Saving Sofia

by Linda Seed

  She thought about getting dressed and escaping through the little window above the toilet, but she was unlikely to fit. Besides, it was snowing.

  Just one more day, that was all she had to get through. One more day.

  She might have made it, too, if it hadn’t been for Patrick’s gift.

  They’d finished breakfast and were gathered at the tree for the gift exchange. The Connelly kids presented their mother and father with their gifts, followed by much oohing and aahing and thank-yous and hugs. Sean gave Ethan a new iPhone, and Ethan gave Sean a cashmere scarf. Fiona’s kids ripped open a stack of gifts, leaving snowdrifts of torn wrapping paper on the carpet.

  Then Patrick brought out his gift for Sofia.

  It was the size of the box that undid her: a two-inch cube, suitable for pretty much only one thing—a ring.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  Sofia wasn’t the only one who’d assumed what was in the box. As soon as Patrick brought out the tiny package, his mother said, “Oh, Patrick!” Other members of the Connelly family followed up with “Oh ho!” and “Oh, my God! Patrick!”

  Patrick himself looked confused about all of the excitement, but he pressed on gamely. He held out the box to Sofia and said, “I hope you’ll like it.”

  Sofia stared at the box and then at the people around her. This family. This perfect, complete family.

  And she knew she couldn’t do it.

  “Patrick … I’m sorry.”

  She got up, rushed up the stairs, and went to pack.

  He could have yelled. He could have argued with her. He could have told her she was being ridiculous, or demanded an explanation.

  But Patrick didn’t want to do any of those things. All he wanted was to help her through whatever it was she was feeling.

  He knocked gently on the door to the room they’d been sharing before opening it a crack and peering inside.

  “Sofia? Are you okay?”

  “I have to go. I’m sorry.” She was stuffing clothes and toiletries into her suitcase without bothering to fold anything. “Will you apologize to your family for me? They’re going to hate me now, I’m sure, but …” She left the thought hanging.

  “Nobody’s going to hate you.” He came more fully into the room. “Sofia …” He put a hand on her arm, and she didn’t shake it off. He guessed that was something.

  “I have to go home,” she said.

  “Just … wait a minute.” When she stopped what she was doing and looked at him, he pulled her into his arms and held her, stroking her hair. She clung to him for a moment, then she let go and went back to packing.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he said.

  “No. Please. No.” She shook her head. “Do they have Uber out here? Or do I need to get a cab? I can—”

  “I’ll drive you to the airport.”

  “I can manage myself. I need … I just want to be by myself.”

  “Okay, then take the rental car.” He found the keys on his bedside table and handed them to her. “I have plenty of people who can drive me to the airport.”

  “Thank you.” She took the keys from him. The way her eyes shimmered, he thought for a moment that she might cry. He’d never seen her do that, but it seemed like she might. Instead, her expression hardened and she went back to packing.

  “You might not be able to get a plane ticket on Christmas Day,” he said. “Let me check online and see before you go.”

  “I’m going now.” She zipped up her suitcase and lifted it.

  “Let me take that for you.” Patrick reached for the suitcase.

  “No. Please. No. Just let me do it.” She pushed past him and headed for the door.

  He was hurt and bewildered, but he let her go. If it had been anyone but Sofia, he would have thought this was the end—that the relationship was over. But it was Sofia, so that thought never occurred to him. The two of them, what they had, seemed so inevitable that he wasn’t worried about their future. He was only worried about her.

  “Sofia. If you have to go, then go. But take a minute first. I don’t want you out there on the icy roads upset. You’re not used to driving in this kind of weather, and if you’re preoccupied …”

  That seemed to get through to her. “You’re right. But I’ll be okay. The roads have been plowed, and the rental car has good tires. I’ll drive slowly, and if I have any trouble, I’ll pull over. I promise.”

  She sounded rational, and now that Patrick considered it, she didn’t seem especially emotional. She was just determined to leave here as soon as possible.

  “Call me when you get to the airport.” He wanted to kiss her goodbye, but he could see that she didn’t want that. Instead, he opened the bedroom door and held it for her so she could maneuver her suitcase through the doorway.

  “I will. Patrick … I’m sorry.”

  She went downstairs and out the front door before he could say anything else.

  He’d held it together remarkably well when Sofia was still in the house. Now that she’d left, he realized how little restraint he had remaining for his family.

  “Patrick! What happened? Where did Sofia go?” Aileen demanded when he came downstairs.

  It was hard enough dealing with everything that had happened without also having to explain it to his mother. “I’m going out.” He took his coat off the hook by the door.

  “But, honey, it’s Christmas morning! And we’re still opening our gifts, and—”

  “Mom, I just can’t right now.” He’d never used that tone with her before, and she looked stricken. He could deal with the guilt of that later. Right now, he needed space. He needed to clear his head.

  He went outside and began walking.

  28

  During the drive to the airport, Sofia had worried that Patrick might be right—it might be impossible to get a flight on Christmas Day. But that turned out not to be the case. The airport was noticeably less busy than usual, probably because every sane person who celebrated the holiday was at home enjoying their day.

