Baby (8 page)

“Sophie’s going,” said Mama slyly.

“That’s unfair,” said Byrd.

Byrd got up and put on her boots with the fleece lining and her wool hat, and we all went.
Papa carried Sophie on his shoulders, Mama carried her paint box. We walked through town.

“Hello, you foolish people!” called Griffey from his sewer truck “Hello there, Sophie!”

“Hello, Sophie!” yelled Sophie.

Marvella waved from the inn window, watching our procession, and Lalo came out on the porch.

“Is it spring?” he called excitedly. “Wait for me!”

He disappeared and came out wearing the new red wool scarf that Marvella had knitted for him. It wound around his neck several times, another wool barrier from germs, and trailed behind him on the ground.

Lalo saw Papa smiling at it.

“My mother was overcome by knitting during the winter,” said Lalo, winding the scarf around his neck one more time. “Totally overcome,” he added, peering sideways at me. “I know that’s redundant. My mother is redundant.”

“You look splendid, dear,” said Byrd. “Rather like the cavalry.”

She took Lalo’s arm and we walked on.

“Besides,” she said softly, “that scarf may save us all from freezing.”

Old man Brick passed us, his ancient truck lurching. Then we heard a motorcycle. Lalo looked at me as Rebel came down the main street. On the back of his motorcycle was Ms. Minifred, her hair blowing out under her red and white striped helmet. They waved. We waved.

“Hello, Eunice!” Mama called.

Lalo and I stopped walking suddenly.

“Eunice?” I said. “Ms. Minifred’s name is Eunice?”

Lalo grinned.

“She rides in beauty, Eunice Minifred does,” said Papa, putting his arm around Mama, as Ms. Minifred and Rebel roared down the street.

“Yep,” said Lalo, laughing.

“Yep,” I said.

“Yep,” said Sophie.

The water was blue and green, the sky clear except for high clouds that made me think of Sophie’s cotton wads on the Christmas tree. We found a place by a dune, out of the wind that blew
the sand along the beach. Byrd sat back, leaning against a driftwood log, Lalo close next to her, the scarf draped around them like a red snake.

“It’s too windy for painting,” said Mama, taking out her sketchbook.

Papa walked off a bit, looking out over the water. Sanderlings raced the waves, always just ahead of them, their heads bobbing as they fed. On the rocks were purple sandpipers, left over from winter. Black-bellied plovers flew to the beach, settled, then flew off again.

Papa turned and smiled and held out his hand to Sophie. She ran to him, her hat flying off in the wind. Papa picked it up and took her hand. The two of them walked slowly down the beach, the clouds behind them as large as mountains.

“It looks like they’re walking into a painting,” I said.

Byrd and Mama turned at the same time, watching Papa bend down and point to the sky. Sophie put her hand on his shoulder and looked up. Far away, cormorants flew close to the water in a line. Behind them the ferry moved slowly toward us. Papa sat down with Sophie on his lap. He bent his head and talked to her for a long time. They
both looked up at the sky. The wind died then, and the sun came out from behind the big cloud, and there was that sudden silence that comes when the waves stop crashing.

“Oh, my,” whispered Byrd.

I watched Mama look at Papa and Sophie. There was a look about her that was half happy, half sad.

“Spring,” Mama whispered back.

Ms. Minifred said once that life is made up of circles.

“Life is not a straight line,” she said. “And sometimes we circle back to a past time. But we are not the same. We are changed forever.”

I didn’t understand what she meant then. I remember steam whistling in the radiator under the window in the school library, and the way Ms. Minifred’s hair brushed the side of her face when she leaned forward. But I liked the sound of her words, and I remember saving them for later.

Sophie didn’t want to leave the beach, but Papa picked her up, wailing, and we slowly walked back through town. When she stopped crying
Papa put her down. Sophie stood there frowning at him, her forehead wrinkled with the effort. After a moment she reached up and took his hand.

“Forgiveness,” said Papa to Mama.

The two of them walked ahead of us as the light began to fade from the sky, Sophie’s red boots making a slapping sound on the sidewalk. And then, suddenly, Sophie began to shuffle. “Me and My Shadow.” We stopped, Mama laughing. People passing by smiled, too, and Papa began to dance with her. Papa smiled at Mama over Sophie’s head, and the sky darkened into dusk. Finally, Papa swooped Sophie up in his arms and we began to walk home. We started up the hill to our house. Dry grass crunched under our feet.

And when Lalo and I ran ahead of them through the meadow of dry chickory and meadowsweet, when we climbed up and over the rise to my house, she was sitting in the darkness of the porch. Sophie’s mother.

Life is made up of circles.

Lalo and I stopped. We both knew. Lalo, as if remembering a cue from the past, moved in front of me. Byrd came up quietly beside us, and I turned to tell her. But she knew too. I could tell by the steady look she gave the woman on the porch and the stillness that came over her face. Byrd lifted her shoulders and pulled her jacket around her, smoothing it over the buttons as if she was preparing for something. Behind us, below the crest of the hill, Mama laughed, and we could hear Papa’s voice.

