Sweet Misfortune: A Novel (21 page)

“Jones. Sophie Jones.”

“Sophie, or Sophia?”

Sophie stared back at the old woman nervously. “It’s Sophia,” she responded slowly. “How did you know that?”

“Good Lord!” Lucy repeated excitedly. “I
have
seen you! By golly, I was right!” She extended a hand. “Help me up, dear. I need to show you something.”

Sophie and Evalynn stood up together, and Sophie took Lucy’s arm. As fast as her legs could go, Lucy led them back to the kitchen the same way they’d come in. She stopped near the large island countertop and pointed to the refrigerator. “There,” she said, using her entire hand to direct their attention to countless odds and ends affixed with magnets to the refrigerator door.

Sophie didn’t speak. Her eyes were glued to a sage green envelope right in the middle of the mess. She paced slowly forward.

“What the heck?” Evalynn whispered, when she saw what Sophie was staring at.

When she was close enough, Sophie lifted the magnet that kept the envelope pinned against the black refrigerator surface. She ran her hand over the seal on the back of the envelope, remembering how its embossed doves felt to the touch. She already knew what the envelope contained, but she separated the top seam and pulled out the contents anyway.

Inside was a picture of her and Garrett, taken more than a year earlier, along with an invitation to the wedding.

“Who sent this to you?” Sophie asked, her voice shallow, racking her brain to remember if the woman’s name was on the guest list.

“I have to believe that you did. Or perhaps it was Garrett,” Lucy replied with a twinkle in her eye.

“But… why? How do you know Garrett?”

“Sophie, dear, I don’t just know Garrett. I’m his grandmother. Tim McDonald was his father. Looks just like him, too.”

Sophie covered her mouth with her hand.

“We don’t talk much, he and I, but I send him a birthday card every year, and once in a while I’ll get something from him in the mail. Graduation announcements, change-of-address notifications, that sort of thing. I was pleased as punch when I got that announcement; hadn’t heard from Garrett in several years, and I was looking forward to coming to the wedding. Then a week or so before, he called me on the phone and said it was canceled. I haven’t heard anything from him since then.”

Sophie’s mind was reeling as Lucy spoke. Garrett had hardly told her anything about his father. When she’d asked, he said there wasn’t much to tell, because his father had never played much of a role in his life. The fact that he’d grown up with his mother’s maiden name instead of his father’s last name had never been a topic of discussion. Her thoughts quickly raced back to all the times Garrett had asked Sophie about the accident. She recalled with clarity the consternation on his face when he’d learned that her parents died on September 21, 1989; it was the same look of worry that flashed across his eyes when she pointed out where the accident had taken place.

Her face went white. “Oh my gosh,” Sophie whispered, as she fit the pieces together in her head. “He knew. All this time, he knew.”

“Soph, you don’t know that,” Evalynn said.

Sophie glanced at Lucy, and then stared blankly at Evalynn. “Yes. I do.” The grimace that formed on her face was just a symptom of the nausea she suddenly felt in her stomach. Locking her eyes onto Lucy’s, Sophie said, “You can’t tell him, Mrs. McDonald. Please promise you won’t tell Garrett that I was here. If I decide he needs to know, I’d rather he hear it from me.”

Chapter 30

Your determination to move slowly will
bring about a speedy disaster.

O
N THEIR RIDE BACK FROM MILLWOOD, SOPHI
e
MANAGED
to convince herself that Ellen must have known more about Lucy McDonald—and, by extension, Garrett and his family history—than she’d ever let on. How could she not? She’d been on the scene the night Tim McDonald died. She’d kept a copy of the police report for decades. She even worked with Garrett’s mother at the police station. And wasn’t Ellen the snoopiest mom in the world, with detectives at the ready to do her investigative bidding? Those thoughts, along with an awful sense of betrayal, began festering the moment they’d pulled out of Lucy’s dusty driveway.

Sophie could hardly contain her emotions when she finally reached the third floor of Ellen’s apartment complex and rang the doorbell.

“Knock once if friend, twice if foe!”

Sophie looked sideways at Evalynn before knocking loudly three times. She hesitated, then continued pounding until the door finally opened up.

The safety chain was still attached on the inside of the door when Ellen poked her nose into the opening to see who was there. “Sophie? Ev? What are you girls doing here?” She unlatched the chain and opened the door the rest of the way. “I thought you were spending the day out near Spokane.”

“We’re back,” Sophie said abruptly.

“Was the woman not home?”

“Oh, she was home all right,” snapped Sophie. “And she had a little surprise waiting for us.”

Ellen could read the emotion in Sophie’s voice. “Let’s sit and talk, Sweets.” She motioned to the empty seats in the living room. “Now then, what’s got you all worked up?”

An awkward silence followed Ellen’s question. Evalynn looked like she wanted to speak up, but she refrained; this was Sophie’s bone to pick with their foster mother.

When she was ready, Sophie’s response came out as an explosion. “I know you like to meddle in our lives, but this is going too far! After everything I went through with Garrett, how could you not tell me? It honestly makes me sick to my stomach.”

