by Linda Seed
“Bianca and Benny think my father’s death was suicide, and Martina thinks it was an accident that happened because he was exhausted,” Sofia said, wrapping up that part of the story. She hadn’t yet touched on her problems with Patrick.
“And what do you think?”
“I don’t know.” Sofia looked down into her coffee to avoid Debra’s eyes.
“But you’ve got an idea,” Debra said. “What do you think?”
Sofia couldn’t say what she was really thinking. She’d never said it, possibly never would say it. The words were locked inside her mind in some dark passageway with no exit to the outside world. What she did say was this:
“I think … I think I was the last person to talk to him before he died.”
Sudden comprehension dawned on Debra’s face. “Oh, honey. You think he did it on purpose, and you think you could have said something to change his mind. Don’t you?”
Sofia didn’t answer.
“You’re wrong, Sofia. The first part, who knows? Maybe no one will ever know why it happened. But the second part? It wasn’t your fault. He didn’t do it because of you. No part of it was your fault.”
How could she know that, though? Sofia had clashed with her father often, and she’d done it again that day. She’d been angry because her mother had chosen to stop treatment when it became clear that the cancer was terminal. How had he let her do it? Why hadn’t he insisted that she keep fighting?
She’d never said Carmela’s death was his fault—not in so many words. But when he’d insisted that there had been no other choice, she hadn’t answered him. Then, when he’d said he loved her before hanging up the phone, she hadn’t said she loved him, too. She’d simply said goodbye.
Nobody knew about that—not her sisters, not anyone. If they knew, they might hate her the way she hated herself.
“I lost my son to suicide.” Debra reached out and put her hand over Sofia’s on the table. “I have to believe it wasn’t my fault, no matter what I might have said or forgotten to say.”
Sofia felt sudden shame that she hadn’t even asked—she hadn’t even thought about what kind of pain the older woman might have been experiencing. She’d been too focused on her own.
“I’m so sorry.” Tears shimmered in Sofia’s eyes, and they were the first tears—the very first—since her mother’s death. They weren’t the cry she knew she needed to have—the big, full-bodied weeping that she suspected would finally make her feel better—but they were something.
33
It wasn’t until after her conversation with Debra that Sofia could bring herself to open Patrick’s gift. She opened it alone in her room late that night. She untied the ribbon, tore the paper, and opened the tiny box.
She took out the gold chain and draped it over her hand so she could get a good look at the pendant. It was simple, classic, and lovely.
Sofia imagined Patrick choosing it for her, trying to find just the right thing. She imagined him selecting it with care. And with love.
And what had she done? She refused it and ran away. He hadn’t deserved that from her. He’d deserved so much better.
She opened the tiny clasp and put on the necklace, then looked at herself in the mirror, at the way the gold disc lay against her olive-hued skin.
Sofia sat down on the bed, picked up her cell phone from the side table, and called him.
“Thank you,” she said when he answered. “I opened your gift. It’s lovely.”
“Oh. I’m glad. You’re welcome.”
She’d wondered if she would hear anger or irritation in his voice because she’d waited so long to call him, but she heard none of that. Instead, he sounded surprised and happy to hear from her.
“I’m sorry for the way I left. For how I acted. I should have just talked to you.”
“Well,” he said, “that would have been an option.”
Warmth spread through her at the sound of his voice. Suddenly, she couldn’t remember why she’d waited so long—why she’d insisted on staying away.
“We could try it,” she said. “Just to see.”
“We could,” he agreed. “Just to see.”
She wanted to see him now, this moment, but it was late. “Maybe tomorrow?”
“I’ll see if I can clear my schedule.” He was teasing her, and she smiled.
They met at Jitters after Patrick finished with his classes. Technically, Sofia should have been at work, but when Bianca had heard that she was planning to see Patrick, she’d shooed her out of the office, claiming they could get along without her for the last couple of hours of the day. Sofia had protested, but Bianca had practically shoved her out the door.
Actually, Sofia was pleased with the way it was working out. Seeing Patrick for an afternoon coffee date was so much less pressure than seeing him in the evening, for dinner or for whatever might come after dinner. Her relationship with him had gone so far off the rails that she had to ease her way back into it.
At least, that’s what she told herself. But a big part of her didn’t want to ease back into anything. That part of her wanted to leap back into things—especially his bed. She hadn’t realized how much she missed him until she made plans to see him again. Now, she was nearly giddy with anticipation. She just hoped she hadn’t waited too long.
She hoped it wasn’t too late.
He was waiting for her at a table near the back of the room when she arrived at the coffee house. It was raining, and the place smelled of fresh-ground coffee and wet shoes. Patrick was still wearing his jacket, which was speckled with raindrops. She wondered if he’d kept it on because he was planning to make a quick exit.
He stood up when he saw her. The look on his face made the butterflies in her stomach flap their tiny wings. He looked nervous, excited—and lovestruck.
“Sofia. Hi.” He pulled out a chair for her, and they both sat.
