Sophie's Smile: A Novel (36 page)

1

The sun was bright and
cheerful,
the heat refreshing against the cool breeze that occasionally swept by and brushed Sophie’s thick, silky hair. She was dressed in a light summer dress, cinched at the waste, and cut low to show a teasing glimpse of the swell from her breasts. She had a kick in her step as she walked to the market for a few necessary dinner ingredients. She was going to recreate the dish that she envisioned preparing for Liam a few days ago—his infamous dish that wooed her into saying those three powerful words.

She felt tickled with nerves and flowed with excitement and romance as she mentally prepped herself for a night filled with passion and desire with the man she dearly loved. In her dreamlike state she almost forgot the calla lilies, and started quickly back toward the market to get them.

As she turned, her body froze, her eyes haunted and white, blood quickly drained from her face, and the bags of onions, spinach, tofu, and greens flew up like confetti, sprinkling the clear, light blue sky. Her body lifted like a graceful feather until it crashed onto the hard, black asphalt.
Lying limp as a rag doll.
Thick substance gushing out like a flow of red fabric under her paling skin.
Her mind numbing, her heart slowing, and with her last breath, mumbling the words that a bystander would later repeat: “Liam, I love you,” from her trembling cold lips.

The blue SUV swerved and crashed into the building, denting the stucco, but crunching the car as if it were made of cardboard. People rushed out of the building, from their cars, from across the street and beyond. Chaos surrounded the tiny parking lot as police and paramedics, their vehicles blaring and flashing, made their way to the scene.

It took only two hours to clean up the bloody scene and gather the necessary information to fill out a lengthy report. The parking lot was suddenly empty. The horror-stricken observers cleared once the bodies were whisked away on stretchers and covered with blankets. The car was towed and the blood washed. There were cones and orange tape surrounding the damaged building, the only markings still memorializing the terrible accident only hours earlier.

The only survivor was an innocent baby girl, six months in age. Strapped securely to a car seat, the baby girl was protected by a sleep-deprived mom, who’s only fault was that she loved her baby too much, glimpsed at her rearview mirror a second too long while watching her baby girl nod off to sleep, and punched the accelerator instead of the brake at that crucial, fearful moment.

2

When Liam received the phone call, he was opening the front door to his house with a bouquet of calla lilies in his hand. When he answered, the phone dropped out of his quivering hand and into the dirt. His hands shook violently as he tried to regain his choked breath. His knuckles were white as they grasped the door for balance and the bouquet crushed in his other hand. And then, as if from a scene in the movies, blood drained from his face, his eyes rolled back, and he fainted.

Luckily, his dad was still idling in the driveway. Jack bolted from the truck, frantically addressing the second fire of the day, and in the back of his mind he thought that he was somehow being punished for wasting his life and not being present for his family.
That all the wrongdoings of his past compounded in the past few days, giving him a much needed wakeup call.
But in that moment, he only cared about one thing, and that was his son. He carried Liam in his arms, as he carried
Em
moments before, and drove him five miles to the hospital where Sophie once was employed.

“Hi Bud, you scared me there for a moment,” Jack’s eyes were soft and gleaming in the dank light of the darkened hospital room.

“Where am I?” Worry creased his forehead, as Liam was trying to focus on the bleached white floor, the simple furniture that lined the room, and the rough plastic gown that rumpled under the thin white sheets and itched against his clammy skin.

“Relax, Bud, you’re in the hospital. You fainted.”

“Sophie,” Liam gasped, “I need to find Sophie.” Liam was exasperated. His breath was hoarse and ragged by the slight exertion and his limbs failed to follow his lead.

Jack gingerly placed both hands on his shoulders and pressed Liam back down onto the bed, “Later.” Knowing tears escaped Jack’s eyes as he desperately tried to hide the facts from Liam. He, too, couldn’t tell a lie.

“Dad…please…
tell
me she’s okay.”

Jack turned away, his eyes diverting toward the single window that cast a sliver of low light through the slight opening of the plastic blinds. Shadows danced across the walls, fleeting with the slight movements of Jack’s hands as he fidgeted, stuffed them in and out of his jean pockets, and shuffled his feet against the polished floor.

“Dad?”

Jack cleared his throat, a habit that inevitably was passed down to Liam, “She’s gone.”

“Can’t be,” shaking his head, Liam’s voice firm, “I just talked to her a few hours ago.”

“She was at the grocery store, up the street…there was a car…it happened so fast…”

“No. I need to get out of here and see her,” Liam tossed the thin sheets off his clammy body, “She must be home by now and worried that I’m not back yet.”

“Liam,” Jack finally turned to his son, tilted his chin up swiftly with his fingers, and when Liam’s red eyes flickered to his, he said, “she’s gone.”

Silence filled the stark room, and after what seemed like hours, it was replaced by shrieks of grief and tears of anger, sorrow, and of misfortune.

