Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

SOPHIE

Sophie turned off the engine and rested her head against the seat. After taking the metro most days, she almost forgot how to drive. She dragged herself from the car and slugged up the cracked micro-driveway to her childhood home.

She loved her parents—good, hardworking people, who did the best they could. But she hated when she visited. It felt like a chore. Because normally it was a chore. Growing up, her life was filled with laughter, friends, school, and adolescent shenanigans. She’d skip school to drink beer at Alki Beach, or hop on the bus to the International District to eat dim sum, or she’d hang out with Maya and Harper.

But this house represented a darker side of her upbringing—the lonely nights at ten years old eating her mom’s Lean Cuisine microwavable dinners by herself in front of the TV. Walking home from the bus stop when she was in kindergarten because her parents were still working, and they couldn’t afford daycare. Gluing the straps on her sandals because her dad’s payday was every other Friday, and sometimes the checks were spent before they arrived.

A bucket, broken shingles, and old flowerpots scattered the unstable, chipped wood porch. She stepped over a toolbox, most likely holding space while her father attempted to fix yet another cracked, broken, or dangling item. Fixing the house was like playing home renovation whack-a-mole. Every time he fixed one thing, two others would break.

The door handle jangled in her grip, and the hinges creaked as she cracked it open. “Hello?” she called into open space. Jesus . Every month or two, when she stopped by, she swore her mom added another knickknack to the limited space. A shelf in the corner, normally overflowing with framed family photos, books, and random jars from garage sales, now held a family of porcelain dolls. Yikes.

She toed off her shoes on the wicker mat and stepped into the house, inhaling the familiar scent of sweet pea laundry detergent.

“Soph?” Her mom stepped into the living room from the hall, wrapping her long dark hair up in a bun. “Hey, honey. Didn’t expect to see you today. Everything okay?”

Everything was okay and not okay. The hot tub moment from Monday was still fresh, and the last couple days at work, everything felt different. Amazing, yes. Heart zings and pings galore. But also scary as hell. She and Ella had seamlessly snapped back into work mode, which was exactly what Sophie wanted—at least she thought it was. She’d even told Ella they could not even hint at flirting in the office. But she had no idea Ella was some sort of disassociation master and could apparently click off her emotions in a second.

Forty-eight hours into whatever was happening with Ella, and Sophie was already exhausted. For years, she thought work kept her from meeting someone special. She blamed late hours and the drive for success for keeping her from finding a partner.

Now she wasn’t so sure. Did she know deep down she was her own worst enemy? Maybe she knew she’d be struggle-bussing like she was now, buried under an avalanche of insecurity, wondering if every single breath Ella took, every word she muttered, was filled with regret.

“Yep, I’m good.” She finally responded to her mom. “Just wanted to stop by and see you guys.”

Her mom studied Sophie’s face for several long moments. She tugged on the strings of her hooded sweatshirt and moved toward the kitchen. “Want something to drink? Pop? Tea? Hungry?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

Her mom stepped away and returned with a box of Goldfish crackers and two cans of root beer—Sophie’s favorite. She followed her mom to the couch and sunk into the cushion. The couch had to be pushing twenty-five years old, covered in decades-old Kool-Aid and grease stains. But it perfectly cradled Sophie’s butt and she secretly hoped her parents never upgraded.

A part of Sophie was uncomfortable that her apartment was nicer than her parents’ entire home. She had a stainless-steel dishwasher, new furniture, ultra-modern gray wood flooring, and a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace. Her parents had old, original hardwood floors, a drying rack for their hand-washed dishes, and a refrigerator that squealed when it kicked on.

Her mom scooted next to her and winced as she unwrapped the brace nestled around her wrist. She massaged the joints with some medicinal lotion that reminded Sophie of how her grandmother smelled.

“Is it getting worse?” Sophie popped a cracker in her mouth and held the box to her mom.

“It’s not gettin’ better, I’ll tell ya that much. I might need surgery, but the doctor’s hoping with buckets of ibuprofen and some arthritic gel, I’ll be okay.” She dipped into the crackers. “Occupational hazard, am I right?”

Sophie hated seeing her mom in pain, but she wasn’t wrong that after serving for over thirty years, something like this was bound to happen. With the amount of trays carried, coffee poured, and tables cleared, it was a miracle she hadn’t injured herself worse at this point. “Dad at the library?”

