Maybe This Time(69)

“Not a fan?” I asked.

“It’s interesting.” He set down his fork. “By the way, what do I win?”

“For what?” I asked.

“For nobody noticing my beautiful eyes.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

A playful glimmer came into his eyes.

“I owe you five dollars,” I said, before he gave voice to whatever was causing that glimmer. “Which really just wipes out the five dollars you owed me before. So it’s a wash.”

“You’re no fun.”

“This is true.” I smiled and stood.



My mom was having fun singing her heart out to Carrie Underwood. I tried not to think about what was going through Jett Hart’s mind as he sat on the armchair in the corner, with not even the hint of a smile on his face. That was what had gotten me into trouble in the first place, caring too much about how other people felt. I needed to care more how I felt. And I enjoyed seeing my mom so happy. My mom was right, she had a good voice. Probably better than Gloria and her daughter.

“You should’ve sung the national anthem in high school!” I called out to Mom over the music.

“Right?” she said into the microphone. “Some people are national anthem hogs! Jesus take the wheel!” she added, rejoining the song.

Andrew laughed. “Your mom is hilarious.”

“She really is,” I said.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Since everyone I usually talked to was in this room, I was curious. I pulled it out and looked at the screen.

Dad.

I stood and let myself out the sliding glass door and onto the back patio.

“Hello?”

“Soph!” my dad said. We’d only exchanged a couple of texts since our last painful conversation, and I was surprised at the anger that coursed through me at the sound of his voice.

“Hi,” I said tightly.

“Happy Thanksgiving, kid. Are y’all at Micah’s house?”

“Yes.”

“I miss the Williams family Thanksgivings.”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do.”

The back patio wrapped around both sides of the house, and I followed it past several large potted plants to a porch swing tucked in an alcove. I sat down.

“You still there?” Dad asked.

“Is that all you miss?” I knew I was fishing, needing to hear him defend himself without coming out and saying what I wanted. But these feelings were very new to me. The chats with my dad were normally surface level and light. I hadn’t really realized that until now either.

“I miss a lot of things,” he said. “But mostly you and your brother.”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “But you’re happy?” I asked.

“What’s going on, Sophie? Is everything okay?”

“Things are actually going really well. I think maybe I picked the wrong side all these years.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.

“Between you and mom.”

“There aren’t sides,” he said. “We both love you.”

“I get that. But one of you is showing it more than the other.”

“Is this still about the money?”

“No,” I said, meaning it. “It was never about money, Dad. It was about the lie. It was about me, thinking all these years that Mom was embarrassing and hard on me and selfish. But she’s a single mom trying to support us. Of course she’s always late. Of course she needs help with Gunnar. She has to do everything. And you just have to call occasionally and say a few nice things.”

“Where is all this coming from, Sophie?” Dad asked. “Let me talk to Larissa.”

“It didn’t come from her. It came from me. Way too late, but I got there eventually.” I pushed myself on the swing and took a big breath. “I love you. I always will. You’re my dad. But you need to step up. It’s not too late. Come out here and visit, or fly Gunnar out to see you. Do something.”

“Unbelievable,” Dad said, then he hung up. It surprised me so much that I thought maybe I had imagined it. But my phone showed the call was over. I closed my eyes for a second. He was a runner, I reminded myself. When things got hard, he bailed. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them.

That’s when I heard two people around the corner, talking. They obviously didn’t know I could hear every word they said. The voices belonged to Micah and Andrew, and they were talking about me.





Was it me who got in her head or you?” Micah asked. She must’ve batted at the leaves on the potted plant that blocked their view of me; I heard the smack and watched the overgrown bush shake.

“What are you talking about?” Andrew asked. His voice was quieter but I could still hear it clearly.

“Was it you with all your talk about how she wouldn’t fit in in New York? Or me with the whole you hate our town and people speech?”

“I never told her she wouldn’t fit in in New York.”

“Yes, you did.”

I strained forward on the porch swing, holding my breath.

“I may have said something about it being a hard place to live or that it eats people alive, but I wasn’t talking about her. I was mostly talking about me.”