Ellen took half a step backward. “Sophie, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh save it. Don’t pretend like you don’t know who Lucy McDonald is.”

“Who is she?” gasped Ellen.

“Did you know before Garrett called off the wedding, or after?”

“Huh?”

Sophie’s already pink face turned bright red as another possibility hit her. “You probably knew right from the beginning, before I went on that first date with him!”

“Stop it!” screamed Ellen. “Stop it right now! I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I refuse to be treated like this until you explain what it is you think I’ve done.”

Sophie clenched her fists. “Just answer me this, and I swear if you lie to me you’ll never see me again. When did you first learn that Garrett was Tim McDonald’s son?”

Ellen’s hand shot up and covered her mouth. “The UPS driver? That was Garrett’s father?”

Sophie and Evalynn exchanged puzzled looks. “You mean you didn’t know?” asked Sophie suspiciously.

“On my life, I swear I had no idea. I mean, I heard it mentioned way back when that he had a son, but that was all I knew about the man. The detectives on the scene and the sergeant handled most of those details, and they were the ones who notified Mrs. McDonald. I swear, Sophie, with God as my witness, I had no idea that there was a connection to Garrett.”

Sophie sat down on the couch and slumped back against the cushions, holding her stomach with her hands to quell the sick feeling that was forming there once more. “Well, Garrett knew,” she said with a groan.

Ellen sat down beside her. “How?”

“I think he started piecing it together when I took him to the cemetery and he saw the date that my parents died. Then just about a week before he dumped me I showed him where the accident had happened, and even pointed out the spot where I’d seen the EMTs working on a UPS driver. He couldn’t have
not
known. Tim died when Garrett was twelve, so I’m sure he at least knew what his dad did for a living, and how and when he died.” She paused. “Finding out that our parents died in the same accident must’ve flipped him out.”

Ellen clasped a hand over her mouth again. She said something, but it came out too muffled to understand.

“What?” Sophie asked.

Lowering her hand, Ellen repeated what she’d just said. “He read the report.”

Sophie sat straight up. “What! When?”

“About a week before… I’m so sorry, Soph. I should have told you before. He came by one night and said he wanted to read it to better understand what you’d gone through. I thought he was being sweet. And it was far enough before he called things off that I didn’t think it was related. And I… I didn’t want to mention the report, unless you came looking for details about the accident of your own accord. I didn’t want to stir up the past without cause.”

Ellen’s words hung in the air.

Sophie flung herself back against the cushions. “He knows,” she lamented. “That has to be why he called off the wedding. It says right in the report that the first cars to collide were the Volvo and the UPS truck. So he knows that my family killed his dad.” She groaned loudly. “Rain or not—
accident or not
—he knows who struck who.” She paused, wanting to double over and puke. “I don’t blame him for leaving. I’d have probably done the same.”

Ellen touched Sophie gently on the leg. “No, you wouldn’t have. You’d have talked to him about it. And you’d have worked it out.”

Sophie let out a painful laugh. “I doubt it. Just think of the position he was in. Would you want to be married to someone, knowing her family killed your dad? How would you even start that conversation?”

Ellen looked like she was mulling Sophie’s comments over in her mind. When she spoke, it was with her motherly voice, and she smiled warmly. “Do you remember what I said after he left?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Oh, the whole ‘God is steering the boat, and everything has a purpose’ bit.”

“Exactly! Maybe we’re seeing that unfold right before our eyes. What are the odds that you would grow up and fall in love with someone who shared the same tragedy as a child?”

“Not great, I guess.”

“Not great? The odds are so infinitesimally small that it’s not worth speculating.” She paused. “It’s providence, Sweets.”

Sophie laughed off the comment. She knew Ellen was going to say that; it’s what she always said. But Sophie wouldn’t allow herself to believe it.

“You have to talk to him,” Ellen added.

Sophie knew she should do exactly what Ellen was suggesting and talk to Garrett about everything. Part of her even wanted to, if only to come clean so she could get on with her hopeless, tragic life and forget all about him. But this wasn’t just a faceless stranger that she would be confronting, like Jacob Barnes or Lucy McDonald. This was the boy who’d lost a father twenty years ago, who grew up to become the man who’d stolen her heart. This was
Garrett
. “I know,” she said, as tears began to trickle down her cheek again. “But I don’t think I can.”

Chapter 31

The one you love is closer than you think.
If you were smart, you’d start running.

F
OR MORE THAN AN HOUR THAT NIGHT SOPHIE PACED
her living room nervously, eyeing the cell phone on the coffee table. Periodically she would pick it up, stare at it, and then set it back down. It occurred to her that she was probably experiencing the same trepidation that had kept Garrett away for so many months.
Sometimes living the lie is easier to bear than confronting the truth,
she thought.

Sophie twirled her hair with one hand while biting the nails on her other. When all the nails were shorter than she preferred, she decided it was now or never. Grabbing the phone in one swift, fluid motion, she pushed send and shoved it against her ear, then focused on controlling her breathing as she listened to it ring.