“How did you know?”

Sophie grinned. “What did he finish last night?”

“Who knows? Could’ve been an Ashley Herring Blake romance, Stephen King, or a non-fiction on the industrial revolution. Never know with that man.” Her mom chewed slowly, letting silence fill the air. “All right, spill it, woman. You never just pop by to say hi. What’s going on?”

So many things . She was tired. She wanted this cruise so bad. And she was currently battling a severe love-hate relationship with her insides. The waterfall of tingles that happened when Ella’s glasses slipped on her nose when she was concentrating, or when she put a pen in between her plump red lips, or when she glanced at Sophie with her doe eyes after speaking at a meeting, was overkill.

Sophie cracked open the soda, the fizzy bubbles burning as they traveled her throat. She wasn’t sure she was ready to dive into this with her mom, as the feelings for Ella were fresh and raw. But also, what would her mom’s reaction be when learning Ella was the CEO’s daughter, who lived in a mansion on Lake Washington?

“You know what?” Her mom squeezed Sophie’s knee. “I was just about to polish my fingernails. Let me grab the box.”

No, she wasn’t. Her mom never wore polish, worried it would flake into the food she was serving. But Sophie loved nail polish.

She excused herself to use the bathroom and go look in her childhood bedroom. Even though she moved out so many years ago, and her parents only had two bedrooms, they’d kept her room almost exactly the same. There was a sense that any time she wanted to move back, she could.

Mixed emotions filled her as she scanned her room, noting the posters of the Ramones and Violent Femmes still hanging on with masking tape above the plastic bins used for a dresser. She closed the door and returned to the living room. The house made her both happy and sad. Familiarity brought comfort, but this was the end—her parents had reached the top of what they would do with their lives. And was this really a way to live? In a shitty, run-down home, with creaky floors and loud neighbors, while working at a diner and mechanic shop.

Towels and extra soap from the overstuffed linen closet fell to the floor as her mom dug around. A few grunts later, she grabbed a shoe box full of different shades and brought them to Sophie. “Pick one.”

Sophie scrummaged through half-crusted bottles and clearance price tags, and plucked out a deep, shimmery violet. She flipped her legs crisscross-style and held out her hand as the room filled with the stinging scent of nail polish. Gently, her mom guided the color across Sophie’s fingertip, and soon Sophie’s shoulders relaxed. “Remember the trainee I told you about? Ella?”

Her mom focused on swiping color across Sophie’s thumb. “Yeah?”

Why was Sophie nervous? She wanted to confess. Feelings, insecurities, thoughts gurgled inside like a shaken-up carbonated drink, and if she cracked it the tiniest bit, she’d overflow. The fact that she hadn’t even told Maya about what happened in the hot tub scared her. “I, uh.” She cleared her throat. “We’ve been getting along a lot better and working really hard on the new campaign.”

“That’s great.” Her mom pulled Sophie’s left hand onto her lap. “It’s always easier to get along with co-workers than not. Remember when we had that cook, Bob? Such a prick. And boy, did it make the days drag.”

Sophie remembered this guy, who had toddler-level emotional regulation and screamed across the kitchen on a whim. She blew on her right hand to dry the polish, stalling. “So, she’s George’s daughter, and I, we, uh, we are getting close. Like really close.”

Her mom stopped and stared, her brows scrunching together. “George the CEO?” After Sophie nodded, her mom took a breath. “I see.”

I see? That was all her mom’s response, and a fine thread wrapped around her chest and pulled tight. She knew exactly what her mom was thinking, because Sophie had thought the same. Her deeply held beliefs about money and privilege were not just something she picked up on her own. It was generational intolerance, passed down from her parents.

Sophie’s eyes flickered to the corner, passing from the torn fake palm tree that had been there since Sophie could remember, to the ratty blanket tossed over the chair her mom surely got at Goodwill, to the scratched-up wood paneling on the wall. “Why didn’t you and Dad ever do better for yourselves?”

“ Excuse me?”