Two steaming cups already sat on the table: a latte for him, and a mocha—her favorite—for her.
“I already ordered for you.” He nodded toward her cup. “But if you want something different …”
“No. This is great. Thank you.”
An awkward silence fell between them, and Sofia began to think this wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped.
“I wondered,” she said, “that is, I thought …” She wrapped her hands around her mug, looking into the puff of whipped cream on her mocha and not at him. “Maybe we could try again. Or, really, I would be the one trying. Because you didn’t do anything wrong. It was all me, and I—”
“Sofia.”
She stopped talking and looked at him, and what she saw in his face scared her.
“Please don’t say no.” Her voice broke a little when she said it.
“I’m not saying no.” He reached out and took her hand. “I’m saying we have to talk. Because something upset you at Christmas, and I know some of what that was, but I don’t know all of it. And I don’t know if it’s going to happen again.”
Sofia nodded. “That’s fair.”
“So? Will you talk to me? Will you tell me what happened to make you run out of there the way you did?”
She tried, but the words didn’t come.
“I want to,” she told him. “But … it’s not what I do. It’s not how I deal with things. I … I haven’t had a lot of practice.”
“So, that’s it, then? You won’t talk about it?” He looked so sad, and she didn’t like to see him looking sad.
“I didn’t say I won’t. What I’m saying is … it’s hard.”
“All right.” He nodded. “Hard’s not the same as impossible. We can deal with hard.”
She told him the story of her parents’ deaths. He already knew—he’d heard it from Bianca—but this was the first time he’d heard it from Sofia. They sat in the warm, dry café and sipped their drinks, and she talked while he listened.
That was as far as it went; just the story of how they’d died. Sofia didn’t talk about how she felt about it. She didn’t entir
ely know how she felt. Just telling him what had happened—without embellishment—made her feel a tight weight on her chest that made it hard to breathe. But it was a first step.
After she stopped talking, he took a moment to absorb what she’d told him. “I can understand why Christmas was hard for you. I mean … my God. But what was it about the gift in particular that made you run out of there? I know you thought it was a ring, but … why did that upset you so much? Is the idea of marrying me completely off the table?”
Was it? She hadn’t considered the question in exactly that way. Did she want to marry him someday, at some point? Or was it completely off the table? If it was, he deserved to know. But how could she ever tell him that, knowing what it would mean? Knowing that he’d be wise to move on and find someone else who did want a life with him?
The thought of him moving on, finding someone else, and springing a tiny box on her that actually did contain a ring made Sofia sick with despair.
“It’s … it’s not completely off the table.”
He visibly relaxed, his shoulders falling from where they’d been hovering up near his ears. “Okay. Good. That’s … that’s very good.”
Of course, Patrick could wait for marriage. Their relationship was relatively new, and Sofia obviously wasn’t ready. But when he looked at her, he saw it all: a house, kids, a dog. The two of them easing into old age together, the family gatherings, the anniversaries. And he wanted it. He wanted everything.
If she’d said it was off the table, he didn’t know if he’d have been able to walk away. He was in this too deep. But it would have gutted him. It would have tormented him.
“But if it’s not a hard no, then …” He left the question out there: Why had she run? Why had the possibility of a ring caused her to flee across the country just to avoid it?
Sofia grasped his hands on the tabletop. “Could we maybe leave it for now? I know you deserve an answer, but I just can’t. Telling you what I’ve told you … It’s all I can do right now.”
She was pleading with him. He could see that she was desperate for this conversation to be over.
So he changed the subject. Sofia’s relief was palpable, but Patrick didn’t know how to feel. They’d made progress, yes. But there was still so much she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell him. There was still a big, dark, important part of her she wouldn’t let him know.
They could let it go for now, but they couldn’t let it go forever. This would have to be resolved. Either she would let him in, or their relationship would remain stalled here, right where it was.
It wasn’t enough for Patrick to be kept locked on the other side of a door from Sofia’s most closely held emotions.
He wanted to be let in.
“So, she told me that much, but then she just shut down. As though that was all she could do. Honestly, I don’t know where that leaves us.” Patrick and Ramon were hiking on a strikingly clear Saturday morning at Fiscalini Ranch, with the smell of the ocean in the air and the sky a blue so crisp and bright it could have been painted on.
“But she said marriage isn’t off the table,” Ramon pointed out. “So that’s good.”
“Yeah, I don’t know about that.” Patrick rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “It’s clearly not on the table, either. And she still won’t tell me what she’s thinking. She told me the history—the facts about what happened to whom and when—but not a word about how she feels.”
Ramon made a scoffing sound. “Talking about feelings is overrated. I think you’re looking at this all wrong. Ask nine out of ten guys, they’ll tell you that having a relationship with a woman who doesn’t talk about feelings is like winning the freaking lottery.”
“Well … I’m the tenth guy,” Patrick said.
“Yeah. You are. And that’s your problem.”