It kept ringing. And ringing. Nobody answered. Eventually Garrett’s voice mail kicked in.

Sophie flipped her phone shut in frustration.
He always picks up! After all that time building up the nerve, he doesn’t even answer?

She dialed again. This time he answered on the fourth ring.

“Sophie?”

“Garrett! I just tried calling.”

He didn’t reply immediately. “I… wasn’t expecting your call. Can I call you back, Soph? I’m sort of in the middle of something.”

“Oh. Umm… what sort of something? Because this is kind of important.”

More silence. “I’ve got someone on the other line,” he said.

Now Sophie needed a moment before she responded. “Oh. Work-related?”

“No, Soph. Listen, can I call you back in a little bit? I’ve been talking to her for a while already. I think another five or ten minutes and we’ll call it a night.”

“
Her
?” Sophie said immediately, flummoxed. “Is this a social call?”

Garrett paused for the third time. “I’ll call you back, Sophie. Don’t go anywhere.”

The line went dead.

Sophie looked at the digits on her cell phone that showed how long the call had lasted.

One minute and three seconds? After all my waiting I got a lousy one minute and three seconds?

It wasn’t the amount of time that bothered her. She knew she had no claim on him, but the thought of Garrett spending time with another woman didn’t sit right. How could he do that when they still had unsettled business? Didn’t he know that he first had to settle the score with the old flame before lighting a new fire? How could he walk into her store one month ago and swear that for all his faults, he’d never stopped loving her, and now suddenly he’s loving someone else? She hated that she felt like she’d just lost something that was very important to her, even though, technically, she’d lost it more than a year earlier. Sophie closed her phone and threw it against the couch, then went and sat down next to it.

Almost exactly ten minutes later, her phone rang. She answered immediately.

“We need to talk,” Sophie said curtly without bothering to say hello. She didn’t intend to sound unfriendly, but knowing that he’d just finished talking to—
or flirting with
—another woman, she couldn’t seem to help it.

“I figured,” he said with a chuckle. “Why else would you have called, other than to talk?”

“Funny. But I mean…
we need to talk
. As in, I want to have the conversation you’ve been pestering me to have. I’ve decided that I shouldn’t make you wait any longer, and I want to hear whatever it is you have to say.”

Garrett spoke softly into the receiver. “You mean the discussion that involves us going on a date?”

“Yes.”

He chuckled again, louder. “Wow, do I sense a bit of jealousy here? As soon as you hear I’m talking to another woman, suddenly you’re ready to give me a chance?”

“That has nothing to do with it,” she asserted firmly. “I just… we need to talk. Forget our deal. It’s done. It was stupid, anyway. Let’s just get together somewhere so we can sit down and chat. It doesn’t even have to be a date. You can even come here for all I care. We just… need to talk. In person.”

“Hmmm,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t know how the woman I was talking to would feel about that. Can I bring her along?”

Was he purposefully trying to tick her off, she wondered? “Absolutely not!”

“Then I don’t know, Soph. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea.”

Sophie could hardly believe what she was hearing. “But just a month ago you were dying to have this discussion with me.”

“I know,” he replied coolly. “And I’m willing to. Just not right now.” He let the words settle. “You know, we’ve already got this deal worked out with the want ad and everything. Why don’t we just stick with it, and we’ll get together as soon as you’ve found one hundred acceptable responses.”

“You’re serious?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” He paused. “You’ve got thousands of letters to choose from, Soph. And I just want you to admit that happiness really does exist out there. So you show me one hundred happy letters, and then we’ll talk.”

Sophie felt her face heating up; this wasn’t at all how she’d expected the conversation to go. Was it that woman he’d been talking with on the phone that suddenly made him less interested in their date? It galled her that she even cared, but she did. And then to be coerced into acknowledging happiness, when all she wanted to do was give him a little closure by telling him she understood why he’d left? That was too much. She kicked herself for having listened to Ellen’s advice that she should call him. “Fine. Forget it. We don’t need to talk. I was trying to do you a favor, but never mind.” She pulled the phone away from her mouth and groaned. “Closure is probably overrated anyway.”

“You okay, Sophie? You sound a bit out of sorts.”

“I’m great,” she lied. “Good-bye, Garrett.”

Sophie slammed her phone shut and threw it against the couch for the second time. Then she laid down next to it and allowed her emotions loose in a flood of tears. For the first time since Garrett had called off the wedding, her crying had nothing to do with anger, resentment, or remorse for what he’d done to her. Rather, they were tears at the unexpected sense of loss that came from knowing that Garrett had another woman in his life, and there was nothing she could do about it.

A
T HIS HOME
in Tacoma, Garrett closed his phone as well, frustrated that the conversation with Sophie hadn’t quite gone the way he’d hoped. He pitched his phone like a fastball toward the stone fireplace mantel, breaking it into several pieces.

He didn’t care.