With Love from the Inside (6 page)

Sophie could feel the panic creeping across her face as she stared at the unopened letter. She had finally gotten to a place where she could move forward and make plans, leaving that degrading part of her life padlocked and buried with the rest of her family. Why was someone trying to take that from her?

Well, she wasn't going to let them. She was going to see Thomas before her hospital visit, as she had planned. He should be finishing with his last patient by then and maybe the two of them could grab lunch before he left to do afternoon rounds.

She folded the envelope in half and then in half again. Thomas wouldn't accidentally find the letter if she tucked it in her makeup bag, but he might if she stuffed it under last month's water bill or in an old shoe box under the bed. She couldn't take any chances, so right between her Fairly Medium powder foundation and her Perplexingly Pink lip gloss lay her secret. Her makeup, she thought, as she zipped the bag, was just as confused as the rest of her.

When she pulled her car into the physicians' parking lot at the back of Thomas's building, she realized she didn't even remember driving there. She parked next to him in the reserved area.
Perks of being a doctor's wife,
she thought every time she slid her key card through the gate.

Thomas's office was modern, to say the least, and not like other doctors' offices Sophie was used to. Gone were the standard plastic-coated
waiting-room chairs, the muted tones of the previous decorating era. This waiting room had red suede sofas with square metal frames and backs with clean, shiny lines. Large plasma-screen TVs hung on the walls on the perimeter of the room. A calculated visual buffet advertised what you could have: full, pouty lips; tight, round butt; bigger breasts. The words
Cutting-Edge
and
Why Not Now?
popped up between images.

“First impressions are everything,” Thomas explained to Sophie when she first toured his office. “Clients need to be thinking about potential when they walk in and perfection when they walk out.” Sophie felt the need to check herself for wrinkles every time she visited.

An unfamiliar face greeted her when she approached the front desk; the usual receptionist must have been on vacation.

“May I help you?” the chipper twentysomething receptionist with perfect white teeth and a tight button-down asked.

“I'm Sophie. Sophie Logan.”

“Oh, Dr. Logan's wife,” the girl said, looking up. She analyzed Sophie's appearance before speaking.

“Yes. Is he finished seeing patients?”

“Last one just left before you walked in, but I think he's busy, uh, in a meeting.”

“Thanks,” Sophie replied, in a way that said
I'm not asking for your permission.
She opened the waiting-room door and walked down the hallway.

The door to Thomas's office was closed, so she opted to sit in a small waiting area outside a consultation room. She was bold enough to refuse orders from a temp at the front desk, but not as audacious when it came to interrupting Thomas's workday.

She checked the time on her phone. She had a little more than an hour before she had to get to the hospital. She hoped his meeting would finish soon and they'd have time to eat together.

She glanced around the room, investigating the information that lay
on the brushed-metal coffee tables. Before-and-after pictures of clients documented the skills of Dr. Thomas Logan. She was most impressed with the book titled
Body Contouring After Weight Loss
, which featured picture after picture of patients once overtaken by excess skin, modeling their new sculpted bodies. Two thumbs up to them and to Thomas.

She checked her watch again. Forty-five minutes before she needed to leave. She picked up a magazine and skimmed the articles. “Redefining Gravity—There Is Hope for the Sagging Breast” or “Under-Eye Puffiness: Is It Temporary or Genetic?” Neither looked interesting, but the word
genetic
caused her insides to swerve.

Did her mom still look the same? Were the tops of her hands still soft? She shook her head and tried to make the memories stop, but they wouldn't go away.

The last time she'd visited, Sophie had tried her best to force excitement. “I received my cap and gown today.” One of the happy, but not really happy, events Sophie saved up to help her mom feel better and make her seem involved.

Through the glass, she'd watched her mom lower her head.

“I wish you could be there, too.” Then Sophie hung up the phone because their time was up.

“Can I get you anything?” Front Desk Girl said to Sophie after the second time she'd circled the room.

“No, I'm still fine,” she replied. “Don't need a thing.”

“Just checking.” The girl pretended to straighten some magazines on the coffee table before leaving the room.

No sign of movement from Thomas's office, so Sophie opened her purse and dug out the folded letter from her makeup bag. Eleven years ago, she'd walked out on everyone who resided in her past and resigned from the second-rate position of making her mother happy. She wouldn't pick that job back up now.

Surely Thomas's office had a shredder. She stood and started to look
around for it, but the remembrance of her mom's heartrending face stopped her. She ripped open the envelope.

Dear Mrs. Logan:

I hope this letter finds you well. I've been trying to locate you for quite some time on behalf of your mother, Mrs. Grace Bradshaw. Mrs. Bradshaw asked that I contact you and inform you of her changing status. This is a very urgent matter. Please contact me at (334) 232-2549 as soon as possible.

Regards,
Ben Taylor

The words blended on the paper and then blurred together.
Urgent matter . . . changing status.
Sophie felt nauseated.

