There was a long pause. Finally, “Okay.”
I pushed open the door gently. Sophie sat in the middle of her bed, which she had pulled out from against the wall and centered in the middle of the room. She was reading a magazine. Dirty clothes and pieces of paper littered the floor, and her desk was scattered with pens, pencils, and empty coffee mugs. I climbed up amid the perpetual tangle of rumpled sheets and blankets and crossed my legs. “Are you okay?”
She nodded and turned a page of her magazine without looking up. “Why aren’t you in bed yet? Isn’t it past nine?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Listen, if you’re here about me and Eddie fighting, then you can leave,” she said. “Because it’s none of your business.”
I stared at her for a minute. It felt as though she had just slapped me. “You’re mean to him,” I said, before I could stop myself.
Sophie looked up from her magazine. “What did I just say?”
I held my ground. This was for Eddie, not her. “He’s so nice to you all the time, and you’re just mean.” My lower lip began to wobble. “You’re mean and nasty and everyone…”
“Out.” Sophie cut me off abruptly, and then looked down at her magazine. “Out,” she said again when I didn’t move. “Now.”
My eyes began to fill with tears. “You’re mean to everyone!” I shouted.
“Whose side are you on?” Sophie asked. “You’re tired, Julia. Go to bed.”
It might have helped things if she had gotten worked up. Maybe if she had yelled back at me or shed a few tears, the big block inside my chest might have split open. But the boredom in her voice made me furious. “I won’t go to bed.” I was speaking through gritted teeth. “Not until you call Eddie and apologize for being so mean to him.”
“Oh. My. God.” Sophie tossed her magazine to one side and rolled off her bed, all in one fluid motion. She caught me around the top of the arm, dragged me from her room, and while I stood there yelling at the top of my lungs, she slammed and locked her door.
Mom came running upstairs, “What in the world is going on here?”
I was sobbing by then, incomprehensible as I tried to explain what had happened.
“Sophie?” Mom knocked on her door. “What’s going on?”
“Leave me alone.” The words were heavy and solid, spoken with finality.
“Come on, sweetie,” Mom said, taking my hand. “Come with me.”
Mom sat with me while I took a warm bath and then she dried me off, helped me into clean pajamas, and tucked me into bed. My breath was still coming in little hiccups.
“Don’t let Sophie get to you,” Mom said, sitting on the edge of my mattress. “She’s going through a lot right now.”
“What’s the matter with her?” I asked.
“She’s a teenager,” Mom said. “And she has a boyfriend. You’ll see when you get there. There are a lot of emotions involved.”
“She’s mean,” I said stubbornly. “I hate her guts.”
“No, you don’t.”
I ignored her. “And she’s not even nice to Eddie.”
Mom tucked her hearing aid wire behind her ear. “Well, Eddie and Sophie’s business is for them to worry about.”
I pouted for a few seconds, and then reached up to finger the tiny springy cord attached to her hearing aid. When I was really little, still drinking out of a bottle, I used to drift off to sleep with one hand attached to the delicate rubber tubing. As I got older, I pretended that the wire was a pet baby caterpillar. Now, I just touched it because it was there.
I reached up with my arms. “I love you, Mom.”
She bent down and kissed me. She smelled like Ivory soap and charcoal smoke from the grill. “I love you too, sweetie. Good night.”
Later that night, I felt someone crawling into bed with me. I turned, half asleep, to see Sophie’s tear-streaked face staring at me from across the pillow. Her big blue eyes were lined with little veins of red, and her nose was running.
“I’m sorry I’m so awful,” she whispered. “I don’t mean to be.” Her voice broke on the last word and a new sob worked its way out of her mouth. I snuggled in under her neck as she wrapped her arms around me. She cried softly for a few more moments. After a while, I could feel her settle her chin on top of my head. She breathed in deeply and then exhaled with a soft shudder. “I love you, Jules,” she murmured.
“I love you too,” I whispered.
We fell asleep like that, until morning.
chapter
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