The Sweetness of Salt(69)

She shook her head, lolling it heavily from side to side. “Just listen, okay?”

I stared at her, remembering Lloyd’s words: “You don’t go easy on someone when they’re just startin’ out. You go easy on someone when they’ve got blisters on top of blisters and they’re about ready to throw a hammer at someone.”

Sophie looked back at me. “If I don’t tell you now, I’ll never do it. Okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“It was a Saturday,” Sophie began. “Mom was away for the weekend. I don’t remember where she was. Maybe at Gram’s. Anyway, she left us both with Dad.” She draped the crook of her arm over her eyes. Beneath it, her mouth spread into a smile. “We had such a great day, the three of us. It was really warm out. Dad took us to the park and then to Hillside Farms for ice cream. Then later, after Maggie’s nap, we went miniature golfing. On the way home, he stopped at the supermarket because he wanted to get stuff to grill hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. Maggie loved hot dogs. He told us to wait in the car while he ran in. We were both practically jumping out of our skins from all the excitement and fun we’d had—with even more to come.”

Sophie removed her arm from her eyes. “Except that as Dad came back out of the store, I saw the blue cans sticking out of the top of the bag. And suddenly, you know, it was like all the air went out of a balloon or something. I knew what was coming.”

She was staring straight above her now, past my face, looking back.

“Dad went upstairs and started a bath for us. He put in some strawberry-scented bubbles that Maggie loved and helped us undress and put us both in. Maggie was splashing around and laughing, but I remember just staring at the blue tiles on the wall.”

Sophie began shaking then. At first I thought she was having a seizure, until I realized it was just from the memory. She struggled to restrain herself.

“Stop,” I said. “You can tell me the rest later. I’m going to go get a nurse.”


She clutched me around the wrist with freezing fingers. “Not saying anything to you all these years was my first lie,” she whispered fiercely. “And I haven’t stopped since. Whenever Mom or Dad—or anyone else—ever asked me what was wrong, I told them ‘nothing.’ Everything was always fine.” Her face contorted. “If I had just told them then, right at that moment, maybe none of this would have turned out this way.”

“This is so much easier, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Just being straight with each other. Think of all the time we’ve wasted doing everything except this.”

“I’ve done it too,” I whispered, stroking Sophie’s cheek with the tip of my finger. “It’s not just you, Sophie. We all do it.”

She winced. “But not at the expense of someone else.” She struggled to get her breath. I slid myself alongside her in the bed, wrapping my arms gently around her shoulders and drawing her toward me. She rested her cheek against my collarbone.

“He said he was going to go downstairs to start the grill,” Sophie started again. “Five minutes. That was all.” Her eyebrows narrowed. “But I knew where he was going. And all of a sudden, thinking about it, I got really, really pissed. Boiling mad. Red mad.” She paused. “All I could think about was getting rid of those blue cans. So I got out of the tub.”

“You left Maggie?” I asked faintly.

Sophie nodded. “I told her I’d be right back. I told her to sit down and be very quiet. And then I left. I went downstairs. Dad was outside in the backyard, already drinking out of one of the blue cans. He had one of Mom’s aprons on, and he was whistling. I could smell the charcoal. And then real quick, before he came in, I opened the fridge and grabbed the stack of cans. I had one under one arm and was just reaching for the other when I noticed something different.”

“What?” I asked.

“They were blue, but they didn’t have the white stripe on the side like his beer usually did.”

Her eyes roved the ceiling above her, searching, searching.

“I remember there was a red stripe on the side, and little black letters that spelled out C-O-L-A.” She blinked. “I was so confused that I didn’t even hear Dad come in. He gave me this funny look and asked me what I was doing. I couldn’t even answer. I put the cans back in the refrigerator and told him Maggie wanted a drink.

“‘Where is Maggie?’ he asked me.

“When I told him she was in the tub, he said, ‘By herself?’ and then he rushed off.

“I followed him up the steps. I could hear water running for some reason. And then I heard this yell…”

Sophie closed her eyes. I had not realized how tightly clenched she had been until she released herself suddenly against me. “She’d turned the water back on, maybe accidentally, maybe to make it higher, and she’d gone under. The doctors said later that if she hadn’t had asthma, she might have lived.”

An anguished sound came out of her mouth suddenly, and she brought her fist up and bit down on it hard. Her eyes were wide, wild with fear and memory. I knew what she was feeling now was more painful than any of her injuries.

I bent my head over hers and wept.





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