Cari Webb - The Charm Offensive

Sophie shook her head and prayed six more weeks was the answer to Tessa’s lack of parental inclination. “Put the charges on the credit card.”

Tessa kissed the phone screen. “I love you, little sister.”

“I love you, too.” Sophie meant those words and believed her sister did, too.

Sophie just wasn’t sure that love mattered. Love was empty without support and commitment and trust. That’s what made love a bond that lasted and endured. Sophie knew that love existed. She’d seen it with Ruthie’s parents who’d recently celebrated forty years of marriage, and now between Ruthie and Matt. It was rare and precious and magical. But only children believed in magic and fairy tales. And a childhood built on abandonment and dysfunction severed any belief in happily-ever-afters. Instead, Sophie strove for happy-for-nows.

“I have to run,” Tessa said. “Class begins in five.”

“Wait.” Sophie grabbed her phone. “Don’t you want to talk to Ella?”

“I will soon,” Tessa said. “It’s better if you tell her. You can hug her and make her smile after delivering the news. If I tell her, then we’ll all be in tears. That won’t be good for anyone. She already thinks I’m a huge disappointment.”

Tessa ended the call before Sophie could respond. Sophie stuffed her phone into her back pocket, checked the locks on the front doors of the Pampered Pooch and switched off the lights. She glanced at the boarded-up window. Brad hadn’t made it back to the store. It meant she’d get to see him again. She might’ve warmed to the idea if her sister hadn’t doused her with a cold bucket of broken promises.

The outside fire escape, with its sturdy thick wood stairs and reliable handrail connected the backyard to the third-floor apartment she shared with Ella. Sophie ran up the stairs, bypassing the empty second floor that would one day hopefully house a vet’s office. This staircase meant Ella and she never had to go outside on the front sidewalk to deal with the steel gate at their main apartment entrance and they could avoid the strangers at the bus stop four steps from their front door.

She wiped her shoes on the mat outside the back door and strode through the kitchen down the hallway. She’d planned to cook a marinara pasta dish with Ella, but her appetite had disappeared when Tessa had signed off. Just thinking about adding garlic to her too-sour stomach made her insides cramp even more.

She pressed her palm on her stomach before knocking on Ella’s bedroom door. “Hey, sweetie.”

Ella sat in the middle of a queen-size bed in a room painted pale lavender and decorated with fuzzy pillows, plump stuffed animals and a thick down comforter. It was the room Sophie and Tessa had never had as children. Ella had picked out everything to make her bedroom cozy. Sophie wished Tessa had been there. Sophie wished Tessa could see how accomplished her daughter had become. Sophie wished...

Ella pressed Pause on her CD player, drawing a smile from deep inside Sophie. These days she couldn’t order audiobooks fast enough for her niece.

“Do we have extra cotton balls?” Ella asked.

“In my bathroom.” The colored markers Sophie had found at the craft store last week covered Ella’s bed. Years ago, Sophie had taught Ella her colors through scent. Discovering scented markers had ignited Ella’s other passion besides books: art. “How many do you need?”

Ella pressed her palm against the upper corner of a poster board. “Enough to glue here for my clouds.” Then she frowned. “Or should the rainbow be above the clouds?”

“The rainbow can be anyplace you want it. So can the clouds.” Sophie touched the intricate braids that Ruthie had formed into her niece’s hair. She wanted so much for Ella to see how much she looked like a princess. “It’s your picture. Your art to create.”

“Do you think Mother will like it?” Ella asked.

Sophie’s heart stalled as if clogged by those extra cotton balls. “She’ll love it.”

“After we add the clouds and I finish the rainbow, you’ll help me write ‘welcome home,’ right?” Ella ran her hands over the rainbow arc she’d formed with thin, flexible wax strips.

The joy in Ella’s tone stole Sophie’s heart, and her throat swelled, feeling stuffed by another bunch of cotton balls. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“She’ll be home in nineteen days,” Ella said. “So I need to be ready soon.”

“About that.” Sophie sat on the bed. “I talked to your mother today.”

Ella’s hands stilled on her picture. “Is she excited to come home?”

A guardedness tightened Ella’s voice as if to protect the joy. Sophie swallowed her scream of anger. Her niece didn’t deserve this amount of pain. “She’s excited to see you.” Sophie hugged Ella, wanting the contact to be more comfort than her empty words, but knew it’d never be enough. “But she needs to stay a little while longer.”

“Then she isn’t excited to see me.” Ella dismantled her rainbow and her joy.

“Oh, sweetie, she wants to see you,” Sophie said. “She wants to be home, but she needs to finish her therapy.”

“She could do her therapy here.” Ella twisted the wax strips in her fingers.

Sophie resented that small kernel of hope in Ella’s voice. Sophie had had that same hope bubble when she was Ella’s age. Her grandmother would pop it with the harsh truth. Over the years, Sophie’s hope bubbles had shrunk in size until they were small enough for Sophie to hide in places her grandmother couldn’t poke.

Ella rushed on. “They have yoga here. I heard Taylor’s mom talking to another mom about their afternoon yoga class over on Market.”

She hated that she’d stomp on Ella’s hope now. She’d never wanted that for this precious girl. “It isn’t the same.”

How Sophie wanted it to be the same. To be that simple.

“It’s better.” Ella smashed the purple modeling clay in her fist. “Her family is here. I’m here. You’re here. There’s yoga here.”

And there was nothing else Sophie could say. She couldn’t promise Ella that Tessa would be home soon. Tessa always found a reason to delay. She’d tell Ella that her mother loved her as usual, but Sophie was too mad at her sister to spend the time to convince Ella it was true. Mothers weren’t supposed to break their daughters’ hearts. Her chest ached and her stomach tightened into knots no Yogi master could release. She’d tried to soften the hurt every time, but the pain was always there. “I’ll go get those cotton balls.”

“There’s no rush.” Ella pushed her drawing across the bed and picked up her headphones. “I’m going to finish my book.”

Ella rolled over onto her side, away from Sophie. Sophie ached. Ella ached, too. Yet no tears dampened either of their faces. But Sophie always dried Ella’s tears and teased away the disappointment. The tissues she’d shoved into her pocket before talking to Ella remained untouched. When had they stopped caring? Ella could see the truth better than most people with twenty-twenty vision. She could see better than her own mother. Sophie’s ache spread like a poison vine, strangling every bone, every vein, consuming her.

Sophie tapped Ella’s shoulder. “I’m going to change over the laundry, then we’ll figure out dinner.”

Ella nodded and covered her ears with her headphones.

Sophie carried Ella’s hamper down into the basement. She wasn’t sure if she smelled the lavender-scented detergent first before she splashed into the water. Or if the water ran into her shoes up to her ankles before the lavender coated every breath, failed to calm her and instead encouraged rage.

She did know that the ancient overflowing washing machine with soap bubbles everywhere and a waterfall streaming up and over the lid became the topper to her rotten day.