Chapter 4 - THE NOTEBOOK SOPHIE CHOSE FOR ME
Grace came over that evening.
She still brought food.
Apparently some habits survive every stage of grief.
This time it was chicken pot pie.
Ben and Jamie attacked it like they had not eaten in weeks.
Then Grace placed the black notebook in front of me.
“I lied a little.”
“About?”
“When I said I bought this at the drugstore.”
I ran my hand over the cheap cover.
For nearly a year, I had written inside it.
Drafts.
Letters.
Anger.
Pieces that later became chapters.
“It was Sophie’s?”
Grace nodded.
“She asked me to get it.”
During one of the nights I fell asleep sitting upright beside Sophie, Grace had found her awake.
Sophie asked:
“Do writers need special notebooks?”
Grace told her no.
“Good, because Mom doesn’t like expensive stuff.”
That made me laugh.
Then Sophie gave Grace twelve dollars from a birthday card.
They ordered the notebook through the hospital gift shop.
“What did she want it for?”
“For you.”
Grace turned to the inside back cover.
I had never noticed the paper felt slightly thicker there.
A small folded note had been taped beneath the lining.
My hands shook as I opened it.
MOM’S NEXT BOOK.
Underneath, Sophie had written:
Things she should write about when she thinks she can’t.
Then a list.
Hospital coffee tastes like burned socks.
Jamie thinks dinosaurs lived with cowboys.
Ben lies when he steals cookies but his ears turn red.
Mom cries in bathrooms so we don’t see.
Grandma says she hates hospitals.
Dad says work is busy.
Nurse Grace always comes back.
I stopped.
Dad.
Daniel.
Sophie knew he was not coming.
Of course she knew.
Children notice absence long before adults explain it.
Then another line:
Mom thinks nobody sees how hard she tries.
I do.
I pressed the page against my chest.
Grace whispered:
“There are recordings too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Because the last one scared me.”
My head lifted.
“What?”
Sophie had recorded something after Daniel visited the hospital once.
He had visited?
I did not remember that.
“When?”
Four months before she died.
During another afternoon when I had gone home to shower and check on the boys.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Daniel asked us not to.”
My entire body became cold.
“What happened?”
He stayed seventeen minutes.
Sophie became upset afterward.
Grace almost called me.
Sophie stopped her.
“She said she wanted to handle it.”
A nine-year-old child believed she had to handle something her father said.
“What did he tell her?”
Grace handed me an old phone.
The recording began with hospital noise.
Then Sophie’s soft voice.
Dad came today.
Pause.
He said I have to tell Mom not to hate Lauren.
My jaw tightened.
Then:
He said Lauren is scared because everybody thinks she’s the bad person.
Sophie coughed.
Then:
I told him Mom is scared too.
Another pause.
Then the sentence that made me stop breathing.
Dad asked if I could tell Mom I wanted the boys to live with him if I died.
I froze.
Grace looked away.
Daniel had not merely refused to help while Sophie was dying.
May you like
He had privately asked our sick daughter to influence where her brothers would live after her death.
And Sophie had recorded every word.
