The Objects of Her Affection

by Sonya Cobb

  11.It’s not a burden for me to have the kids, I like spending time with them. And believe it or not, I do know what I’m doing.

  Sophie came home for the weekend so Brian could go on his ride. Entering the house as a visitor felt odd. It smelled different; not bad, necessarily, just not familiar: a combination of rubber, fabric softener, and toast. She busied herself putting away some CDs that had been left on the coffee table and putting the armchairs back at right angles with the rug.

  “Look, Mommy. I can tie my shoes,” Lucy said, untying them so she could demonstrate. “Watch.” Her chubby fingers worked the laces slowly, struggling to keep a loop pinched between the fingers of each hand and then to tie the loops in a knot. One hand was always losing its grip on one of the loops, though, so she had to keep starting over.

  “That’s the hard way, honey,” Sophie said, reaching for the laces. “Just make one loop, like this, then wrap the string around and push it through.”

  “That’s not how Daddy does it.”

  “I know, but it’s easier. Here, try it.”

  “No.” Lucy yanked her foot away from Sophie’s hands and started over with the double loops. “I can do it. Watch.”

  Sophie watched for a while, clenching her hands to stop herself from grabbing the laces. But every time Lucy fumbled, her fingers became more frantic, and her face turned a deeper shade of scarlet, until finally Sophie said, “Why don’t I hold that loop,” which caused Lucy to rip off her shoe, throw it across the room, and scream,

  “NOOOOO! I can do it when Daddy’s here!”

  Sophie stood up and went into the kitchen, where she stood for a moment, hands flat against her belly, taking deep breaths through her nose. It has to get worse before it gets better, she reminded herself. But just how much worse could it get? She noticed that Brian had hung up an old dish towel she had long ago consigned to the rag pile. She shook her head and replaced it with a clean one, then opened the fridge. Fluorescent colors blared from the shelves. She picked up a “yogurt on the go” package and read the ingredients, then tossed it into the trash. She studied a package of lunch meat. Nitrates and nitrites. She threw it away, along with a bottle of juice cocktail, a jar of maraschino cherries, and an assortment of individually packaged puddings. She slammed the refrigerator door and went upstairs.

  She surveyed the kids’ rooms with a prick of disappointment. The house was actually neat; the kids’ bedding was clean. She peeked into Elliot’s dresser. His clothes were folded, but completely mixed up: socks and underwear in the same drawer as T-shirts, pants sandwiched between sweatshirts and pajamas. How could anyone find anything? She pulled out all the clothes and began sorting them properly, feeling her thoughts slow down as she worked. Some of the pants were definitely too small. She made a pile to go to Goodwill, and made a mental note to get some more next time she was at Target.

  Upstairs, their own bedroom—Brian’s bedroom—was also clean. The bed had been stripped; a pile of clean sheets sat folded at the foot of the mattress, polite and cruel. Sophie sat on the edge of the bed and held the square stack in her lap. The sheets smelled like chemical sunshine and baby powder. She set them aside and lay down, her cheek against the mattress, and breathed in all that she could find of Brian, and herself, and their tangled togetherness. It was ghostly but still recognizable, like an old photograph bleached by the sun. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time she and Brian had woken up together in this ginkgo-dappled room, the morning before she called Agent Chandler, before she made her rambling confessions and packed her bags. But those final, innocent hours were a blur. She hadn’t thought to savor the last moments of being loved, to memorize their texture and shape. She ran her hands over the mattress, and then she let go, allowing all her fear and regret and embarrassment and grief to pour down the satiny mounds and puddle in the mattress’s tufted depths.

  After a while she got up, dried her cheeks, and opened the windows. The air was just beginning to crisp; the ginkgo leaves had taken on a faint golden cast. Sophie stood at the window for a moment, tasting the breeze, then went downstairs and pulled the discarded food out of the kitchen trash. She washed off the packages, dried them, and arranged them on the refrigerator shelves. Then she collapsed on the couch with Lucy and Elliot, who crawled into the spaces under her arms.

