull, it’s like my mind gets stuck on this wheel going around and around, and there’s no room for anything else. I can’t feel anything else. I don’t even want to. I didn’t mean to scare you. But I couldn’t . . .”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, both of them looking toward the windows, watching the day move beyond the glass. Sorrow knew what she was supposed to say. Her entire life had been rehearsing for this. She was supposed to reassure Verity she wasn’t angry. She wasn’t upset. She hadn’t been scared. It was okay, it was really okay that in those few days after Julie died, when she had wanted so very badly for somebody to see how shaken she was, she had instead faded away to nothing more than an afterthought at the edge of her mother’s awareness. But it was fine. She was fine, Grandma was fine, they would be fine. She was supposed to say all of that, and mean it. That was what she would do if she could be a good daughter and granddaughter, the kind of person who could offer forgiveness as easily as she hoarded hurt. It would only take a few small words. She wouldn’t even choke getting them out.
“I better get back,” she said. She stood up and didn’t wait for Verity to do the same. “I don’t want to leave Grandma alone too long.”
31
SORROW’S PHONE RANG as the elevator reached the ground floor. She silenced it and glanced at the screen.
Dad.
They hadn’t spoken since her first night on the farm. They’d exchanged a few text messages—brief, unimportant—but that was all. She hadn’t told him that Julie had died; she’d wanted to think of a way to tell him that wouldn’t have him freaking out and demanding she come home instantly. But then he’d texted that he was off to Hong Kong for a business trip, and Sorrow had felt a guilty relief for not having to make the decision.
Her phone beeped as it sent the call to voice mail. Somebody bumped into her from behind. She muttered an apology and shuffled out of the way. She didn’t listen to the message until she was back in the car with the key in the ignition and the phone on her lap.
“Hey, sweetie, just checking in to see how you’re doing.” Dad’s voice was cheerful and fast, the way he always sounded first thing in the morning. “I’m back stateside—stuck in LA traffic as we speak. I hope you’re having fun. Give me a call when you get a chance.”
He sounded so normal, so warm, so very far away. Dad had no idea she’d been having anything other than an ordinary summer vacation. He certainly didn’t know she had just walked out of the hospital. Sonia always liked to joke that he had the best-worst timing of anybody she knew.
Sorrow deleted the message. It was early in Los Angeles. He was probably on his way to a meeting. He might not have time to talk. But he would notice if she didn’t respond at all.
She took a breath and called him back.
Dad answered right away. “Hey! Guess what. Still stuck in traffic.”
“It’s only been like two minutes,” Sorrow said. She made herself smile, hoped it carried through in her voice. “You’re not driving and talking, are you?”