The Sweetness of Salt(60)

My face flushed hot. “What are you talking about? Mom and Dad never said anything about you—”

“Mom and Dad have never said anything about anyone!” Sophie said. “Think about it. They’ve never said anything about Maggie, they’ve never said anything about me, they’ve never even hinted at the reason for Mom’s hearing aid. I had to go live in a mental ward for four weeks because I was losing my mind living like that! Do you know what’s it like to live your whole life with horrible secrets inside you, screaming to be let out? Do you know what that does to you?” Her face was pink with rage; spit flew out from between her teeth. “It makes you crazy,” she said, shaking her head. “It makes you completely and certifiably crazy.” She shrugged, defeated. “Dad said everything had to be kept in the family. Taking it outside of that was breaking the family circle.”

“But I’m family!” The sides of my head throbbed with the force of my words. “I’m not some outsider, hanging around the circle, Sophie! I’m your sister! I’m part of you. I’m part of all of you. I’m family!” Something broke inside of me when I said those words, a sheet of glass splintering into a thousand pieces. “What was so wrong with me that none of you would talk to me? What did I do to deserve being shut out? Did I not fill Maggie’s shoes well enough? Were Mom and Dad’s expectations of me too high? Did I…”

Sobs overtook me then, blocking the words in my throat, and I cried with abandon, like a baby left behind in a darkened room.

“Oh, Julia.” Sophie encircled me with her arms. “It’s not you. It was never you. Ever.”

“Then what was it?”


“It was them,” Sophie said helplessly. “They were afraid, I guess.”

“Of what?”

“Are you kidding?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m not.”

“Of being found out,” Sophie said. She began to rub her hand in small circles along my back. “Of getting called out on the fact that Attorney Anderson and his beautiful wife, Arlene, weren’t actually perfect.”

“But all families have problems,” I said, thinking of Milo and Zoe’s parents. And Aiden’s too.

Sophie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they thought if other people saw us as perfect, they could stop worrying so much about the fact that they weren’t. Or maybe it kept their minds off the things that really needed to be addressed—and never were.”

“Like Dad’s drinking.”

Sophie nodded. “And Maggie’s death.”

My brow furrowed. “But Maggie’s death was an accident. I would think it would make people feel sympathetic toward them.”

The little circles on my back slowed and then stopped completely. “Not when the death is their other child’s fault,” Sophie said.

I turned around slowly. “What do you mean, your fault? It wasn’t your fault.” My heart lurched. “It was asthma…wasn’t it?”

“The asthma was part of it,” Sophie said. “But it wasn’t the cause of death.”

“What was?” The question felt like a needle going through my ears.

“Drowning,” Sophie answered. The stare she gave me was both venomous and frightened. “She drowned, Julia. And it was my fault.”





chapter


45


Sophie got up then and walked out of the room.

But I just sat there, too stunned to move.

Had I heard her correctly? Drowned?

Where? How?

Sophie’s fault? It had to be a mistake. I looked around. Where had she gone? She couldn’t drop a two-ton word like that and then leave.

I bolted off the bed. “Sophie!” It was empty downstairs; the lights were off. “Sophie!” I screamed again. “Where are you?”

No answer. She’d only walked out fifteen seconds ago. Where could she possibly have gone? I flung open the front door. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle and the light, pale and watery, had already started to change. I ran out on the front porch, sidestepping the hole in the middle, and leaned against the rickety banister. Main Street was still empty, save for a string of cars parked outside of Perry’s. Perry’s front window was streaked with rain, making it impossible to tell who was inside. Still, I knew she was in there, probably spilling everything to the Table of Knowledge guys. God forbid she tell me the whole story. I was just her sister. Better to tell three old yahoos-or-whoever-the-hell-they-were from Smalltown, USA, so they could cluck their tongues and give her “advice.” Unbelievable.

I ran inside and pulled on a pair of clean jeans, a T-shirt, and one of Sophie’s sweatshirts. It was impossible to avoid puddles as I raced across the street, so I sloshed deliberately through them, drenching myself again. I didn’t care.

Walt, Lloyd, and Jimmy looked up as I walked into Perry’s. They were eating pieces of cream pie. Lloyd was licking his fork. A big blob of whipped cream sat like a cotton ball on the collar of his shirt. An older woman with beautiful white hair and blue rain boots on her feet was sipping from a cup in a nearby booth. Miriam was behind the counter, wiping it down with a dishcloth.

“Hey, Julia.” Walt said. “How’re you—”

“Where’s Sophie? Did she come over here?”