Sophie listenedand saw all too clearly. “Sometimes things change in life, Roger. Things have certainly changed in mine, and you have choices about how you respond to it. You told me once that your mom was upset because Catholics say listening to anyone but God is a sin. That psychics are the voice of Satan, not God. How, exactly, Roger, can she know that for sure? How can anyone? How do you know this gift I have, or the ones my family had, isn’t from God? Have you ever asked your mother that, or your priest, or yourself? I didn’t change the rules, they were changed for me, but I am trying to make the right decisions, to adjust. You’re not making it any easier.”
“I tried. I went along with the tarot reading because you said it wasn’t anything occult oriented, that you only used the images to help people talk out their problems.”
“That’s true. None of that has changed.”
“When you start saying you can read tarot cards to talk to the dead, Sophie, it does change. I’m not the best Catholic, admittedly. I curse too often, blaspheme, and I don’t get to church or confession as often as I should. But I have to hold on to the basics. The stuff I was raised on. It sees me through, and I want that for my kids. And I look at your life, at what happened to your family, and to you. . .and I – I don’t know . . .”
Her eyes shot open in shock. “Wait a damned minute. You think all of this, the murders of my family, what’s happening to me now, is punishment? Because I am a sinner? Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“Not really. I mean, no, but it’s like it’s in the back of my head. It’s how I was raised, Sophie. I mean, haven’t you ever thought the same?”
“No. So what? You thought that you were saving me?”
“Not in the religious sense, no. Don’t be ridiculous. I only-” he stopped, seeming to reach for the words.
“What?”
“I only want to make you happy. For you to have something better than what you had growing up. For our kids to have better, too.”
The words stung. He had been saving her, rescuing her. All of those times he came to the hospital, to Patrice’s house, and to the store. How he’d helped her through her surgeries, and they’d grown so close in the process. But had he ever really loved her?
She stiffened her posture, holding herself tightly at bay. “The one sure thing I know about growing up was that I was loved completely. My aunt and my father, they loved me totally and without restraint. That’s what I had growing up,” she snapped. “How can you say you want me to be happy, when I tell you what makes me happy and you reject it?”
“Sophie-”
She waved off his answer, her blood pounding in a mix of red-hot emotions that made her voice shake though she knew what she was saying was right. “You need to leave. All I ever needed was for you to love me and to believe in me. If you can’t give me that, then maybe you’re really more interested in what makes you happy, not me. Not us.”
“If that’s how you really see it, then fine. Have it your way,” he said, and pushed up from the sofa, walking out the door.
He closed it softly, but the click of the lock was like a crack down the center of her heart. She fell to her knees, her entire body throbbing as if split in half. She didn’t stop crying for a long time.
* * *
Sophie dragged herself into the shower the next morning, groaning as she noticed the red circle around the calendar on her desk.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she said to the room, as if it were responsible for the bad joke of the day.
Today, she was twenty-nine. She’d actually forgotten her own birthday.
“Whatever,” she muttered as she dried off. After her fight with Roger, she’d cried herself to sleep and hadn’t spent a moment more going through the research materials she’d brought home.
Head throbbing and no coffee in sight, she eyed the pile of research and made a decision. Coffee, then research. She hadn’t heard anything from Gabe yet either, not a good sign for their hopes of making a breakthrough with the case.
Walking down the stairs to the shop, images from the day her father had crumpled at the bottom of the steps stopped her for a moment. She could see him there, clear as day, but she knew it was a memory, nothing else. Would it always be this way, now that she remembered?
Maybe it would be smarter to leave. To go along with her original plan, as Roger wanted.
No. Who was she kidding?
Because she also remembered running the Slinky she’d wanted more than anything up and down these very steps when she was six. She remembered walking down every morning with her Dad when he took her to school, and the solid sound of his footsteps when he would come home at the end of the day. Sophie remembered when he’d shown her to run the cash register, and she recalled the warmth of his touch.
He’d always held his hand at her back as he always made her go up first, making sure she was safe, at the end of the day when the scent of whatever Aunt Doris had made for dinner suffused the hall, a warm welcome home. These steps had carried her up and down thousands of happy days, and some unhappy ones, but that one image, that one day, would not eclipse them all. She wouldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t allow anything to take those memories away, ever again. Not even Roger.
So much more good than bad here, and it was all she had left of them. How could she leave?
She hoped Margaret would understand, but she couldn’t tell her today. Sophie wasn’t up to it, not after arguing with Roger last night.
Talismans was open, and Mags was at the register ringing someone out. Sophie caught her eye and waved quickly, wanting to escape without any major conversation this morning. Right now, it was a gorgeous spring day, and Sophie headed for the diner to get some coffee.
“Hey, good morning,” she heard someone call and looked up to see Claire outside of Good Scents. Claire had her hands full, balancing several packages as she apparently tried to manipulate her keys to open the door.
“Hey,” Sophie said, rushing to help Claire with her armful, taking two bags so that she could open her door successfully.
“How are you?” Claire asked as they made their way inside the shop.
“Okay. You?”
