CHAPTER 4

Sophie’s POV

The force of it snapped my head to the side and knocked me completely off balance. My back hit the kitchen cabinet and then my legs gave way and I went down to the floor. The impact jarred through my whole body and the headache that had been sitting quietly behind my eyes exploded into something blinding. I pressed my hand to the side of my head and stayed on the floor and waited for the room to stop spinning.

Everything was ringing.

"You do not talk back to me," Shirley said from above me. Her voice was very clear and very cold. "Not in my son's house. Not ever. Do you understand me?"

I nodded. I kept my eyes down.

"You are a guest here. You have always been a guest here. An unwanted one. And you will remember your place or I will remind you of it every single time. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said. My voice was barely anything. "I'm sorry."

Lana laughed softly from somewhere behind her mother. A light, careless sound, like what she had just watched was mildly entertaining.

"Rosa and Derek will be home soon," Shirley said. "I want dinner on the table when they walk through that door. Hot food. Properly done." She looked down at me on the floor for one more moment with complete indifference. "Get up and do what you're here for."

She turned and walked out. Her heels clicked down the hallway.

Lana lingered for just a second. She looked at me still on the floor with my hand pressed to my head and the wet jacket pooled around me and she smiled one more time.

Then she followed her mother and the kitchen went quiet.

I stayed on the floor for a little while. Not because I was being dramatic. Just because I needed a moment before I trusted my legs to hold me.

The headache was very bad. The worst it had been all day.

I pressed both hands flat on the cold kitchen floor and pushed myself up slowly. I steadied myself against the counter and stood there breathing until the room settled.

Then I took off the wet jacket and folded it carefully over a chair.

I went to the sink and splashed cold water on my face. I looked at my reflection for just a second in the dark window above the sink. My cheek was red. My hair was still wet and flat. My eyes looked very tired.

I looked away.

I opened the refrigerator and started taking things out for dinner.

Rosa and Derek were coming home and the table needed to be set and the food needed to be hot and ready and I needed to be invisible and useful and cause no trouble.

Same as always.

I got to work.

I had just finished setting the table when the front door opened.

Derek walked in first. He was smiling. I had not seen him smile like that in a long time. Maybe ever. It changed his whole face and for a moment I remembered why I had fallen in love with him and the ache of it was almost unbearable.

Then Rosa walked in beside him and I understood the smile completely.

She was beautiful. More beautiful than the photographs I had seen, and I had seen enough of them. Blonde hair that fell perfectly around her face like it had been arranged by someone who knew what they were doing. She wore a simple cream colored dress and she looked effortless and expensive and she fit beside Derek the way two things fit together when they were always meant to.

His hand rested on her waist like it belonged there.

I stood by the table with a serving spoon in my hand and felt something sharp move through my chest.

Shirley crossed the room so fast she nearly knocked over a chair. She pulled Rosa into a hug and held on tight. Lana followed immediately, both of them talking over each other, touching Rosa’s hair, squeezing her hands.

“Look at you,” Shirley said, holding Rosa at arm’s length with actual tears in her eyes. I had never seen her cry before. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

“Doesn’t she look perfect with Derek,” Lana said. She wasn’t even trying to be subtle. She looked directly at me when she said it.

I looked down at the table and straightened a fork that didn’t need straightening.

I heard footsteps and looked up. Rosa was walking toward me.

I braced myself without meaning to. My shoulders went up slightly. I waited for the look I had been expecting, the same one I got from everyone in this house.

But she smiled.

She walked right up to me and pulled me into a hug before I could react. I stood there with my arms at my sides, completely frozen, not sure what to do with my hands or my face or any part of myself.

She pulled back and looked at me warmly. Then in a loud, bright, carrying voice that reached every corner of the room she said, “Oh you poor thing. You smell like mold.”

Shirley burst out laughing. Lana covered her mouth but her shoulders were shaking. Even the sound of it felt coordinated, like something rehearsed.

The heat rushed up my neck and into my face. I stepped back from her and looked down at my clothes. I was still in the same outfit I had worn in the rain. I hadn’t had a single moment to change. I had gone straight from the front door to the kitchen and cooked for two hours in wet clothes.

I knew I should say something. I couldn’t find any words.

Derek looked at me for exactly one second. His expression was flat and unreadable. Then he turned to Rosa and took her hand.

“Let’s eat,” he said.

He walked her to the table and pulled out her chair.

In two years he had never once pulled out my chair.

I picked up the serving dishes and brought the food to the table quietly. I moved around them carefully, filling glasses, setting things down gently, making myself as small as possible. Nobody spoke to me. Nobody looked at me.

Rosa laughed at something Derek said and the sound of it was lovely and natural and it filled the dining room in a way that the room had always felt like it was waiting for.

I finished serving and pulled out my own chair and sat down.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Shirley’s voice cut across the table like a blade. Everyone looked up.

I kept my hands flat on my lap. “I was going to eat,” I said.

Shirley looked at me the way you look at someone who has done something truly offensive. “This is a welcome dinner for Rosa.” She said it slowly, like I was struggling to understand something simple. “We don’t want you sitting here.”

The table was quiet. Rosa looked down at her plate. Lana reached for her wine glass.

Derek said nothing.

“Take your plate to the kitchen,” Shirley said. “You can eat in there. With the help."