Her mom’s shocked voice hit Sophie hard, and she so badly wanted to retract the question. But, she had to ask. Her dad was the smartest man she knew. Her mom worked so hard, busting her ass on the regular to serve food. They could have done so much more with their life. Yet, they were trapped a step above poverty, and they’d always be there. She needed to know why. “I’m sorry… I’m not trying to offend.” Jesus Christ, she sounded terrible. “But why didn’t you get a different job? Or Dad? Or move from this place?”

Her mom now squinted and folded her arms across her chest. “Why would we?”

“Because…” How did she say this, without really sounding like the people she despised? Was she now the elitist, pigeon-holing her parents, putting them in a box she thought they belonged in? “You guys could have done so much more. Had more things. Gone on trips. Bought a bigger house.”

The heat of her mom’s gaze bored into her, and Sophie’s insides burned.

“Why do you think your dad and I wanted a bigger house, or trips, or more things?”

Because wasn’t that what everyone wanted? Aren’t you supposed to strive for that while disliking the people who had it? Sophie glanced back at her fingers.

“Do you think you had a terrible childhood?” her mom asked.

Sophie shook her head. “No, of course not.”

“Tell me your worst childhood memory.”

The worst? How did she answer something like that? She scoured her memory bank, remembering when she sobbed on her eighth birthday into her Minnie Mouse cake. That whole year she had begged Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy, and even the God at the church her grandma attended that she would give up everything if she could go to Disney for her birthday. “I always wanted to go to Disneyland, and we never could.”

“ That’s your worst memory?” Her mom scowled.

“I mean, I was left alone a lot, and I just didn’t have the things other kids did. I didn’t go to college, I couldn’t shop at the mall, sometimes all we had was mac ’n’ cheese for dinner.”

“You love mac ’n’ cheese.”

“That’s not the point!” Sophie exhaled a shaky breath, and her mom braced her shoulders.

After so many moments where the air felt tight and Sophie thought of the million ways to apologize, her mom pulled Sophie’s hand back into her lap and continued polishing. “Growing up, all I ever wanted was to go camping.” She finished swiping and twisted the cap back on the bottle. “It was my dream, but the idea of my parents affording a tent and the gas to drive to the coast was unheard of. That’s probably why we camped so much in the summers and made so many forts in the living room during the winter.”

Forts in the living room . How had Sophie forgotten that? She and her mom would destroy their space, piling blankets across the back of chairs, tying sheets to hooks her dad put in the ceiling, and pulling her mattress onto the floor. They’d prop themselves up on their elbows, eat through a bag of marshmallows, and read books with flashlights.

Her mom wrapped the brace back around her wrist and snugged the Velcro tight. “When I got a little older, I dreamed about one day leaving the trailer park and getting my own house. I mean, I couldn’t even imagine. An actual house— in Seattle . It was unheard of in the park.”

Sophie’s neck grew tight.

“Your dad loves working on cars so much. How he can go from working in the shop during the day to coming home and doing the same thing at night is beyond me.” She grabbed the root beer in her hand and took a small sip. “How many people are lucky enough to work at a place that is also their hobby? That , Sophie Squirrel, is a dream come true. Your dad and I live our dreams every day. It may not be your dream, and that’s okay. You own your dreams. We own ours.”

Oof. The words clobbered her over the head, and she bit back a tremble in her lip.

Why did she focus on the negative parts of her life? The money, the time spent alone, the lack of things . And yet she’d had two loving parents, who also loved each other. She couldn’t even remember them yelling, except for the night she got caught sneaking out as a teen.

“Now, about this Ella girl.”

Sophie smiled through her moistened eyes and reached for her mom. “I don’t think I want to talk about her right now.”

Her mom dug into the cracker box and popped one in her mouth. “Okay, but let me just say one thing. You’ve always accomplished what you’ve set your mind to. You’re a fighter, always have been.” Her mom kissed the top of her head. “Just make sure she deserves you.”

Make sure Ella deserves me. A few weeks ago, the concept of someone like Ella deserving her was unfathomable. She would have thought about everything she lacked and compared it against everything Ella had. She would have convinced herself she wasn’t good enough while pushing herself to prove otherwise.

But knowing Ella the way she did now, it wasn’t about who deserved each other more. It was about opening herself up to the possibility of happiness.

Sophie lifted herself from the couch and stretched, fatigue setting in. “Is it okay if I sleep in my old room tonight?”

Her mom smiled and folded the cracker box closed. “Of course. Anytime.”