Status?
What did that even mean? She accepted the fact that her mom was still on death row, but her dad had always said a case this shaky would never survive the appeals process. “Your mom will not die in prison,” he'd said, while he folded a load of once-white bath towels.

Maybe she's getting out.
Sophie didn't know what to do with that possibility, either. Her necklace with an
S
monogram started to feel like it was strangling her.

Voices were coming from Thomas's office. She shoved the letter back into the envelope and crumpled them both in her purse.

“What are you doing here?” Thomas said, after emerging and doing a double take.

When she didn't answer right away, he said, “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. I needed to pick up a donor list. For the benefit. And I wanted to see if you had time for lunch.”

“Sorry, Soph. I've already eaten.” His tone was apologetic as he gestured back to his door.

Eva emerged from his office, dressed in silver heels and a navy skirt. In her hands was a crinkled-up deli bag.

“Oh, hello,” she said to Sophie before she turned her back and darted into the restroom.

Sophie forced herself to gather her thoughts before speaking, though she knew the look on her face must scream
appalled
. “What is she doing here?” she finally said after Thomas didn't offer any explanation.

Before he could answer, the temp girl came bolting down the hallway. “I'm going to lunch. Be sure and check your messages. Isabel Campor's family called you again.”

—

“
U
M
,
I
PICK
A
LEXIS
,”
SAID
M
OLLY
.
The rest of the class snorted and giggled.

Her PE teacher ignored the taunts just like the rest of her teachers did. “Well, that just leaves you. Go and join the blue team.” Sophie walked across the expansive gymnasium and through the sneers and snickers. “Maybe she'll have her mom's killer instinct,” one boy mocked, before she finally found a place to sit down.

God knows she had trust issues, but right now, as she ran into St. John's Hospital for her donor meeting, she didn't know what made her want to scream more—the letter from her mom's attorney or the lacy pink bra under Eva's thin white shirt.

Her cell phone had rung at least three times. She assumed the calls were from Thomas, but she didn't look or answer. She couldn't trust the words ready to fly out of her mouth when she felt this upset.

He'd managed to give her a quick kiss on the cheek before mumbling something about Eva bringing by lunch while she dropped off some drug samples. She didn't wait for him to finish his explanation or for Eva to return from the bathroom; instead, she told him she was late for a meeting and left.

Sophie's phone rang again as she walked through the hospital lobby. The caller ID read
St. John's Hospital
, so she decided to answer.

“Thank God,” Mindy said. “You have a minute?”

“Barely. I'm trying to grab someone from the hospital advisory board to see if we can finalize some donor numbers for the fund-raiser.”

“I'm probably not supposed to share this information, but Max has a high fever. He's been asking for you.”

—

M
AX LOOKED SO HELPLESS
when Sophie entered his room. His damp hair and flushed cheeks made her ache. His oxygen apparatus inhaled and exhaled in the background.

His frail, dependent body made her think of William. He'd lain helpless, too. Her mom praying at his bedside, her father crying, begging baby William to pull through. But he hadn't, they hadn't. Sophie had sat in the corner, trying to memorize her spelling words, willing this all to go away.
C-a-p-i-t-a-l-i-z-e.

The back of her shoulders and her neck started to tighten. She hadn't felt this angry in a long time. Mad at all this suffering, even madder at those who inflicted it. Her mom. Max's mom. At least his mom hadn't made him sick. She'd just abandoned him when he was.

Sophie took a white terry washcloth from the stack of linens sitting on Max's bedside table and walked over to the sink to wet it. When she turned off the water she heard a little raspy voice say, “Sosie?” His frail body was working hard to speak.

“Hi, little man.” She placed the wet cloth on his forehead. “I heard you're not feeling so well.”

She dragged a dark-stained rocking chair from the corner of the room. The edges were jagged and chipped, revealing raw wood. A pastel patchwork quilt lay over the back of the chair, and the tag read:
Made especially for Max with love: From your friends at the Hospital Auxiliary.

“Rock me,” Max said as he held out his arms. “Read wabbit book.”

Intertwined lines connected his fragile body to machines. The blood-pressure cuff squeezed his arm, leaving it white, then red. Sophie put her hand under his bed and searched for the button to release the side rail. Her actions slow, so she wouldn't disconnect anything.

“Scoot over, little man. If you can't come to Sosie, then Sosie will come to you.”

Max flashed the biggest grin he could muster. Sophie maneuvered under the IV tube and over the call button and climbed in bed beside him.

“Where do we begin?” She picked up the tattered hospital copy of
The Velveteen Rabbit
.

She read to page six before realizing she was more into the book than Max was. His eyes fought hard to stay focused.

“You need to rest now, Max.”

“Sosie have to go?”

“I'll lie with you until you fall asleep.” She rubbed his wet head.

