“Everything okay?” Cassie said.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I have to make a call.” He shouldered off through the crowd, his mind churning. He should take a breath and call her tomorrow. He knew better than to plunge unprepared into a conversation with Sophie. But if he didn’t call her back he would spin all night, inventing anxious scenarios about what she was up to.
He ducked out a side door, a small measure of calm returning in the cool of the evening. Dusk had fallen and a late bird dipped into the trees at the edge of the parking lot. He headed without plan to the enveloping quiet of the wood, away from the lit busyness of the building. Even after all this time, no one could wind him up him like Sophie.
She picked up on the first ring, which increased his uneasiness. “I saw you called,” he said. It often took Lilah a week to get her, but suddenly she wanted to talk.
“Hiya,” she said. “It’s been a while. Everything good there?” Her chummy voice, which used to make him feel like she was letting him in on a delicious secret, now just annoyed him.
“We’re fine, Lilah’s fine.” It pissed him off all over again how she could go so long without calling her daughter.
“It’s so beautiful here right now. We had snow last week but it’s melting. Brad and I are going to do some backpacking in a couple of weeks.”
“Listen, I’m at a meeting. What do you need?”
“Oh okay. Well this is exciting! One of my pieces was accepted into the Stowe Art Festival, and it’s up for a nice cash prize.” She waited for him to congratulate her but when he didn’t she kept going. “Anyway, I figured I’d fly out and collect the prize and see my mom while I’m there. And I thought, you know what, I’ll swing by Connecticut for a day or two on the way.”
The sky was almost purple black now. He couldn’t make out individual trees, just the swallowing denseness of the woods. It took him a second to realize what she was saying. “You’re coming here?”
“I haven’t seen Lilah in a while.”
“Four years.”
“Has it been that long? It feels like she came out a couple of years ago.”
“When she was eight. Now she’s twelve. You can’t even be bothered to call her back when she wants to talk to you.” He found his voice in a rush of anger. “Now all of a sudden you’re coming to visit?”
She let out an exasperated sound that he knew well. “I’m coming and I want to see her. I thought I’d stay with you if that’s okay.”
“What?” His stomach made a hard landing. “Not a good idea.”
“I’m not bringing Brad, it’s just me. I guess I could get an Airbnb if it bothers you that much.”
“I don’t give a damn. It’s Lilah I’m thinking about. She hasn’t seen you in four years and now you just want to pop in?”
“I’ll only stay a couple of days, then I’ll be out of your hair. I thought maybe I’d take her to Vermont to see her grandmother.”
“No. Lilah’s not going to Vermont.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He didn’t know if the idea had just occurred to Sophie or if she’d planned it all along, but this was what he’d always feared, that one day she would remember she had a daughter and invade their lives like a robber bee, trying to snatch what wasn’t hers.
“Why not?” An unexpected challenge in her voice. “She hasn’t seen her grandmother in years. You know I have the right to take her for vacations.”
A cold sweat crept along his neck. Sophie did have visitation rights. In theory, Lilah could be made to spend summers and some holidays with her mother, but Sophie had never pressed it.
“I don’t want you staying at the house.” The prospect of Sophie under his roof filled him with a stewing dread. Not that he might fall back under her sway; he worried about Lilah. The sudden, gratifying attention of a mother. Even a mother as unreliable as Sophie. What famished twelve-year-old girl wouldn’t be seduced?
“Why not? Oh wait—” A note of amusement in her voice. “Do you have a lady friend these days? Is that the problem?”
He glanced toward the building, his face suddenly warm. “Whether I do or don’t has nothing to do with it. I just don’t think it’s a great idea.”
“Tell her not to worry, I’ll sleep in the extra bedroom. Unless you’ve filled it with bee stuff.”
“There’s no bee stuff in there,” he growled. “I have a shed.”
“Then what’s the problem?” She sounded like she honestly didn’t know. That was Sophie, so caught up in her own drama she couldn’t imagine what it might be like for him if she suddenly reappeared.
He took a breath. “The problem is that we’re no longer married and you no longer live here and it would be better for all of us if you stayed somewhere else while you’re in town.”
“Better for Lilah?”