“Managing. I took all of these promotional fliers and baskets home last night so I could get them put together for my sale this weekend, and I was up half the night getting it all done,” she said tiredly.
“It’s a lot of work for one person. It was such a godsend when I hired Margaret.”
“I bet. Maybe when things get up and running I can have someone on at least part-time,” Claire said. “I love having my own shop, but I could use a break.”
Sophie nodded, seeing the shadows under Claire’s eyes and suddenly felt like taking a break herself.
“You know, today is my birthday. Twenty-nine.”
Claire smiled. “How fun! Happy Birthday! Any special plans? Or are you waiting for the big three-oh to party?”
Sophie shook her head. “No, no plans. Actually I almost forgot, with everything going on, and I’m in a fight with Roger.” She shrugged. “There honestly isn’t anyone else I usually do anything with. I was going to go back to my apartment and work, but maybe I’ll find something else to do instead.”
Claire frowned. “You shouldn’t be alone on your birthday. The fight was so bad that your fiancé won’t come around on a special day?”
Sophie couldn’t help the sinking, sad feeling inside that probably showed on her face as well. On one hand, she didn’t know why she was telling Claire all of this, but on another, who else would she tell? She’d been laying everything on Margaret lately, and it wasn’t fair. And it was nice to talk with someone who didn’t know her whole life’s story, which probably included most of the greater Boston area after the news reports the day before.
“Yeah, it was bad. Break-up bad, I think, though he didn’t ask for his ring back, so we’ll see. I think we need some cooling off time first.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Claire said symp
athetically, crossing the space and huggedSophie like they’d known each other forever.
“Nah, it’s okay. But I do have to go get some coffee or my head is going to explode from lack of caffeine. You have a good day. Don’t work too hard.”
“Hey, wait,” Claire said, untying the knot in her smock almost as soon as she’d gotten it fastened. “Let me come with you. We keep talking about going for a coffee, and let me buy it for your birthday. A little bit of a celebration, anyway.”
“But your store. . . ?”
“You know, no one ever really comes by until afternoon anyway. I’ve been considering changing the hours from one to nine in the evening or something like that. Mornings around here are dead, though it gives me a chance to get things done. But honestly, you’re giving me just the excuse I need to take a few hours off.”
“Well, in that case, I’m happy to help,” Sophie agreed with a grin, finding she liked the idea of company more and more. “You know, drinking with someone is better than drinking alone, even if it is just coffee.”
Claire laughed. “Great! Let me put out the closed sign, and off we go.”
The two women left the shop together. “I know a nice place a few blocks over that makes good breakfasts, too,” Sophie said, but quickly added, “My treat, as well.”
“Not on your birthday!”
“Please, I want to. You’ve been so nice to me, and frankly, the last few weeks have sucked,” Sophie said, annoyed at how her throat tightened.
She choked it down and got a grip. It was a gorgeous day, and she was going out to coffee for her birthday with a new friend. The rest could wait. If nothing else, Sophie knew that life was far too short to not enjoy what was in front of you.
Over breakfast, they talked business, sharing tips and ideas, experiences and emptying two plates and several cups of coffee between them. Sophie had enjoyed the normal conversation, the absolute lack of anything having to do with murder, ghosts or men.
“So what did you do with your birthdays when you were little? My mother used to make whatever food we wanted, and we’d have a small family party. I never liked a large group,” Claire said. “The first time my parents tried to give me a big birthday party with all the kids from the neighborhood, I was seven. I locked myself in my room and stayed there.”
Sophie grinned. “They must have been very confused.”
“Yeah, they didn’t get it. It was just that some of those kids were the ones who used to tease me on the playground or at school, and I couldn’t understand why they were in my house. It was overwhelming, and so mom and dad just took me out to dinner at a favorite restaurant or we had one or two friends over after that.”
Sophie nodded. “My Dad would take me to a baseball game every year, if there was a home game. We’d stuff our faces with hotdogs and all kinds of junk food, and then my Aunt would always have a cake waiting when we got home. We lived at the store, which was so different from how other kids lived, so I never really had many kids over. One or two sometimes, but I think a lot of the time their parents didn’t know what to make of us, you know?”
“They died when you were just sixteen?”
Sophie nodded, looking out the window. “Yeah. Thirteen years now… seems like forever.”
Claire reached over, put her hand over Sophie’s and looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I brought that up. The last thing you need is one more person prying into your life.”
Sophie smiled, withdrawing her hand to lift her coffee for a sip. “It’s okay. I like talking about them,” she said truthfully. “I never realized until now how much I had forgotten, how much was buttoned up. I’ve never really talked about them too much before because no one wanted to hear it.”
“Not even Roger?”
Sophie grimaced. “He has his ideas about my family. I think if he had actually gotten to know them, he would have liked them. They were just people, good people, except for that they were psychics, but otherwise, we were just a family. But the murders, the sort of weird reputation the shop picked up since then, and now. . .I guess it’s hard for people to think of us as normal.”
“Who wants to be normal? Frogs in the bog,” Claire said with a grin.
