Anna North - The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

I was offended that this was what she thought of me, that I was too much of a pussy to stand up to my family or my friends.

“I’ll tell them I’m in love with you,” I said.

She scrunched her eyes tight and shook her head. She opened her mouth and shut it again. For a long time I stood there in front of her waiting for her to say something. Finally she just said, “I want you to go.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not leaving until we talk about this.”

She looked so mad then that I was scared. She looked like I’d tried to force myself on her.

“I want you to go,” she said again, louder. And there was nothing I could do then but turn around and leave.

WHEN I TOLD THE THERAPIST this story I took out the part about CeCe. I told myself I wasn’t that person anymore and that bringing up cheating on my ex-girlfriend just made things complicated. I told the therapist Sophie and I were casually dating, and I wanted more and she didn’t, and even saying that much to another person made me sweaty and uncomfortable. When I was finished the therapist nodded seriously and said he could tell I was a very thoughtful person, and he gave me some sheets to write down how I was feeling, and then our time was up.

On the drive home Lauren asked me how it went, and I said, “Fine,” and then I tried to think of something else to tell her. It was true that I hadn’t told her how I was feeling since the accident, and I didn’t know why — I trusted her opinion more than anyone else’s. I decided I needed to try harder.

“It was good,” I told her. “He says I need to be more open with my feelings.”

She nodded, in that calming way she had, and she said, “You know you can always talk to me.”

And so I told her I’d been feeling at loose ends since the accident, and out of sorts, and maybe it had to do with not working. And she said she totally understood, and it was good that I was going back to work soon, but in the meantime maybe we could try to do more things together, like taking Emma to the park or playing board games. We also decided I would volunteer more at church. I felt relaxed and then we ate dinner and had sex, but it was still hours before I could sleep.

A couple of weeks after my first therapy appointment, I found out Sophie was coming to Chicago. Her movie was opening there, and she was going to answer questions afterward. I’d read all about the movie, and I was already planning how I’d explain to Lauren that I wanted to see it, but I’d never thought I’d actually see Sophie. If I could relearn how to drive, I realized, I could drive to Chicago.

I e-mailed her again:

Dear Sophie ,

I noticed that you’re going to Chicago on tour for your movie. It turns out I will be there for work that day. Do you want to have some coffee after the screening is over and catch up? It’s such a funny coincidence I figure we should take advantage of it. Let me know if you’re interested .

Also, sorry if my last e-mail came off as weird at all. I was having a hard time but I’m doing much better now. Although if you would like to discuss anything in the e-mail in person I would be happy to do that too .

Talk to you in Chicago, I hope,

Daniel

I started slow, with Lauren in the passenger seat next to me putting her hand on my arm at every stop sign, asking if I was okay. At first I wasn’t; my right leg felt unbalanced without the left one, and I kept pushing the gas pedal way too hard so the car lurched forward, scaring Lauren and embarrassing me. But I thought about going to Chicago and I did some breathing exercises my therapist had taught me, and soon I started to feel good, like this was a type of moving I could still do.

The next week I went back to work. My thigh muscles were working better with the prosthesis now, and I’d graduated from a walker to a cane. So hobbling back into my building I just looked like an old man and not an almost dead one. The office staff got me a cake, white with welcome back written on it in red frosting. My desk was just like I’d left it the day of the accident, down to the bag of Mini Oreos that I’d eaten all but one of so I could tell myself I hadn’t finished the whole thing. I realized if I’d died that night the desk would probably have stayed untouched for a few days, like a shrine, and then someone would’ve taken all my stuff and thrown it away to make room for my replacement. I wondered who my replacement would’ve been, and what he would’ve looked like, and I imagined him replacing me in my whole life, not just work — as Lauren’s husband, Emma’s dad, my parents’ son. I wasn’t sure they’d miss much about me after a while. If I disappeared for a long time and someone else came to take my place, someone who was nice to Lauren and played with Emma and went to work and came home, they’d probably forget about me pretty quickly.

I didn’t get much work done my first day back. A couple of times I realized I’d been staring into space; I hoped nobody noticed. As the week went on I got better at acting normal; I went to therapy and physical therapy; I felt guilty that I had so many people helping me. The therapist asked me if I was scared of driving, but it was the opposite: driving made me calm. I started taking the long way home, the old county road instead of the highway — and then I started turning down roads that didn’t even lead home at all but took me out past cornfields, old farmhouses with rusted trucks in their driveways, a blond-haired kid tossing handfuls of dirt into a drainage ditch.

One of the back roads off the county route ran past a quarry. I’d never seen it before, even though in high school we used to drive around looking for places just like it to get drunk on summer nights. Two nights I drove past it slowly, without stopping, but the third night I got out and looked down. It was so deep I couldn’t put a number on it. The walls were straight up and down on both sides where they had cut the rock out, and at the bottom there was nothing but dark icy water, far, far down.

I could already feel what it would be like to crash through the ice and swim in the water. It would be so cold, so cold that soon I’d lose the feeling of coldness, and then the feeling in my fingers and toes and leg and arms, and then I’d just lie back; above me I’d see the quarry’s black walls rising, and between them the stars.

I was thinking about the accident again, about the question I couldn’t answer. I knew the other car had come swerving across the road at me. What I couldn’t remember was if I’d cranked the wheel hard and tried to get away, or if I’d kept driving right toward it. I knew I loved my wife and my daughter and I wanted to live, but I also knew that night in the hospital when I was a kid wasn’t some crazy fluke. I knew that ever since I’d blown out my knee, ever since my life was just about going to work and coming home and not about flying around the court and feeling all that power in my arms and legs and heart, some part of me had wanted to die. And I knew if anyone could understand that it would be Sophie.

After a long time a truck came down the road with its brights on, and there I was leaning on my cane next to the quarry like a deformed villain in a crappy movie, and I was so embarrassed that I got right in my car and drove home. Lauren was worried about me; I told her I’d been working late to make up for all the time I’d lost. I could tell she didn’t quite believe me, but she kissed me anyway and we had beef stew with egg noodles, and I read Emma a book about horses, and when I checked my e-mail that night I had a message from Sophie.

Hi Daniel ,

Sorry I didn’t respond to your other messages. Sometimes I’m bad with e-mail. Please come to my show and we can get coffee afterward and talk. I haven’t talked to anyone about Iowa in a long time .