In a Book Club Far Away(4)
Currently, Sophie was play-chasing and pretending to lose a game of tag to Genevieve in the small area of grass. Sophie cackled, and her laugh traveled through the air like skipping stones. At almost two years old, Genevieve was quick on her feet, and as she ran, her arms flailed in uninhibited joy. Her innocence was both beautiful and bittersweet, and Adelaide wished for the hundredth time that her husband was home to witness it.
“Hey, Adelaide, what time is it? I don’t have my phone with me.” Sophie’s voice knocked Adelaide out of her thoughts. Sophie was gazing at her through the open kitchen window. “I have to call Jasper. I completely forgot to check in when I landed.”
For a beat Adelaide was transported back to when Sophie had played with her own kids in their shared backyard years ago, because it was as if she hadn’t aged at all. Sophie’s dark skin was smooth and free of wrinkles; the only clue that time had passed were the occasional silver strands of hair in her tight ponytail. She and her partner, Jasper, currently lived in Tampa. They were newly retired from the Army and starting the next chapter of their lives.
“It’s just shy of three,” Adelaide answered, voice croaking, after glancing at the hanging grandfather clock. “What did Jasper say when you left? Was he upset I asked you out here?”
“No, c’mon.” Sophie’s voice grew louder as she came in through the French doors, carrying Genevieve on a hip. She snorted through her sardonic smile. “You know how many trips away from home he’s made, some of them last-minute. He can handle a long weekend on his own.”
Adelaide worried her bottom lip. It had been a little more than a week since she sent the SOS in a fit of panic and pain, and she hadn’t really understood what kind of corner she’d backed her friends into. Sophie was a pediatric nurse, and for her to ask for days off after recently being hired…
“Hey.” Sophie tugged on Adelaide’s arm as they migrated to the living room. “Don’t worry about it. I want to be here. You can’t have surgery without help. And what’s the point of me becoming a nurse if I can’t be there for the people I love? It’s your damn gallbladder, Ad. And your husband’s in another country. Anyway, I’ve been wanting to spend some time with my goddaughter. If I waited any longer to meet her, it would have taken her days instead of an hour to get used to me.”
Sophie snuggled Genevieve. In response, Adelaide’s baby girl giggled, cheeks reddening with joy. “And SOS or not, honestly, I needed some time away, even if it is twenty degrees colder here.” She shivered. “I almost need a coat, and I don’t think I’ve put one on since moving to Tampa.”
“You can borrow any one of mine. I grew quite a collection in Seoul. Though, I might have to declutter since I admittedly went overboard shopping over there.”
“You’re preaching to the choir. I actually took a trip to the post thrift shop a week ago to donate all of mine,” Sophie said, nonchalant.
With every duty station came a different way of life, dependent on location and on the job their spouses, as active-duty soldiers, held. Duty stations were also how Adelaide marked time, both as an Army brat and an Army wife. Two years here, one year there, and sometimes a midyear switch that threw everyone into a tizzy. It had been a little over six years since she and Sophie had lived in the same location—they’d been lucky to have ended up together twice in the last ten years—but it was as if no time had passed.
It would only be made better by Regina’s arrival. “I’m thankful you’re here, Soph. As much as I can’t wait to get rid of my lemon of a gallbladder, selfishly, I needed adult company. This place feels too big even with just the two of us.”
“It doesn’t feel too big to me. It feels lived in, like you’ve been settled in for years instead of months.” Sophie gestured a hand toward the dining room, at Adelaide’s nine-foot buffet, smiling. “And it looks like everything’s intact.”
“We got lucky with movers this time. But you know how it is. We gotta make it a home or else we’ll never feel like we’re home,” Adelaide said, ready to launch into a diatribe about her predicament of having to lease a storage unit, since the town house didn’t have an attic or a basement for all of her memorabilia, but her phone buzzed in her pocket. Her eyes shot to the front windows that looked out onto the narrow cobblestone street, and she approached the foyer. A shadow of a person crossed the window next to the front door, and Adelaide stepped back, gasping. “Jesus, I’m still not used to being this close to the sidewalk. People are literally on the other side of this wall.”
Sophie joined her. “That’s what you get for wanting to live in a historic town. I’m actually surprised that you didn’t choose the suburbs. What happened to your ‘colonial house with a wraparound porch’? You hated apartment living in Millersville.”
At the mention of the military town where they’d met, Adelaide turned her attention to the empty parking spot in front of her town house. Millersville was a decade ago, and what she was back then, idealistic and somewhat naive—she no longer was. With a softer voice she said, “I guess I changed my mind.”
“That car…” Sophie peered as a tan Mercedes-Benz rolled up.
The car in question parallel parked with ease, on the first try. It was a behemoth, a vintage coupe. There weren’t many like it on the road, because it was the Euro version five hundred series that had been converted to American road standards. The car’s name was Baby.