Sophie grinned, recognizing the reference immediately. “How dreary to be Somebody! How public, like a frog,” she recited.
“Yes! You know Dickinson,” Claire said approvingly.
“Hey, Emily was a local girl, more or less,” Sophie said with a grin.
“Oh, right. Still, not many people know poetry anymore. I’m impressed,” Claire said, looking brighter and more relaxed than she had at the store. “You must have gotten your love of baseball from your Dad?”
“Yeah. It was a family requirement. Even Aunt Doris wore her Red Sox gear during playoffs,” Sophie joked, and realized with sudden clarity what she wanted to do with her day. “You know, this has been great. Thanks for the company, but I think I might go over to the park. There’s no game today, but sometimes I just like hanging out there for a bit, and it seems like a good birthday thing to do.”
“The baseball park?”
“Yeah, Fenway.”
“I would love to see it,” Claire said, and then backtracked, “I mean, unless you wanted to be alone, or are sick of my company. I don’t mean to invite myself along on-”
Sophie held up a hand, laughing, really laughing, and it felt good. “Claire! Stop apologizing. Do you know much about baseball?”
“Well, I saw some movies with baseball in them,” Claire said meekly.
Sophie groaned in mock pain. “Well, if you are going to live and work here, then you’d better learn about the Sox, especially in this part of town,” she said plainly.
“Lead on,” Claire said playfully as Sophie paid the bill, but then added, “But lunch is definitely on me.”
Sophie agreed, thinking her launch into her twenty-ninth year was turning out not to be as miserable as she’d imagined it.
“The only job I ever had outside of working at the store was one summer in high-school when I was hired to do Fenway tours,” Sophie said, leading Claire through Fenway’s bowels to stairs leading up into the stands.
“Is that how you know the guy who let us in?”
“Nah, he comes in for readings once a month, but we talk baseball a lot.”
“Ah, good to know someone who’s connected.”
“It was only the second year of tours back then, and they thought I was too young, but I knew as much as any of the trained staff. I lived and died for it back in those days. I don’t keep up lately as much as I should,” she said regretfully.
“So I can get a personalized tour today?” Claire teased with a smile.
“Absolutely,” Sophie smiled, inhaling the air and atmosphere of the park and letting it chase away any blues that clung. There was no place for them here.
They came up by some seats where the oldest major league baseball park in America spread out before them, and Sophie was gratified to hear Claire’s gasp of pleasure.
“Oh, Sophie. . .it’s magical.”
“You should be here during a game. There’s nothing like it,” Sophie said, pleased that Claire’s reaction was in keeping with her own feelings about the place.
“Up above us is The 600 Club – it used to be where the press watched the games, but now it’s fancy box seating for who can afford it. My seats are over there,” Sophie pointed to a spot just past the dugout on the first-base line. “My father had those seats his whole life, and that,” she pointed out past left field, “is the Green Monster.”
“The what?”
“The left field, fence, that tall green wall? It’s the most famous feature of the park. It was there when the original park was built in 1912, but painted green in 1947. Below it, you have one of the only remaining manual scorekeeping boards in the nation,” Sophie said proudly. “Behind is a room where you can find all the signatures of players over the years, and see the TAY and JRY?”
Claire squinted. “Uh-huh.”
“Initials of Tom Yawkey and Jean Yawkey, the owners who built the park.”
“Oh, right, I noticed the street was named after them,” Claire mentioned.
“Yes, they owned the team for seventy years.”
“Why is that seat a different color?” Claire asked about a red seat in the distance.
“C’mon, let’s go visit it, and I’ll tell you,” Sophie said, leading Claire’s way around concourse and up into the rows.
Claire looked at her with amusement crinkling her eyes. “You really are into this,” she said and Sophie grinned.
“I can’t help it. It was a special place for me as a kid, and it still is. Even the history, I feel like I was there, with the stories my Dad told. So all of this, I guess it’s my connection to him, too.”
“I think it’s sweet, and it’s nice to have something special like this that you share with your family, your roots, and where you live.”
“What about you?”
Claire smiled, sitting down in the red seat at Sophie’s invitation as some maintenance workers came out on the field.
“Nothing like this. I was adopted, actually, and my adopted parents are great, I love them, but there was always some small part of me that felt like it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I told you I grew up in Norfolk, and I love it there. The Bay, and the shipyards, the Elizabeth river. . .but I don’t know that I ever felt like it was part of me. Not like you obviously feel about this place. I always felt like I came from somewhere else, though that seems daft.”
Sophie took a deep breath. “Not daft at all. Our memories are far reaching things, I’m discovering. We have deep connections to place. Maybe you lived somewhere else, first, where you were born, and part of you remembers. Who knows?”
“Thanks, Sophie. For not thinking I’m ridiculous,” she said with a smile, but Sophie noted the strain that settled on her features, the way she suddenly began to knot her fingers, as if anxiety had to find an outlet somewhere. Why would anyone think Claire was ridiculous? It seemed like such an odd thing to say.
Past Tense Page 21