In the next few minutes, hours, days, and months, Liam felt all zest for life fade away, slipping back toward his darker days, unable to focus, care, or even live.

3

The nights passed, painstakingly slow,
excruciatingly
lonesome; the days lingered, haunted by Sophie’s presence. Liam’s movements were slow and eerie as if he were possessed by a ghost. His face was pale and streaked with dried tears, a ghoulish purple rimming his eyes, dark and dead.

Although he visited the market and lay on the hot asphalt where Sophie last breathed his name, he denied the reality of her death.

Although he had been to the morgue to identify her disfigured, lifeless, yet excruciatingly beautiful body, he held on to the fascination that he was traveling into the depths of a vivid nightmare.

Although he held a small but lovely ceremony at the place they exchanged vows only a year before, and spread her ashes in the tree-shaded alcove they claimed as their own—making a quick decision to save a piece in a silver locket that weighed heavily on his neck—and planted a calla lily blub next to their bench, he held on to the hope that his beloved would return somehow. Her face radiant and glowing, her lips curving into a smile, and her voice filled with the love and kindness that melted his heart.

Realization finally set in one night as Liam lay in bed, the scent of Sophie’s perfume no longer present on her pillow, her voice dwindling from his memory, and there he cried until tears no longer formed, until his body gave up.

He dreamed of Sophie that night. It was the first of many that haunted his mind, and puzzled and distressed him in the morning. They weren’t of her beauty and warmth but of her anger and sadness. She accused him of her death relentlessly and in different, torturous ways. Of course, these horrible images were only brought on by the guilt he felt for leaving her, when he chose to save his sister rather than his beloved wife.

A psychiatrist would probably tell him these nightmares were normal. That they would one day pass if he only forgave himself. That it wasn’t his fault. That life has many unexpected twists and turns. That sometimes there are no easy answers to life’s injustices.
That sometimes bad things
happened to good people.
That this is the mystery of life and we all must accept the good and the bad in order to survive in this world.
The psychiatrist would then numb the pain with some prescription meds, which would only make him dreary, robotic and uncomfortable. Liam would not go to a psychiatrist, because he no longer cared to survive in this world.

Life moved on outside the walls of his empty home. Neighbors walked their dogs, kids went to school, adults went to work,
the
sun went up in the morning and set at night. Time did not stop just because Sophie was not there; to Liam, it should have. He went around the dark house turning off every light, taking out the batteries from every device that told time, and shutting off every mode of communication with the outside world.

Liam’s loved ones were unable to contact him, desperately trying to reach out through worried messages and anxious, unseen visits.

Time passed, accruing the stale odor of days gone without showering, the scent of dried vomit near the toilet, and the smell of rotten food stained the enclosed walls and dingy air. Unable to eat, sleep, talk or move, Liam stayed locked in the room he had shared for just under one short year with Sophie.

4

One day, Emily decided enough was enough and jimmied the lock open—a skill she uncovered during her years with Dan—and entered the front door. The stench strangled her as she gagged on thick vapors; bile lurched into the back of her throat, her stomach churned in response. She hurriedly opened the doors and windows to the dank house. The sunlight spilled in, highlighting the dust-covered furniture and rotten fruit that wrinkled in the web-covered bowl on the dinette. She ignored everything else and stampeded up the stairs to the bedroom where she knew would find her brother.

“Get up,” she said as she yanked opened the curtains and windows. When Liam idly turned over in response, she grabbed him by his yellowed, sweat-soaked collar and all but dragged him to the shower fully clothed. The cold sprays of water sparked some life into him. His eyes shocked and voice raged in response.

“Hey!”

“Hey yourself.
Now wash up and get dressed.” With that she slammed the bathroom door behind her and got to work. Emily was back to her old fiery self; stubborn, empowering, and a go-getter. Except for the darkness that still loomed behind the depth of her eyes, she was back.

Emily was cleaning out his closet when Liam emerged from the bathroom, clean, shaven, and somewhat conscious. Except for the few nicks in his face, he seemed awake and less morbid.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing,” he grabbed Sophie’s purple blouse from Emily’s hurried hands.

“I’m cleaning out your closet.”

“Why,” Liam said between clenched teeth.

“It’s about time.”

“Leave me alone.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she continued softly, “
you
didn’t.”

Liam didn’t speak, his eyes cold, but his body seemed to weaken and relent. He turned away from her and headed back to bed but decided on the floor when he got a whiff of the sour sheets.

Emily finished bagging up Sophie’s clothes, except for the purple blouse that was clutched to Liam’s chest, and headed toward the bed. She removed the soiled sheets and replaced them with fresh ones that she brought along with her, hoping to remove Sophie’s haunting scent in the process. And that’s when her foot hit something hollow under the bed.

Curious, she kneeled down to get a closer look, and pulled out two boxes that hid in the shadows. One was a big white box, simply tied with a red bow. The other was a small shoebox, old and tattered with age.

“What are these?”