I clenched my teeth. I wanted to turn and call
to Papa and Mama to take Sophie away, to turn and run as fast as they could. Lalo knew it, because he took my hand and held it to keep me there.

“Larkin,” he whispered.

There was a silence. The woman on the porch didn’t move.

“Larkin,” he said again. He said it in a way I’d never heard before. It was the saddest sound, as if he was trying to say he knew how bad this was and to protect me at the same time, trying to wrap my name around me like his long wool scarf.

And then we heard the sound of Sophie’s high voice. The woman on the porch rose suddenly from the chair and walked to the edge of the porch into the late light of the day. She held on to the porch post, and we all turned as Mama and Papa and Sophie came up the path.

Mama walked ahead of Papa and Sophie, Sophie on Papa’s shoulders. Mama walked up to us with a questioning look as we stood there.

“What—?” she began, and then she saw Sophie’s mother.

It was like a movie run slowly: Byrd putting
out her hand, Mama’s face showing the slow recognition, her face slipping, like Byrd’s, into a mask that didn’t look like Mama anymore; Mama moving away from Byrd, taking a step toward Papa, away from the woman who didn’t see the rest of us anymore. All in that moment.

“Sophie,” the woman whispered.

Papa stumbled a little, and then he stood still, looking at Sophie’s mother. After a moment he walked up to Mama. He stared at her, and then put his arm around Mama. Sophie leaned over, smiling at this, her hands patting Mama’s head.

“My baby,” the woman said.

And Sophie straightened. She looked over and studied the woman for a moment.

“Not baby,” said Sophie.

And on the porch her mother’s face slowly crumpled. She burst into tears, sitting on the porch steps, her hands over her face.

Byrd took a breath and moved, but Mama’s voice stopped her.

“Sophie?” Mama reached up and took Sophie down from Papa’s shoulders. She carried Sophie over to the porch and sat down beside the woman. I looked at Papa and watched the way he looked at
Mama. And then Mama said the words that were the hardest to say.

“This is your mama.”

I can never forget the small things, the tiny gestures, the look of Mama’s eyes, Papa’s face, the way Byrd sat so still and careful as if a breeze might topple her. Sometimes these things play over and over in my head like the notes and rhythms of a song.

Our coats hung in the hallway closet. Our boots were lined up in pairs, except for Sophie’s. Papa poked at the fire, moved a log, then poked again. He hung the fire poker on a hook, and it fell on the hearth in a clatter that made us all jump. Byrd sat in a straight chair, her legs crossed at the ankles, Mama on the sofa. Sophie’s mother stood staring at Sophie, who wore her boots and a sweater Marvella had knitted for her, the too-long sleeves rolled at her wrists. Sophie sat on the floor and slowly began to build a tower with her blocks. Red on blue on green.

“Julia?” Mama said.

Julia. It was hard to think of Sophie’s mother
with a name. We had always called her Sophie’s mother.

Mama held a cup of tea out to her.

“Now,” said Mama.

Julia sighed, then looked at Lalo and me standing by the front door.

“Maybe we should talk alone,” she said.

Her voice was low and soft. Sophie looked up at her suddenly, her hands stopped above the blocks.
That look
. Does she remember her mother? Does she miss her? I had asked Mama that a long time ago.
That look
. Lalo moved a little beside me, the smallest movement, like a sigh.

“No,” said Byrd very quietly, so quietly that we all looked at her. All of us except for Sophie, who stared at her mother.

“Everyone here has been Sophie’s family since”—Byrd paused—“since you left her,” said Byrd.

Julia winced. She sat down by the fireplace.

“Everyone here has rocked her and read to her and wiped her tears and sung to her. Lalo taught her how to blow a kiss, and sometimes she slept with Larkin. She painted with Lily and she danced
with John.” Byrd paused. “Everyone here has been her family.”

There was silence.

Julia looked at Byrd, and then at Lalo and me, studying us for a moment. She turned back to Byrd.

“That is why I chose you,” she said softly.

And then, for the first time, she smiled. Lalo turned his head to look at me. I couldn’t look at him, but I knew what his look meant. Julia’s smile was Sophie’s smile.

Papa sat down next to Mama. He reached over and took her hand. They looked at Julia.

Julia began to speak.

“I watched you last summer, all of you,” she said.

Sophie got up from the floor and moved closer to the fire.

“Hot,” Julia said almost without thinking.

Sophie looked up.

“Fire is hot,” she said.

Julia stared at her.

“Sophie talks,” she whispered.

“Sophie talks,” whispered Sophie back to her.

Julia swallowed. Tears sat in the corners of her eyes.

“Sophie’s father was sick,” she whispered “We knew he would need an operation, and we knew that he would need care all the time. All
my
time. If he didn’t die. There was no one else. That was when I saw you.”

She stopped then, and looked at Byrd.

“And my parents were not good parents,” she said in a flat voice. “I never would have let them have Sophie. Never. I didn’t want Sophie to be with strangers. And you didn’t feel like strangers.”

“You wrote—” began Mama, but her voice broke. “You wrote that things are better.”