Echoes (39 page)
"Can't you? Didn't you lose her too?"
She blinked back her tears.
"Or is it worse for him because she's also the object of his obsession?"
Her hands closed into fists, but he pressed on. "Have you forgotten the pictures? His mother in the hospital?"
She paced. "Of course not."
"Then what's changed?"
She looked over her shoulder. "What are you talking about?"
"This morning you were as horrified by all of it as I am."
She expelled her breath. "You said yourself, it won't stick. And if he thinks he'll lose Carly—You should have gone home."
"I'm not leaving."
"Matt—"
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. "I'm not leaving. Even if you tell me to."
She rested her fingertips on his jaw, touched the corner of his mouth, and looked into his eyes. "Thank you."
"You don't need to."
"Sofie?" Carly's call was soft, but it may as well have been a bell clanging.
He nodded toward the bedroom. "Go ahead."
She stepped back. "I'll get a few things from my room."
"Okay. Good night." Tonight he'd be sleeping with the door open—and not just to catch someone sneaking in.
A
s Sofie showered, memories arose like the steam, a vapor she breathed and absorbed through her pores. Feeding the ducks in the rain in Central Park, Carly darting among them like a yellow-booted duckling herself, Eric stomping through puddles with her as though he'd never known the splash and abandon of wet shoes and laughter.
Eating Gray's Papaya hot dogs on the Throgs Neck Bridge in the fog. Perched on his shoulders, Carly proclaiming, "I see dolphins in the sky." And Eric trying to catch them as the fog rolled by.
The lightness of his step on the stairs coming home. Taking Carly on his knee and unraveling his day like a storybook, then hearing—entranced—their exploits while he was gone. Sofie lifted her face to the water. She had perfected the recanting of their day so that nothing alarmed, only amused, so he did not feel slighted.
"We went to the park and thought how high you could toss
Carly into the sky."
And he would glow as though he'd been there, thrilling them. Thrilling her.
Eyes closed, she remembered the first time he'd brushed the hair back from her cheek. The scent of his breath; the tremor in his hand. It was, she now admitted, not only the loss of Carly that had driven her to despair. Four years of Eric's unyielding adoration had left a terrifying void. She didn't know how to be without him, or who to be—or who she'd been before.
It was as though she'd been wiped clean and refilled. Eric's Sofie never raised her voice, soothed rising tensions with a word. Eric's Sofie never complained, never disagreed. She'd learned how to deflect his anger so that it dissipated like a vapor that only she breathed, leaving the air pure for him and for his child. And when his sunshine smile warmed her and the ice melted away, she'd been validated as never before. Sometimes her heart had felt too big for her chest, as though she could not contain the love there but had to store it up in every part of her. And he'd radiated the same.
"I have never laughed before. I have never lived before. You are
my life, Sofie. My life's breath."
It was as much the loss of him as of his daughter that had drained her desire to live. No wonder Carly couldn't be without him. No surprise she'd reached back, in spite of what she'd learned. Could she blame the child for believing Eric's love outweighed everything else?
Did it matter that its edge could slice? That its ice chilled to the marrow? The resuscitating benevolence had wiped clean every error. Except the last. She had not allowed it when he had turned his icy stare on Carly, freezing her soul with the depth of his disappointment. Sofie had stepped between them, revealed her loyalty to his child. And nothing was ever the same again.
Sofie brushed her wet hair into a ponytail, dressed and slipped out of the bathroom. She hadn't heard Matt get up, but he stood by the window with bristly jaw and tousled hair. Sweatshirt, flannel pants, long limbs, and bare feet. Even his toes were long and knuckled. She absorbed the sight of him, the strength and comfort.
He turned from the window and murmured, "Morning." His voice had an endearing sleepy coarseness.
She smiled painfully. "I didn't know you were up."
"Just."
She joined him at the window, slid her hand into his and looked into his eyes, eyes that had told her so much the first time she'd seen him. He was a wonderful man, not at all the person he feared he might be. She wanted him to know that. She raised her chin, but he dragged his palm down his cheek.