  ***

  That night, after putting the kids to bed, Sophie poured herself a glass of wine and pulled out the composition notebook.

  1.Elliot needs bigger pants; I’ll pick some up at Target.

  2.I think the earlier bedtime is a good idea.

  3.I tried to read “Charlotte’s Web” to them tonight, but they wouldn’t let me because they said you do it better.

  4.I got a big freelance job from one of my old clients. Three months on retainer. Yay.

  5.The house looks great. You’re obviously doing fine without me.

  6.I know my biggest mistake was not coming to you when I first realized we were in trouble. It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I just felt responsible, and embarrassed, and I thought I could handle everything. It has been pointed out to me that I am a control freak.

  7.I also realize that on some level, I created the problems between us, or aggravated them, to justify what I was doing. You didn’t stand a chance.

  8.I’m sure the museum will realize you had nothing to do with any of this. They have to.

  9.I’m just so sorry.

  10.I miss you.

  11.Phone call.

  Brian’s response came the following Friday.

  1.Thanks for getting Elliot pants.

  2.The museum would feel a lot better about things if they could get their stuff back.

  ***

  The trial was fast approaching, and Sophie managed her nervousness by plunging into work. A large hospital was reorganizing its website: an unruly collection of mismatched pages and microsites administered by marketing managers scattered throughout the organization’s network. The agency had asked for her exclusive availability during the next three months so that she could respond to changes and join conference calls at a moment’s notice. The job fit her suddenly empty schedule perfectly. Carly was working on-site at another agency, so she let Sophie use her home equipment—a setup as luxurious as anything else in the condo, with four high-res monitors, Mac and PC towers, an assortment of laptops, and an external hard drive array. In the evenings, after dinner, Carly would help her puzzle through awkward stretches of code, and the two of them would work late into the night, drinking wine and talking in the blue and green glow of the machines.

  “I guess I should start looking at apartments,” said Sophie late one night, saving her files and shutting down the computer.

  “Did Brian say that?” Carly was sitting on the love seat in the office, a laptop on her bony knees.

  “No. But he’s not showing any signs of wanting to fix things. For all I know, he’s planning to stay mad at me forever. You can’t blame him, really.”

  “Well…” Carly typed a few more words, then snapped her laptop shut. “He has a lot to be mad about. But I wouldn’t go signing a lease any time soon.”

  “I can’t stay here forever.”

  “Just give it a little while longer.”

  “And do what in the meantime?”

  “What you’re doing. Work.”

  “But what about Brian? What should I do? Should I suggest couples therapy? I thought maybe I could go to a few appointments first, check it out—”

  Carly threw a throw pillow at her. “Can you stop? Can you just stop and be passive for once in your damn life? Wait for him.”

  “But this is all my fault. I have to do something. What if I wait and wait and nothing happens?”

  “Wait. For. Him.”

  Sophie hugged the pillow. “You’re so bossy.”

  “I’m so right.”
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  ***

  Carly didn’t say she couldn’t go see Harry. Agent Chandler cleared her for one more visit, and she went to the detention center on the pretext of making Harry talk. She didn’t expect him to tell her anything, really; she just felt an intense need to see him, to make sure he was all right, to try to figure out why she still cared.

  When Harry was brought into the visiting room, Sophie’s stomach clenched. He’d lost weight; his skin seemed slack. She could read a full account of his ordeal in his eyes, brow, and hollow cheeks. “Harry,” she pleaded. “Why are you letting this happen to you?”

  But Harry wouldn’t answer this, or any of her other halfhearted questions about his client, or about his mule-headed refusal to make a deal. Finally Sophie sank back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, which was veined with exposed cables and ductwork. “Did you just see me as someone you could use?” she asked finally. “Were we ever friends?”

  “If we were friends, would I be here?”

  Sophie snapped her head upright; it was the first time she’d heard Harry speak since he’d called her a bitch at the tavern. “You didn’t really give me a choice,” she said. “You were trying to force me to do something…”

  “To help me. To save my ass.”

