“Why would she do that?” Sophie asked.
“Jeffrey couldn’t get the horrible smell out of it. Mother thought maybe a field rat had gotten inside it and died. I always thought that my soul had bled to death in the back seat.” Emma had been about to take a bite of the ice cream, but her hand stopped midair. “I was at the hospital. I remember a lady nurse helping me remove my clothes and telling me it wasn’t my fault. That was the smell of blood in the car. The seats were black fabric, so it wouldn’t have showed.”
“What wasn’t your fault?” Sophie asked.
Emma shook her head. “I don’t know. I can get a flash of myself lying on a hospital bed with curtains around me, and even that much makes me jittery.”
“Are you sure that you were not ever in an emergency room when you were a kid?” Sophie suggested.
Emma cut her eyes around at Sophie. “You know I was never allowed to do anything that might get me hurt. The only time I felt free was when Rebel watched us.”
“Then that rules out the idea that you might be mixing up a trip to the hospital in your youth with the business of slashing the painting.” Sophie blinked back tears and tried to swallow down a lump the size of a grapefruit. Emma’s freedom—her ability to face whatever happened to her—was tied up with the feelings she had when they were together. Sophie sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn’t make a mess of the responsibility.
Chapter Four
The warm shower water beat down on Sophie’s back, easing the sore muscles in her shoulders from painting all day. A visual popped into her head of a tiny shower in the bathroom of her dorm back at the beginning of the second semester of her freshman year. That time, she had turned on the water and then slid down the back wall to sit with her knees pulled up against her chest. Her salty tears had blended with the warm water until she couldn’t cry anymore.
Had Emma gotten pregnant that first semester of college, too? Coming from her background, she would have felt even more guilty than Sophie still did. Sophie had never told anyone about that time in her life, not even Rebel, and she couldn’t imagine Emma having to tell Victoria such a thing.
Like mother, like daughter, the voice in her head taunted. You were the product of an affair, and then you turned around and did the same thing as your mother.
“Maybe so,” Sophie agreed. “But neither of us knew those sorry bastards were married.”
She didn’t have to close her eyes to see the dark-haired artist in her freshman class, or to feel the excitement when he flirted so blatantly with her. He had been brought in as a substitute professor for the six weeks that the regular teacher was on maternity leave. His name was Lucas Deville, and he was from Chicago. Sophie’s affair with him lasted the last three weeks he was at the college, and then he was gone. When the teacher returned, she told them that Lucas had gone back to Illinois and had gotten there in time to be present as his wife gave birth to their third child. That was the first that Sophie had heard about the man being married. Standing there under the spray of the water that evening in the trailer, she felt the same guilt that she had felt that day.
She turned off the water and threw back the curtain. She wrapped a towel around her body and another around her hair. Unlike Emma, Sophie could remember every single memory of that time clearly. They were etched into her mind like they had been branded there. Lucas had courted her, seduced her, and then left without ever mentioning a wife or children. Not that she could lay all the blame on him. God only knew how flattered she had been when he paid so much attention to her. She could have said no that night he asked her to go to his apartment for a drink. He had been her teacher, after all.
At Christmastime, Sophie had gone home for the month and thought she had the flu. Rebel fed her noodle soup and lots of hot tea. When it was time to go back to college, Sophie had kicked the rotten bug and could keep food on her stomach. A week after classes started, she realized that she’d missed a period. She bought a pregnancy test but refused to believe the results when it showed her the positive sign. She went back to the store and bought three more—all turned out positive.
She didn’t want to be a single mother. She had a career ahead of her, and yet, she couldn’t live with herself if she gave a child away. Her mother had kept her and sacrificed her pride by working for wealthy women who looked down on her and even accused her of affairs like Victoria had. Sophie had woken up every day worrying about what to do, and then, six weeks later, she lost the baby.
She had cried for three days after the trip to the emergency room. In her mind, she had killed her own baby with negative thoughts because she didn’t want it to ruin her career. Now, she was thirty-five and her biological clock was ticking louder and louder. Teddy wanted children, but Sophie wasn’t sure she deserved to be a mother again.
“Did Emma lose a baby, too?” she muttered as she padded down the hall and into her bedroom.
She dressed in a pair of shorts and an orange tank top, brushed her still-damp hair up into a ponytail and headed out to have supper with Josh, Arty, and Filly. When she reached the living room, she noticed the sliding doors to the back porch were open. Emma was sitting with her bare feet propped up on the railing, and Coco was curled up in her lap.
“Are you coming out for supper?” Sophie eyed Emma closely. Had she had a baby and given it away, then repressed all that pain?
“Is it all right if I stay right here?” Emma looked nervous, but her hands remained still.
“That’s perfectly fine. I’ll bring you a plate,” Sophie told her. “Did you remember anything else today?”
“No, and I don’t deserve food brought in for me. I should be strong enough to go out there and eat,” Emma said. “I’ll get myself a bowl of cereal.”
Victoria wouldn’t have let Emma have a child. She would have made her have an abortion, and that would have set Emma on an even bigger guilt trip.
“Nonsense,” Sophie scolded. “We all understand. You’ve come a long way in only one day, and if you want to stay in, that’s fine. You’ll lose Coco in about ten minutes, though. When she hears Arty say grace, she comes running from wherever she is.”
“Thank you,” Emma said. “This has been the best time of my life, Sophie, and I mean that.”
“Good. Maybe I can talk you into doing some paintings pretty soon.” Sophie visualized days when she and Emma had lain under the shade trees in the backyard and colored in their books or sketched. Emma was always whistling or humming in those days. Sophie wanted Emma to have those kinds of moments in her life again.
Josh waved when Sophie stepped out onto the porch. “Arty made pot roast tonight, and Filly has apple dumplings with caramel sauce,” he yelled across the courtyard.
“Sounds wonderful,” Sophie said as she made her way over to the picnic table and took her usual place.
“Is Emma coming out tonight?” Filly asked.
“Not tonight. She’s had a big day,” Sophie answered. “She’s been through a lot, and she’s”—she struggled for the right word—“she’s really, really shy right now.”
Arty said his quick grace and handed a big spoon to Filly. “You can dip the food up.”