"I'm rough."
She didn't care. She drew his face down and kissed him. Seconds stretched as his arms enclosed her and their mouths communicated everything they couldn't say.
Be strong. Forgive me
. Her spirit quaked. She drew back and touched her chin made tender by his whiskers.
"Sorry."
She looked once more into his eyes.
Don't be
. "I'm going to church. Will you stay with Carly?"
"Let's have some coffee."
She shook her head. "I have to go."
"It's not even Sunday. I don't think missing one day—"
She reached up and touched his lips. "I want to." It was not what she'd intended, but things had gone beyond her control. And who knew what God intended? Who could presume to know? What she hadn't forgotten was that she owed Him a life. She had tried to throw it away and He'd restored her. She had lain in pain, begging
Why?
But now she knew. It was hers, still, to plead for Carly.
Matt said nothing as she walked out. There was nothing he could say. She went downstairs and out the door as she'd done so many times. Most mornings she'd tagged along with Lance and Nonna, no one else sacrificing the last of their sleep to go to church before school or work. But they three had needed God's touch on their day.
She wished she could glean the anticipation, the hope she'd found in the morning ritual. But she felt alone. Was Matt right that everything came down to doing right for society or an individual? If there was no arbiter but herself, her heart and mind were resigned. She hadn't known this moment would arrive, not until Carly made the call. Then helplessness had surrounded her like the water in the bath.
She walked the blocks to the church, thinking of the love she'd found within its walls, the comfort of an all-powerful, all-seeing protector, an all-loving, need-satisfying being. Was it that intensity that prepared her for Eric's? Had she placed on his shoulders God's mantle?
If, as Matt claimed, there were only human reason and relationships, all she could do was trust the love she had for her child. Maybe that was the true light of the world, the only truth.
Others joined her on the sidewalks and passed through the doors. She went inside. The scents of candles and polished wood, the whispers of prayers surrounded her as she knelt and made the sign of the cross. She slid into the next to last pew.
Her lips did not move in prayer; her eyes went neither up toward heaven nor forward to Christ on the cross. They stayed on her hands, on the scars across her wrists, small ropes of bondage.
Lord
. She had no sense of holiness, only loss.
Moments later he slipped in like a shadow beside her. "Hello, Sofie." His voice strained as though it hurt to say her name.
She turned to the face so handsome, so compelling she couldn't look away. Even haggard, he had a raw appeal that caught her by the throat. She remembered how it was to belong to him. To be ravaged by his hunger. But it wasn't hunger she saw now.
His gaze sank like a spear into her heart. "Where's my daughter?"
She drew a jagged breath. "She's safe."
"With him?"
She startled. "What?"
"The man you're
with
. Does he have her?"
She focused on the altar as blood rushed in her head.
"Did you think I wouldn't know?"
She trembled. "I thought you wouldn't care."
"Sofie." He closed her hand into his. "I have missed you every single day."
She impaled him with a glare. "Then why did you only watch and take pictures?"
His head jerked up. "You know?"
"A whole box of them, Carly said."
He exhaled. "So that's it. She saw the pictures. I should have known she'd look for you."
She couldn't tell him she'd seen the other pictures. If he thought she knew . . . what? He'd be embarrassed? Angry? Enough to hurt something?
He swallowed. "I let her call you. I could have stopped her, but I didn't. Once she'd figured it out. I didn't keep her from you because I know how it is to lie awake, aching for your voice."
"You knew where to find me, Eric. We could have talked."
He shook his head with a look of such profound betrayal it staggered her. What could he possibly hold against her?
His whisper rasped. "You left me."
"What?" She could hardly breathe.
"Tried to go where I could never find you. You tried to take your life from me."
Her chest quaked. "You left
me
, Eric."
"I wanted you to see how it would be without us."
Tears welled in her eyes. She had seen.
"But you, you would have made it so we could never come back." His voice broke.
Guilt hit her like a tidal wave. "I never meant to hurt you."
"You meant to destroy me."