  Because Sofia did not, at the moment, qualify as a sane person, she was here. And she was able to book a flight with no trouble—though she did have to pay a whopping fee to change her reservation.

  Still, her departure time was more than two hours away. That meant she had plenty of time to sit around and think about what she’d done and why she’d done it.

  Maybe later she would look into her own heart and see the real reasons for her actions. But not right now, as she sat in a molded plastic chair under fluorescent lighting and waited for her flight to be called. Now, she blamed Patrick.

  What the hell was he thinking, trying to give her a ring? Because that was almost certainly what was in that tiny box. What else could it be? What else would have had his family gasping in pleased surprise?

  He knew she was having trouble getting through the holidays. He knew that meeting his family was hard for her. And yet he’d raised the stakes even further, raised the tension until it was inevitable that something would break.

  That something had turned out to be Sofia.

  How clueless was he about what was going on in her head that he would pull such a stunt at the worst possible time?

  “God, men are idiots,” she murmured.

  Except, Patrick didn’t actually seem like an idiot, and he didn’t seem clueless about her emotions. If he had been, he’d have blown up at her when she’d left so abruptly, hurting both his feelings and his mother’s.

  And hadn’t a part of her wanted him to blow up? Because that would have made things so much easier. Then she could have made this all about him. She could have broken up with him on the spot and made it about his reaction to what she’d done.

  But he hadn’t, so now there was no way to avoid the truth of the matter: he’d been gracious and caring, and she’d been the one who was irrational and needlessly cruel.

  And he’d wanted to marry her.

  The inevitability of that idea was what had fr
ightened her so thoroughly. Part of her—a substantial part—thought that of course they were going to be married eventually. And something about that—something inextricably linked to her grief over her parents—had made her feel like a rabbit with its foot caught in a metal trap. In her panic and her fear, she’d gnawed off her own foot to get away.

  She wanted a life with him, so much. But it was a gift she just couldn’t accept.

  She pulled out her phone, texted him that she’d arrived safely at the airport, then turned off the phone. If he responded, she didn’t want to read what he had to say. It would be too hard to resist him if she did.

  By the time Patrick got back to the house more than an hour later, his family had dispersed, leaving the partially opened gifts exactly as they’d been when he’d left. He imagined they’d all been talking about him, but that was okay. He’d have done the same thing in their place.

  He walked up the stairs feeling tired, as though his limbs weighed twice as much as they should have. He felt like he’d aged several years in the past hour.

  Merry Christmas to him.

  He went into the guest room, lay down on the bed, and closed his eyes. When he heard a knock on the door, he was certain it had to be his mother. Instead, Fiona poked her head into the room.

  “Can I come in?” In true Fiona style, she didn’t wait for the answer. She’d never been the type to wait for permission for anything.

  The mattress sagged beside him as Fiona sat down on the bed.

  “I guess she just wasn’t ready to get engaged,” she said softly.

  Patrick’s eyes flew open. “Engaged? What are you talking about?”

  “What am I talking about? What are you talking about?” She gaped at him. “You mean there wasn’t a ring in that box?”

  He sat up. “A ring? What? No! Why would I give her a ring when we’ve only been seeing each other for four months?”

  “Oh, boy.” She explained to him what he’d been missing up to this point: that Sofia had run like hell because she’d thought Patrick was about to propose. “You brought her to meet the family—which is a lot to deal with on its own—and then you were about to spring a ring on her. Jesus.”

  “I was not about to spring a ring on her,” he insisted.

  “Well, that’s what she thought you were about to do. It’s what all of the rest of us thought, too.”

  “But—”

  “On top of all of that, she’s pregnant.”

  “What?!” Patrick leaped off of the bed. “She is? She told you that?”

  “No, she didn’t tell me that.” Fiona waved away the question. “But she was feeling dizzy this morning and she had no appetite. Dizzy and sick in the morning, Patrick? You’re a smart guy. You do the math.”

  “Oh, God.” Suddenly, Patrick was the one feeling dizzy and sick.

  Sofia’s flight came in late on the afternoon on December twenty-fifth. She didn’t have a car at the airport in San Jose—they’d taken Patrick’s—so she had to rent one for the three-hour drive to Cambria.

  By the time she walked in her front door pulling her suitcase behind her, she was exhausted physically and emotionally, so she was in no mood to field a barrage of questions.

  It seemed unlikely she would be able to avoid it, though. She came in to find her sisters in their pajamas on the sofa, eating popcorn and watching It’s a Wonderful Life. As one, they stared at her in shock while James Stewart insisted that he would never marry the young and dewy Donna Reed.

  “What are you doing here?” Benny demanded.

  “Uh oh,” Martina said.

  Bianca snatched up the remote from the coffee table and turned off the TV. “Where’s Patrick? Did somebody die?”

  “Nobody died.” Sofia dragged her suitcase across the threshold and closed the door behind her.

  “You’re not due home for two more days. Why are you here if nobody died?” Martina asked.

  Sofia wanted to tell them what she’d done and why. She wanted to tell them not to worry about her; that she’d made a decision and followed through on it, and she was willing to accept the consequences.

  But she was too drained, too used up. Instead, she simply went into her room and closed the door.

