Emma giggled. “I knew you’d say that. If you do, I’ll run away and live on the streets. I’m not going back to an institution, Mother.”
“Jeffrey will be there tomorrow morning, and don’t you ever use that tone when you talk to me.” Victoria’s voice had dropped to that place that scared Emma. “You will do what I say, when I say, and you will not argue with me. Jeffrey—”
“I will not come home, so spare Jeffrey the trip,” Emma declared with as much courage as she could muster. “I am a grown woman, I’m past thirty, and this is my decision.” She reflected that much of that was said for her own benefit.
“You are much too delicate to be away from home. Where are you living, anyway?” Victoria asked.
“In a trailer house with Sophie.” Emma hoped that poor old Jeffrey didn’t suffer the wrath of Victoria Merrill. He was close to seventy and had been the Merrills’ driver and the pilot of their small plane for as long as Emma could remember.
“I’m not a bit surprised. I knew that girl would always be trailer trash,” Victoria hissed.
“Goodbye, Mother,” Emma said and quickly turned off her phone. The first time she’d skipped out on a therapist’s visit and spent the afternoon in the park, her mother had installed a tracking device on her phone that let her know exactly where Emma was at all times.
“But only if the thing is turned on.” Emma pulled her knees up to her chin and took a deep breath. Talking to her mother hadn’t been nearly as difficult as she’d thought it would be, but then Victoria wasn’t standing in front of her with her mouth clamped in a disapproving expression and her eyes boring holes into Emma.
She eyed the phone in her hands as if it were a rattlesnake. “I can use Sophie’s phone when I want to make a call, and I see a landline over there on the kitchen counter. Mother will hate me . . .” She removed the back of her phone, took out the battery and the SIM card, and went inside the trailer and found a hammer in a drawer. She carried it outside and laid the phone down on the wooden porch floor.
“Sophie says I’m in charge of me. I don’t want Mother to find me,” she said as she drew back the hammer. With one well-placed hit, she crushed the battery and the SIM card, then drew back again and brought the hammer down on the face of the phone. Just to be sure, she hit it again until it was nothing but a pile of bits and pieces.
“That’s step one,” she said, but her hands were shaking when she laid the hammer on the porch railing and then swept all the pieces into a dustpan and took them into the trailer.
“What is all that?” Sophie asked.
“My phone,” Emma said.
“Wow, what did that phone do to you?” Sophie asked.
“My mother’s voice came through it,” Emma answered.
“Then good job,” Sophie said. “I’m going out to call Mama and Teddy and then get us some food. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be right outside,” Emma said. And in that moment, sitting on a wooden porch in a red plastic chair, Emma felt more alive than she ever had in her entire life.
Sophie sat down on the top step of the porch, waved at the folks around the table, and pointed to her phone. Filly nodded, and Arty gave her a thumbs-up.
Rebel answered on the first ring. “I’ve been expecting your call for the last hour. How did things go?”
Sophie hesitated for a second too long.
“What happened?” Rebel asked. “Did you have car trouble, or did you and Teddy break up? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he told you to go find another boyfriend since you refuse to marry him.”
“No and no, but I did go see Em in that place. Do you have any idea what happened to her to make her quit college?” Sophie asked. Rebel couldn’t possibly understand that Sophie had her reasons for not wanting to get married.
“That poor, sweet child. All Annie has heard is that Victoria said Emma was too delicate to endure the pressure of college and had to come home. Victoria has always pounded it into that girl’s head that she was fragile and never let her do anything for herself. I thought it was a bunch of bull crap, myself. A kid is as strong as you let her be,” Rebel said.
“I couldn’t stand to leave her in that dismal place, so I brought her with me,” Sophie blurted out.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Rebel gasped. “Victoria is going to go up in flames. How did you manage such a foolhardy thing? And why did you? You’ve never been impulsive in your life, girl.”