She quaked as the awful possibility echoed in her mind. Had she? She pictured the razor in her hand. Had it been Eric she had cut from her, draining his love until it could no longer hurt? Maybe it wasn't giving up, but striking back.
Had the cut of that blade been the first act of independence she'd accomplished in the four years she'd known him? She looked into his face and saw the damage. Her action had broken him in a way he hadn't been before. Had she tipped him over an edge, a point of inhibition past which he'd do anything to protect Carly and by extension himself?
"I won't ever hurt like that again." The chill in his voice turned her heart to ice.
"Eric—"
"I want Carly." Stone-cold, like a voice from the grave.
"The police are looking for you."
"I know."
"What about your mother? Eric, please tell me you didn't push her."
"I didn't." Remorse moved over his features. Maybe it was real, maybe not. "She should not have kept Carly from me."
She read the implication. "You'd hurt me too?"
"Don't make me."
She took his hands. "Let me keep Carly while you deal with this. Get the help you need. You know you can plead out. You were always persuasive."
Out of nowhere, his smile lit up like a single star in a curtain of clouds. How she had loved that smile. He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers. "Come with us."
Six years she'd waited, six years begged God to restore what she'd lost. And Eric had been waiting too. She dropped her forehead to their joined hands, tears spilling over their fingers. "I can't."
For all their sakes, she could not allow him to follow this course. She felt his hands tremble. When she looked up, all emotion had left his face except the hard, cold anger.
————
Matt gripped his phone as an unidentified call came. "This is Mary Cavallo. I'm in the coffee shop across the street. That man you wanted to know about is leaving the church with Sofie."
His chest constricted. He hadn't wanted to think it. Even as she'd walked out, he'd hoped. But he didn't have time to regret. "Which way are they going?"
"The way she walks home."
Eric was coming for Carly. Well, he wouldn't get her. That little girl deserved a chance at an untortured life. He called the police, then hurried to the bedroom, where Carly sat up, sleepy-eyed.
She pushed the hair back from her forehead and eyed him. "Where's Sofie?"
"She went to church." He walked to the window, checked the lock, and studied the fire escape going down to the courtyard.
"She was supposed to take me."
She hadn't said anything like that, but the implication bruised him. Had Sofie planned for the three of them to simply walk away?
Carly threw off the covers and climbed out in a nightshirt that would have been short on Sofie but dangled just above Carly's skinny ankles. Before he could tell her to get dressed, she snatched up her clothes and darted to the bathroom. Good. Soon he wouldn't count on her cooperation.
When she came out, he took her across the hall to Rico and Chaz's apartment. The door was unlocked when they went in, but he locked it behind them. "Sit down."
She frowned. "What are you doing? Aren't we going to the church?"
"Did Sofie know your dad would be there?"
She looked triumphant. "We were supposed to meet him. Both of us."
He knew better than to take anything she said at face value. Maybe the kid had hoped for that, but Sofie knew better. Had she gone to confront Eric? Or to reconcile.
Chaz came out of his room. "Is something wrong?"
"Eric has Sofie."
Carly shook her head. "It's not like that."
"Is Rico up?"
"I'll wake him." Chaz moved to the other bedroom.
Matt squatted down before Carly. "Listen to me, kiddo. You know what happened to your grandma."
She started to shake her head again.
"And your friends and their pets."
She put her hands on her ears.
"I know you can't stand the way things were, and you think Sofie can change that. But she can't. She tried once and almost died trying."
Tears sprang to Carly's eyes.
"Your dad needs help, but he can't get it as long as you and Sofie enable him."
"You don't understand."
"I understand more than you think."
"No. You're just a big, stupid person, and you've ruined everything. Why did you have to be here?" She lunged.
Her shove hardly budged him, but her fear and rage and desperation came through. He grabbed her as Chaz and Rico came out, planted his palm over her mouth when she started to scream. Though it went against everything in him to manhandle her, if she bolted, he'd lose any control of the situation he might have. Her life, and Sofie's, could depend on it. "Check the windows.