  If she’d thought that was going to put them off, she was wrong. Within moments, the three of them were standing outside the door, calling to her.

  Martina: “Sofia? Are you okay?”

  Benny: “Get the hell out here, or at least open the door. This is stupid.”

  And Bianca, to the other two: “Maybe we should leave her alone. She’ll tell us when she’s ready.”

  Bianca, always the sensible, adult one. They must have listened to her, because Sofia could hear the three of them retreating, muttering theories about a sudden breakup, Patrick’s family scaring her away, or fruitcake-induced food poisoning.

  Of course she was going to tell them eventually, but right now, she was so tired. She climbed under her covers, still fully dressed, and waited for sleep.

  Sofia didn’t know what time it was when her sisters came into the room, but bright sunlight was shining through her window, so it had to be late morning.

  “Sofia. Get up.” Bianca, of course.

  “Leave me alone.” She pulled the covers up over her head.

  “Bullshit,” Benny said. “You’ve moped long enough. Get the hell out of bed.”

  “I’m not moping.” The fact that Sofia had the covers pulled over her head probably undercut her credibility on the subject.

  “Sofia, please? We’re worried about you,” Martina said.

  At the same time, Bianca pulled the covers away, revealing Sofia in her jeans and sweatshirt, her hair tangled around her face, her makeup from the day before smeared.

  “Well, that’s not good,” Benny remarked.

  “Come on.” Martina took Sofia’s hand and gently pulled her to a sitting position. “Let’s get you a shower, then you can tell us what happened.”

  There didn’t seem to be much point in fighting it; they would get it out of her sooner or later. Sofia took a hot shower, as she’d been ordered to do, and got dressed in clean sweatpants and a T-shirt. Then, her hair wet, she went into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Martina brought her a cup of coffee with cream and sugar, the way Sofia liked it.

  “Okay, what happened? What did he do?” Benny wanted to know.

  “He didn’t do anything,” Sofia said.

  “I told you,” Bianca said to Benny. “This wasn’t Patrick’s fault—he’s too sweet. It’s got to be his mother.”

  “It’s not his mother,” Sofia said.

  “Maybe it really was the fruitcake,” Martina speculated.

  “Would you all stop it?” Sofia wrapped one hand around the warmth of her coffee mug and rubbed her face with the other. “Nobody did anything. Or, no, that’s not true. Patrick did something. Or, he was going to do something.”

  “All right, I give up,” Benny said dryly. “What was he going to do? Sleep with a hooker? Kick a puppy? Vote Republican?”

  “He … he was going to ask me to marry him.”

  There wasn’t much that could make her sisters go silent, but that did it. They all stared at her. After a moment, Martina said, “Whoa.”

  “He asked you to marry him?” Bianca said, recovering herself.

  “No. He was going to. At least, I think he was going to. He handed me my gift, and it was a tiny, square box, and his family all started saying things like, ‘Oh, my God, Patrick!’ and ‘Oh, Patrick!’ And I just … couldn’t!”

  “So, naturally you had an adult, rational conversation with him about your needs and goals and expectations,” Bianca said.

  “I’m guessing no,” Benny said when Sofia didn’t answer. “I’m guessing she ran out of there like it was the zombie apocalypse.”

  “Pretty much,” Sofia admitted.

  “Oh, no,” Martina moaned.

  “So, wait.” Bianca perched on the edge of her sofa cushion. “You
don’t even know if he intended to propose? I mean, the gift could have been a pair of earrings, or a brooch, or … or one of those Pandora charms.”

  “It wasn’t a Pandora charm,” Benny guessed. “That man is in love, capital L, capital O, capital V, capital E. If she thinks it was a ring, it was a ring.”

  “See?” Sofia said plaintively.

  “Well … she still should have had an adult conversation about her needs and expectations,” Bianca pointed out.

  “I know I should have!” Sofia wailed. “I know! But there was just so much going on, with everyone acting like I was part of the family …”

  “The monsters,” Benny quipped.

  “ … and they probably told Patrick that I’m pregnant,” Sofia concluded.

  “Oh, shit. You’re pregnant?” Bianca said.

  “No! But they think I am, because I lied about being dizzy.”

  They were all silent for a long beat. Then Benny said, “I wish this conversation had CliffsNotes so I could read the summary and figure out what the hell’s going on.”

  Sofia slowed down and told it all from the beginning: the way his family had assumed she and Patrick were already all but engaged; the way she’d lied about being dizzy to cover for being upset; the way Patrick had sprung the tiny box on her in front of everyone, which hadn’t given her a chance to talk to him about his intentions. And then, how she’d fled the house as though she were escaping the scene of a crime.

  “So where does this leave you and Patrick?” Martina’s voice was gentle.

  “I don’t know,” Sofia moaned. “He’s probably finished with me now.”

  “He’s not finished,” Benny said. “Capital L, capital O, capital V, capital E.”

  “Well … maybe I’m finished.” She wasn’t, but she’d said it out loud just to see how it would feel. It felt like the cruelest kind of lie—the kind intended to hurt, to destroy. It felt like blasphemy to have uttered the words.