“Em is in a bad way. She has no self-confidence, and something horrible has happened to her that she doesn’t want to remember. I wonder if it isn’t something to do with Victoria. There was a sign on her door that said, ‘Females Only.’ That suggests to me that she’s been hurt, and probably by a man. Knowing that Victoria was talking about putting her away forever, I just had to try to help her.” Sophie finally stopped for a breath.
“Well, good luck,” Rebel said. “And I do mean that. You’ve got work to do for your overseas showing, and you need to spend time with Teddy when he can get away, and”—Rebel stopped, and Sophie knew it was to collect her thoughts—“and a million other reasons that you already know. The last of which is that Victoria will send a hit man out to kill you for taking her delicate little orchid away from her. I’ve always wondered if she didn’t treat Em the way she did so that everyone would think Em was crazy. I saw a show on television that had to do with Munchausen by proxy. That means that—”
“I know what it means, Mama,” Sophie butted in, “but Victoria never did things to make Em sick just so that she would get attention for taking care of her.”
“There’s more than one sickness,” Rebel said. “There’s physical sickness and then there’s mental. It could be the latter one, but no matter what, she’d best not send anyone to hurt my child.”
“What would you do if she did?” Sophie giggled.
“I’d have to do what I’ve wanted to do for more than twenty years. I’d have a very good reason to march up to her house and stomp her fancy ass into the ground,” Rebel answered.
Sophie’s giggles turned into laughter. “Don’t do it until I get home. I wouldn’t miss that show for anything,” she said when she could catch her breath again. “Don’t worry about me and Em. She already likes it here.”
“Honey, anyplace on earth would beat that cold mansion she’s had to live in her whole life,” Rebel said. “I’ve got to go. Annie and I are catching a late-night movie down at the theater.”
“Good night. I’ll holler at you on Sunday if not before,” Sophie said.
“Lookin’ forward to it,” Rebel told her.
Sophie tried to call Teddy, but the call went straight to voice mail. As always, his deep voice on the outgoing message sent little shivers through her whole body. She hadn’t been impressed with him the first time she saw him, but when he spoke, all that changed. There was something soothing and yet exciting about the deep southern Louisiana twang he had.
After the beep she said, “Hello, darlin’. I miss you. I love you. I’ll call tomorrow morning, which will be in the afternoon for you. I’ve made it to the trailer park and am hoping to start painting tomorrow.” She ended the message, tucked her phone into her pocket, and headed across the yard to the table.
“So, tell us about your friend,” Filly said. “Is she all right? She seemed like she was afraid of her own shadow when she got out of your vehicle. Her little hands were shaking, and she wouldn’t make eye contact with us. What’s happened to her?”
“It’s a long story, but the best way I can describe her is that she’s like Coco,” Sophie said.
Josh nodded. “Go easy with her, right?”
As if she’d heard her name, a big calico cat jumped up on the bench beside Sophie and meowed. “I’m glad to be here, too, Coco girl.” Sophie smiled. “Thank you for the warm welcome.”
The cat had appeared in the trailer park during Sophie’s first year there. She’d been a tiny kitten so wild that no one could touch her, but Josh had kept
working with her until, by the end of summer, she would let him pet her. Sophie remembered him saying that he understood the cat, because he was leery of most people, too.
“Is Emma sick, or is she just wary of strangers like Coco was when she first adopted us?” Arty asked.
“Not either one, really,” Sophie answered. “It’s more like she was so sheltered and protected that the real world was too much for her.”
A smile played at the corners of Josh’s mouth. “I’ll share Coco with her. That might help.”
“I’m sure it will,” Sophie agreed. “I should be taking some food back for our supper.”
“Just take the pot,” Arty said. “There’s about enough for two people left in it.”
“And the chocolate cake, too,” Filly said. “We’ve all had our fill of it, and tomorrow, I want to make dumplings.”
“I’ll help you carry it,” Josh offered.