  “You didn’t exactly come to me like a friend in need, hat in hand. You threatened me. You were so mean to me.”

  “Yeah, well, what can I say; I learned from the best.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sophie thought for a moment. “Your father?”

  Harry shrugged. There was color in his cheeks now.

  “You can’t use your shitty father as an excuse,” Sophie said. “You’re your own person.”

  “Like you?” Harry sneered.

  It was Sophie’s turn to flush. “Yes, like me! I’ve tried hard to be different…to do the right thing for my kids.”

  “Oh really.” Harry was coming to life now. He sat up and leaned toward Sophie across the table. “Come on. Admit it, love. You enjoyed yourself.”

  “No!”

  “It fills a hole, right? That feeling of power, that glorious ‘fuck you’ to the universe. Looking out for yourself, doing what has to be done, taking care of business. It’s delicious.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Listen, love. The sooner you admit this about yourself, the better. Then you either embrace it”—Harry gestured toward himself with a flourish—“or control it. But you’d best not ignore it.”

  Sophie ran her hand along the cool edge of the steel table that separated them. This was not the conversation she had come here to have. She didn’t need to hear Harry’s thoughts on her character; as if he were one to judge! “Look,” she said. “I want you to know how sorry I am. My intention—honestly—was for you to make a deal so they could put your guy away and we could both get on with our lives. You’re the one who isn’t playing along. But Chandler told me the maximum sentence is forty months, so don’t worry—”

  “I’m not worried,” Harry laughed. “I’ll still have a shred of honor left when I get out. It’s snitches who have trouble sleeping at night.”

  “That’s what this is about? Honor among thieves?”

  “My dad worked too hard to build this business for me to tear it down. I have to protect his name as well as my own.”

  “What business? How deep into this are you?”

  Harry snorted. “What business. Our business! You—me—our arrangement. It was really starting to come together. I was finally getting to a point where I could make my dad proud. Or at least, less infuriated.”

  “Your dead dad.”

  Harry balled up his fists and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Yes.”

  “The one who poured silver polish on your head.”

  “Do me a favor and stop coming here, okay? Just stop. You’ve got your life back, now go live it.”

  A guard appeared by Harry’s side; their time was up. Sophie watched him being led away, and felt their friendship—imagined or real—turn to mist in the stale air. Check Harry off the list, she thought bitterly. Just one more person who wouldn’t care if she disappeared from the face of the earth. Harry was behind bars, and for whatever reason, he seemed determined to stay there. But Sophie was entirely, terrifyingly free.

  ***

  As a cooperating witness, Sophie wasn’t allowed to attend Harry’s trial, so on the day she was summoned to testify she felt like someone intruding on a sensitive conversation. Fifteen or twenty people sitting in the gallery paused and shifted on their benches to watch as she entered behind the bailiff. On the left side of the courtroom the jurors, who had the soft, sunken look of people who have spent a long time in their chairs, regarded her with dull expressions. She took her place in the front of the room, facing Harry. He wouldn’t look at her, and for this she was grateful.

  She’d never liked speaking in front of groups; the judge, a drily authoritative woman whose black hair was pulled tight with a bow clip, ordered her many times to repeat her answers more clearly into the microphone. Sophie spoke haltingly, her mind slow to find the right words. It had probably been a mistake to come without an ally; the gallery seemed to radiate hostility. She imagined that one of the men sitting in the front row, arms crossed, must be Jeffrey. She also recognized Hilda Ross, the museum’s head of collections, and behind her, Marjorie.

  As Sophie’s story emerged, painstakingly plucked out of her with the tweezers of jurisprudence, she enjoyed no confessional release, no soothing balm of truth. Instead, she felt herself being slowly transformed from cooperating witness into defendant. She joined Harry in his small, stuffy cell, walled in by the gray cement of people’s revulsion, incredulity, and scorn. As she recalled each object—the little snuffbox, the wavy-haired dog, the proud tazza—she was struck, simultaneously, by the smallness of her crime and the enormity of her transgression. She had stolen from an institution whose sole purpose was to protect and share the work of artists. The fact that her crime was ultimately considered petty by the criminal justice system made her feel even worse.