They’d climbed the hill from the bluffs and were heading into the forest at the top of the rise. Patrick had continued working out since he’d met Sofia, and he was breathing easily, a light sheen of sweat on his skin. Four months ago, he’d have been near collapse. Just one of the many ways his relationship with Sofia had enriched his life.
“It’s not a relationship if we don’t really know each other,” Patrick concluded as they emerged onto a trail that wound through a stand of towering pines. “And right now, I feel like I don’t really know her.”
“But you said she doesn’t talk to her sisters about this stuff either, right?” Ramon asked.
“Well … that’s true.”
“Dude. She’s closer to her sisters than she is to anybody else in the world.”
“That’s true,” Patrick said again.
“Seems to me you might be low on patience and high on expectations.”
It was a surprisingly insightful observation, coming from Ramon. Patrick resolved to think about whether he might be right.
“So?” Benny had Sofia cornered in the hallway, where she couldn’t get away. “How did things go with Patrick? Are you two okay?”
“I don’t know.”
Benny scowled. “Oh, for God’s sake, Sof, you won’t even tell me that much? For the love of—”
“I’m not being evasive. I really don’t know.” Sofia had just come out of the shower, and she was wearing a fluffy bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel. Her feet were bare on the cool hardwood floor.
“Oh. How can you not know?”
Sofia shrugged. She’d been going over the same question in her mind—whether she and Patrick were okay—and she kept coming up with different interpretations of what had happened. They’d talked, and that was good. But she’d been unable to really open up to him, and that was bad. He’d asked if marriage was on the table—someday—and that was good. But she’d been visibly uncomfortable when he’d asked, and that was bad.
“There are issues,” Sofia said, as though that explained everything.
“Of course there are issues. There are always issues.” Benny waved her hands around impatiently. “The question is whether they’re issues you can deal with.”
Sofia wasn’t sure whether they were. Patrick wanted the kind of woman who could open up about her feelings, pour them all out so he could understand and dissect them. She wasn’t that kind of woman, and she wasn’t sure she could become one. She didn’t think there was anything wrong with that kind of openness, that kind of free exchange of thoughts and emotions. But she didn’t know if she could do it, even for him.
“God, Benny. I just don’t know. I don’t know if I can give him what he wants.”
“Kinky sex?” Benny said knowingly. “Maybe if you try a safe word—”
“Stop joking. This isn’t funny.”
“I know it’s not.” Benny put a soothing hand on Sofia’s arm. “If it’s any comfort, I know what the issues are. We’ve had those same issues with you since you learned to talk, and we still love you.”
Sofia swallowed hard. What would she do without her sisters? Who would she be?
“But,” Benny went on, “you might consider the idea that letting people into your little world might feel better than shutting them out. It’s gotta get lonely in there sometimes.”
34
It was getting lonely in there—very lonely—and Sofia was relieved when she and Patrick started seeing each other again. They started slowly—a dinner here, a lunch there.
Sofia was starting to despair, because it was clear Patrick was holding back. He took her home at the end of every date and chose not to come inside with her—even though she invited him in. When she asked to come back to his place, he made excuses about being tired or having to work the next day.
She knew he was protecting himself in case it didn’t work, in case she ran again. So she tried to be patient and let him take his time.
At least, that was her intention. But the patience wore thin one night after they had dinner at Robin’s. They sat in the garden with white fairy lights over their heads, and he barely spoke. He was polite—gentlemanly to a fault—but t
he tension between them was undeniable.
When he drove her home and walked her to the door, she turned to him and said, “Patrick? Are we wasting our time?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
It was a lie, and it offended her. Because no matter how much she didn’t say to him and he didn’t say to her, he’d never lied to her.
“I’m talking about the silence!” she said. “I’m talking about the … the politeness! And how you take me out but you don’t want to be alone with me. Patrick … is it over? Is that what’s happening here?”
His eyes widened, and he paled a little in the porch light. “God, no. No! Is that what you thought?”
“I don’t know what to think.” Her heart was pounding, and her face felt hot. “All I know is that I’m lonely and I want you back. I want us back.”
He looked away from her into the darkened yard. “I’m just not sure how much of an us there is, Sofia.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, and the muscles in his jaw flexed. “There’s you, and then there’s me out here trying to get through a brick wall.”
She wanted to be close to him, if not in the way he wanted her to be, then any way she could. She put her arms around him and pressed her lips to his. He was tense at first.
“Take me home with you,” she said softly, her mouth so close to his that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “Please.”
She felt it the moment he lost whatever battle he was fighting against himself. She kissed him, and he responded tentatively, holding himself in check. Then he relaxed, put his arms around her, and devoured her. The way he returned the kiss was ravenous, desperate.
“Please,” she said again.
He took her hand, led her off of the porch and to his car, and took her home with him.
Patrick had meant to keep things casual—keep Sofia at a distance—until she worked through whatever it was she needed to work through. They would date, they would talk, they would be together, but he would protect his heart until he knew which way this thing was going to go.