“Thank you, again, for everything.” Sophie stood and picked up the pot of chowder.
Josh cut off a piece of cake. “Something for my midnight snack,” he said and then set the rest of the loaf of bread on the empty end of the cake pan. “I like chocolate cake and a glass of good cold milk before I go to bed.”
“Me too,” Sophie said. “Thank y’all for saving some supper for us.”
Filly waved her away with a flick of the wrist. “We’re family. We take care of our own.”
“Have you and Em been friends for a long time?” Josh followed behind her with the cake and bread in his hands.
“We were inseparable until we were about twelve years old.” Sophie stepped up onto the porch. “Then she had tutors that came to the house to educate her, and I stayed in public school. The first semester of college we saw each other some, but I hadn’t actually seen her in more than a decade until today. She went to one college and I went to another, and they were only about fifty miles away from each other, but she went home after the first semester.”
“I hope she finds peace here,” Josh said.
Peace might be stretching her expectations for Emma. If she could just gain a little self-confidence and be like the little girl that Sophie had known all those years ago, that would be a great start.
“So do I.” Sophie opened the door and went straight to the short bar separating the kitchen from the living area. “Supper has arrived, Em,” she called out as she set the pot of chowder down. Josh handed the pan in his hands off to Sophie, bobbed his head in a quick goodbye, and was out the door before Emma made it to the kitchen.
“I haven’t had chocolate cake in forever,” Emma said. “Oh!” Her voice showed more emotion than it had all day. “A cat! Can I pet it?”
“Yes, you can pet her. She’s very tame. Her name is Coco, and she loves attention,” Sophie answered. “Did Victoria ever let you have a pet? I remember that you always said you wanted a cat when we were kids.”
Emma dropped down on her knees and picked up the cat, hugged her to her chest, and kissed her on top of the head. “I love cats, but Mother says they shed all over everything, and she said that I’m probably allergic to them anyway.”
“Well, we don’t care if Coco sheds, and you aren’t sneezing, so I don’t think you’ve got an allergy,” Sophie said. “Coco brings us all so much joy that we’ll gladly brush the cat hair off the sofa or run the vacuum over the carpet. Out here in the boonies, you can enjoy her all you want. You want some chowder? It’s been hours since you had lunch.”
“We had a snack up near Odessa when you stopped for gas,” Emma reminded her. “I’d rather have a piece of that cake right now.”
Sophie cut off a big slab and plopped it down on a paper plate. “We don’t have a table, so do you want to eat it on the bar or sitting right there on the floor?”
Emma’s eyes showed a faint bit of light. “Right here on the floor, and after I eat it, maybe I will have some chowder.”
“Remember that old saying about life being short?” Sophie got misty-eyed at the idea of Emma getting so excited over chocolate cake.
“Eat dessert first,” Emma finished the old adage. “I should sketch those words in fancy lettering and make a plaque to hang on my wall if I ever get a tiny house.”
“Sounds like a plan to me, but first you have to pick up some brushes or at least crayons,” Sophie said.
Emma held her plate above the cat’s head and took the first bite. “This is so danged good. When I was in college, I ate whole boxes of chocolate cupcakes, but they didn’t taste like this. I remember when Rebel let us have a picnic on a quilt one time. We had peanut butter sandwiches, and Rebel had brought chocolate cupcakes that she’d made. They tasted like this, but I felt guilty later. You never came back to my house again. Mother said that Rebel left because she didn’t like me. I asked her what I’d done so I could apologize, but she just gave me one of those looks and said that I drove her best housekeeper away. For weeks afterward, when she was interviewing women, she would tell me that it was all my fault that she had to take time to find another one. I was careful to never make friends with another housekeeper again.”