  Bringing up the mirror probably wouldn’t have changed the case much in the eyes of the law, but in the eyes of the museum it would have made Brian and his colleagues seem like criminals on a whole other level. If Harry was right about the mirror—if it really was a Jamnitzer, or even a successful copy of a Jamnitzer—the department would be considered beyond negligent…not just for having overlooked a Renaissance masterpiece, but for letting it get thrown into a jumble of objects on a storage cart, then left in an office to be pocketed by a sleep-deprived spouse. Brian’s job was already hanging by a thread. Bringing up the mirror would only make things worse.

  When she was finally released from the courtroom, Sophie rushed outside into the chilly autumn air, eager to get back to Carly’s condo so she could strip off her uncomfortable black tights and slip between the cool sheets of the guest bed, where she planned to spend at least the next twelve hours. But before she could cross the street she heard a familiar voice calling after her.

  “Wait,” Marjorie said, still pulling on her coat, a square purse dangling from one hand. “I want to talk to you.”

  Sophie winced. “Hi, Marjorie.”

  “I need you to explain how you can just walk out of here.”

  Sophie wasn’t sure if Marjorie was asking about her conscience, or the law. “I was a cooperating witness. I helped them catch a bigger fish in exchange for immunity.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. You’re a criminal. You should be locked up!” Marjorie hitched her purse over her shoulder. “It’s disgusting, what you did. Making us look so…unprofessional.”

  Part of Sophie wanted to turn and walk away from this. Marjorie had never given her the time of day; why did she deserve an explanation? But she decided to accept this fresh punishment. “I’m sorry. If it matters, I didn’t do it to hurt
the museum, or you, or anyone.”

  Marjorie didn’t seem to hear. “Anyway, I don’t see how that dealer is important enough to let you go scot-free. Come on. What about the objects? Where are they?”

  “That’s what the FBI is trying to find out. That’s why they’re squeezing Harry. He’s supposed to tell them where the stuff is, but he won’t talk.”

  Marjorie waved her hand at this. “Regardless, you belong behind bars. Look at you. You don’t even care.” Marjorie lifted one side of her upper lip. “You got away with it. You’re smug!” She jerked her chin in Sophie’s direction, then turned and marched away.

  “I am not smug!” Sophie shouted after her, adding, “I feel terrible!” But Marjorie kept walking, her broad shoulders and thick neck stiff with indignation.

  Sophie walked slowly to Rittenhouse Square, where she found herself drawn to the bench where she’d seen that homeless woman months ago. Scot-free, Marjorie had said. Where did that expression come from, anyway? Sophie sat down, her body heavy with exhaustion. It was basically true, she thought; she was free to start a new life. Free to disappear.

  Was this how her mother had felt, after Randall’s funeral? Hollowed out by guilt, a numb husk, ready to sail off on the wind? Had she thought about her daughter, who was wrapped in her own confused grief, before setting off? Or had she flipped a switch in her mind? Sophie knew how that switch worked; she’d always done it right before a move. Letting go of her school, her friends, her favorite bike routes. Putting the car into reverse, backing out of her life. She knew how to do it: start fresh and unfettered. No weight of responsibility, no need to control other people, no more secrets bogging her down.

  People were always asking why she didn’t try to find her mother. Hire a detective, they always said. Search public records. But Sophie knew her mother didn’t want to be found. She felt this, now, more keenly than ever: Maeve didn’t want to be taken care of, and she certainly didn’t want to take care of anyone else.

  Sophie looked up into the reddening branches above her head. She’d once heard that a tree was a natural fractal: a pattern that keeps making smaller and smaller copies of itself. There was so much of Maeve in her, and now she saw so much of herself in Lucy. But if she quietly backed out of Lucy’s life—could she break the cycle? Elliot, too, would probably be better off—free to become his own person, without her meddling influence. He was such a fine person. More like Brian, really, than like Sophie. Patient, loving, and kind. Innocent.