“Sing me song?”

Sophie wasn't sure how to handle this request. She hadn't sung a song to a child in a long time. She closed her eyes and tried to think.

Out of nowhere, the words came out slowly: “Hush little baby, don't say a word, momma's gonna buy you a mockingbird.”

“That's a silly song.”

“My mom used to sing to me.” The memory came rushing back. Her mom holding her hair while she bent over the toilet. Her mom rocking her after her overly anxious stomach wouldn't settle. Singing that tune and those churchy lyrics to distract her so she'd feel better.
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Won't let Satan blow it out. I'm going to let it shine.
Her affection so warm and Sophie so protected. But now that night had a darker tint—what had she been sick from, really?

She won't make the mistake of being so trusting again. Blind trust belonged in her past. Nothing, she promised herself, would ever have
that power over her again—especially not the veiled urgencies of this so-called important letter, or the disgusting advances by a synthetic drug rep.

She closed her eyes and continued singing as if her words could somehow bring back the mom she'd thought she knew, a mom both Max and William had deserved. “If that mockingbird don't sing, momma's going to buy you a diamond ring.”

She tightened her hold on Max and hummed the rest of the forgotten lyrics until his sleepy head bobbed and landed safely on her shoulders.

Do you remember the old wooden crate we used to pull out at Christmas? Your daddy would put that beat-up box beside the tree along with a small bale of hay. The neighbors thought we were crazy, but this tradition meant everything to me. Your grandma Pearl started it when I was a little girl, her parents before that.

Our “manger” sat empty until one of us did something love-worthy. When we were “caught,” we could put a piece of hay in the manger. As a family, we were preparing Jesus's bed for his birth.

You decorated baby William's room with twenty-five paper-cutout snowflakes, diligently folded and cut each heart and triangle just to see his eyes squint when he woke from his nap. The manger became quite full that day.

Daddy threw in some hay when he came home from work and noticed that I'd run over his golf clubs with my new stick-shift station wagon. “At least you're okay,” he said, as he tried to straighten the end of his putter.

You were watching in the background to see Daddy's reaction. When you saw him more concerned about me than about his golf clubs, you grabbed his hand and headed toward the manger. “Jesus's bed is going to be soft and warm this Christmas.”

Over and over, I've rehearsed what I would say if I have the chance to see you again. One day, when your feelings have settled
and your wounds have had a chance to heal, you will read this and see I'm not documenting my dying days in prison but recording the gifts I have been given while existing. You're one of the most precious.

I'm feeling restless tonight—I need to get out of this cell. If I stand on my tiptoes and angle my head just the right way, I can catch a glimpse of the digital clock hanging on the far wall of the dayroom. I try not to look, but for some reason, I can't stop myself. Ms. Liz, the prison chaplain, had promised to visit the dayroom this week. I hadn't seen her in a while, and wasn't sure she knew my news.

I've been thinking a lot about time lately. I guess running out of it will do that to a person. According to my mom, I used to “wish” my life away. “I can't wait to get a job and make my own money,” I would tell her at least once a week. “Being a grown-up has to be so much better.”

When I had you, and I didn't think I could stay awake one second longer, I begged for you to sleep through the night. When you screamed with colic, I counted the minutes until Paul would be home. Whole chunks of my life wished away because they required patience I didn't yet have.

I used to obsess about the time when I was first locked up. Did you know there are only 914 Saturdays from the time a child is born until they leave for college?

Did you go to college?

If I couldn't find a clock I would ask the officer, “Can you tell me the time, please?” Some would answer. Others would taunt me: “Have someplace you need to be, Bradshaw?”

My name still made the evening news back then, and I could tell from the one-word answers you gave me during our weekly phone call that sixth grade was not going well for you. Paul had written
down your class schedule for me. At 11:55, if I could find a clock, I closed my eyes and prayed.
Don't let Sophie sit alone at lunch, dear God, please don't let her sit alone . . .

At 6:15 p.m., I wondered what Paul was making for dinner. Did he have enough energy to help you with your homework?

After a while, I had to let those things go. My prayers still would go up, but the day-to-day worrying became too exhausting. Details of our family's lives I would never know because they were too many to recount in the fifteen minutes we were allowed on the phone. For sanity's sake, it was better not to try.

All I have to do is look around me to know time doesn't heal all wounds. If it did, maybe this place would have some happier hearts or some empty beds. And perhaps you'd be visiting me, pressing pictures on the glass and sharing with me the moments that made you smile or caused you to cry.

Passing time does nothing to heal our brokenness. It's the work we put into our mending that makes us well.

We shared 659 Saturdays together before I left our home. Only 26 of those included William. I want one more Saturday. I need time to fix us.

I'm going to ask Ms. Liz if she can bring in a manger. Any old box will do. I feel the need to do something love-worthy. I hope your bed is warm and soft tonight.