“Oh, honey.” Sophie tried to take in Emma’s rambling that jumped from cupcakes to housekeepers, and just the idea that her friend wasn’t thinking straight put tears in her eyes. “That’s not the reason we left, and you did nothing wrong. Your mother thought your father was having an affair with my mother. Mama tried to tell her it wasn’t true, that she would never do that, but Victoria wouldn’t listen and told her to get out.”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears, too. “I’m sorry. I always thought Rebel was sent away because of me. Why would Mother do that?”
“You don’t have to apologize. You and I did nothing.” Another wave of guilt washed over Sophie for not trying harder to stay in touch with her friend. She was beginning to think maybe Rebel was right about Victoria driving Emma crazy so that she could have attention for taking care of a delicate child. That didn’t sound like her, though. She didn’t want to take care of anyone but herself. She would have an agenda, but what could she gain by treating Emma like she did? Why would a mother do that to her own child?
“Mother told me once that she had never wanted children. Maybe she was ashamed of me because I wasn’t strong like her,” Emma said.
“I wouldn’t know about that, but you are going to get strong while you’re here,” Sophie said. “How’d your conversation with her go? I guess not well, since you murdered your phone.”
“She said she was sending Jeffrey to bring me home. I told her that I was staying right here. I’ll need to use the house phone or yours to call her each night. She gets really angry if I don’t call, and she’s horrible when she’s mad,” Emma said.
“You can use anything that’s here anytime you want, but why did you destroy your phone?” Sophie brought her cake to the living room and sat down across from Emma.
“Because it has a tracker app on it so she can see where I am every minute. I skipped out on a therapist visit a long time ago and spent the day in the park,” Emma explained between bites. “I just wanted some time to sit and think without her telling me what to do and when to do it. That was the last time I got to go off on my own. I’m ready to get well, or at least I think I am.”
“You don’t really have to call Victoria every night unless you want to,” Sophie said.
Emma thought about that for a while and then shook her head. “I don’t guess I do.”
“That’s up to you,” Sophie said. “And you can use either of the phones anytime you want. I talked to my mother tonight, too, but I’ll have to call Teddy tomorrow.”
“Why?” Emma was still working around the idea of not talking to Victoria every evening.
“Because of the time difference. Over in France, it’s about seven hours later than it is here,” Sophie answered. “I’ll call in the morning when it’s just early afternoon there.”
“Are you going to marry him?” Emma polished off the last of her cake. “We always said we
would be married to our art, not a man.”
“We were just kids back then,” Sophie said, “and neither of us had much in the way of a positive outlook when it came to marriage, but Teddy and I might never get married. We don’t need a marriage license to know that we are committed. We’ve been together for ten years. We love each other, and we’re fine the way we are.”
Besides, he deserves someone a whole lot better than I can ever be, Sophie thought.
Emma shivered. “I’m never getting married, but when I build my tiny house, I want a cat.”
“Then you’ll have one,” Sophie said.
Chapter Three
Sophie awoke the next morning at dawn, made a hasty trip to the bathroom, and then pulled on a pair of denim shorts under her ragged nightshirt. She stopped in the kitchen long enough to put on a pot of coffee, peeked into Emma’s bedroom door to find Coco curled up beside her, and then eased out the front door. No one was up and around yet, so she quickly unloaded all her painting supplies into the living room and then called Teddy.
“Hey, my gorgeous girl. I love you, and I miss you, too,” he said.
“Hey, right back at you,” Sophie said.
“I miss you so much, darlin’. I feel like half of my heart is in Texas with you, but we’ll be together soon. Hey, I just got confirmation five minutes ago that everything is now in London and will be stored in a climate-controlled room until the showing.”
“Thank God,” Sophie said. “I always rest easier when I know the art has arrived.”
“Don’t worry, darlin’. It’s all there, and nothing can go wrong now. In a few months everyone in Europe will be itching to buy your paintings. So, how are things in the desert?” he asked. “You always do your best work when you’re in that area. We should retire there someday.”
“I’d love that,” she said.
“Got to go. The assistant is waving me in to talk to this gallery owner. Wish me luck,” Teddy said.
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