In a Book Club Far Away(47)

“Hey! That was fast!” Regina laughed.

“What’s going on?” Adelaide stepped out of the bedroom with paint-stained clothing. She wiped her hands on her jeans.

“Sit down.” Sophie gestured to the couch, which the two women took.

“This is good, right?” Adelaide asked.

“Yes… Let me think of how to say this.” She started to pace. Because what she was about to say was intimate. This was about goals, and dreams, and the future. Which she never talked about with anyone because… because these were things she kept close to her heart.

“Sophie, I swear,” Regina warned.

“Okay. I applied to school. To a master’s program.”

“You did? When?” Adelaide asked.

“Around Thanksgiving.”

“You didn’t tell us?” Adelaide shook her head. “Go on, I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“It wasn’t something I told anyone, really, just Jasper. I was feeling a little low, you remember. I felt like I had hit a dead end… anyway, I thought I would give it a chance and apply.” She waved the letter around. “I got in.”

Regina and Adelaide leaped to their feet and cheered; they hugged her in tandem.

“We need to celebrate,” Adelaide said.

“Later, yes! The girls are outside with Amber, so I can’t stay long.”

“Then let’s at least break into dessert. I made cookie dough the other night. I’ve been on a cooking spree. You can take some to the kids.” Regina popped into the kitchen and pressed the buttons of her oven, then dug into her refrigerator and took out the cookie dough.

“Okay, I can stay a few minutes.” Sophie migrated and sat at the kitchen table, with Adelaide next to her, remembering three months ago when they’d consoled Regina. “I feel like time is moving so quickly. It’s Christmas in a couple of weeks, and then soon—”

“Ahhh!” Regina said shaking her head. “I don’t even want to think about it. It’s so overwhelming. I was just telling Adelaide that I want to be like you when I grow up. You always seem to have it together.” She made quick work at dropping spoonfuls of dough onto the pan.

Sophie snorted. “Believe me, I don’t have it together.”

“You remind me a lot of my mama, actually,” Adelaide chimed in. “You always have a wise word. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do wrong. You must have been an easy child to raise.”

“I was far from an easy child.” She leaned back into the wrought iron chair and watched Regina put the pan in the oven. “It’s why I wasn’t sure I’d get into grad school, because up until my…” Her voice choked.

“What’s wrong, Soph?” Adelaide asked.

“It’s just that I don’t really talk about it all the time.” Actually, Sophie didn’t talk about it at all. It was better, sometimes, to forget, to move on, rather than linger in the past. It had become a skill for her, in fact, as a nurse, to leave one patient behind and enter another patient’s room with a renewed attitude. But right now, with her friends, she felt safe enough to say. “I was a tough child. Headstrong.”

“Nuh-uh,” Regina said, in jest.

“Believe me. I ran with the wrong crowd through high school. My parents—I can only imagine the headaches and the worry. Fast-forward to when I was a freshman in college. And I was out, partying as usual on a Friday night. Got drunk, all that. And got in at dawn to find my RA at my door. My mother had passed away.”

Sophie looked up, and sure enough, her friends were both staring at her. A part of her warned that she’d said too much, that they would judge her and her terrible decision, but she didn’t see any of that in their expressions. Instead, she saw love in their eyes. She saw care.

“So, that was the end of my bad ways.”

“Oh, Soph, you weren’t bad,” Regina said.

“I know.” She shrugged. “But since then, and the way things work in the Army, with our close quarters, I always mind my p’s and q’s. So, yes, I do try to do things right. I’m always trying to move forward. But it doesn’t mean I’m calm about it. I’m like a duck, all calm on top and paddling under the water.”

“Well, you don’t have to paddle too hard around us,” Adelaide said.

“Anyway. Sorry, that was deep. This was supposed to be a short announcement. Hopefully my kids are still okay out there.”

“You know what?” Regina said, a grin growing on her face. “Let’s invite everyone up here. I don’t have a lot of chairs, but I have enough cookies.”

“Really?” Sophie said, standing.

“Yes! Like you said, it’s a celebration. Adelaide, wanna yell for them?”

“That’s… that’s a lot of mess we’ll be bringing into the house,” Sophie objected, while following Adelaide to the open window.

“Nonsense. Reggie’s right. Families celebrate. And we are Framily.”

“Framily?”

“Friends who are family. Chosen family.” And without another word, Adelaide yelled out the window. “Hey, y’all! Get yourselves up here. Apartment E! We got cookies!”

Sophie’s face warmed. She had framily.