Chapter 4 - What Sophie Wanted
The urgent care doctor said Sophie had mild cold exposure, no frostbite, no tissue damage, and a body temperature that had already normalized.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, I kept asking questions until the doctor finally took off her glasses and looked at me.
“Mr. Whitaker, she is medically okay.”
“What about delayed symptoms?”
“Watch for numbness, color changes, unusual pain. I wrote it down.”
“Could there be—”
“Dad.”
Sophie was sitting on the exam table in thick socks, holding the discharge papers.
“I’m fine.”
I stopped.
The doctor smiled at her, not me.
“She is also old enough to tell you when she has had enough questions.”
Sophie gave me a look that said she liked this woman.
On the drive home, neither of us spoke for ten minutes.
Snowbanks blurred past the truck windows. I kept both hands locked on the steering wheel.
“You’re mad at me,” I said.
“I’m tired.”
“Same thing sometimes.”
She looked out the passenger window.
“I don’t want you to fix me.”
“I’m not trying to fix you.”
“You got forty-seven people fired in three days.”
“Some are getting jobs back.”
“That isn’t better.”
I let out a breath through my nose.
“Okay.”
“You keep saying okay like you’re waiting for me to finish so you can explain why you’re right.”
That sounded uncomfortably familiar.
Claire had said nearly the same thing during arguments.
I kept driving.
Sophie turned toward me.
“Do you know what I wanted when I called you?”
“To come get you.”
“That’s it.”
“I did.”
“Yes.”
“And I should have done more before that.”
She looked down at her hands.
“I wanted you to take me home. I didn’t want you to blow up forty-seven lives.”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“You were thinking clearly. You were just angry.”
I glanced at her.
She was not accusing me.
That made it worse.
When we reached the house, Claire’s car was in the driveway.
Sophie immediately stiffened.
“You told her to come?”
“No.”
“Then why is she here?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire was standing inside the kitchen with two suitcases near the back door.
She had changed clothes. Gray sweater. Jeans. Hair pulled into a knot.
She looked smaller without her parents’ dining room around her.
“I came for some things,” she said.
Sophie stopped near the doorway.
Claire looked at her.
“How are you?”
Sophie did not answer.
“I heard you went to urgent care.”
Still nothing.
Claire’s eyes moved to me.
“Can we talk?”
“Ask Sophie.”
Claire blinked.
Sophie looked at me sharply.
I realized what I had done.
I had put her in charge of another adult conflict.
“Sorry,” I said. “That was unfair.”
Sophie grabbed her backpack.
“I’m going upstairs.”
Claire stepped aside before Sophie came near her.
After the bedroom door closed, I leaned against the kitchen counter.
Claire stared at the floor.
“I didn’t think he would leave her out there that long.”
“That is not helping.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying you know.”
“Because I do.”
“No. You know it looks bad. I don’t think you know what you chose.”
Claire’s face hardened.
“You think I chose my father over Sophie.”
“You did.”
“I was trying to stop dinner from turning into another screaming match.”
“By letting the sixteen-year-old leave.”
“She was screaming too.”
“She is sixteen.”
“And you treat her like she is the only person allowed to have emotions.”
That hit something I had not expected.
I straightened.
“What does that mean?”
Claire folded her arms.
“It means our marriage has been Sophie, work, Sophie, work, and me somewhere around fourth place.”
“That does not excuse Christmas Eve.”
“I am not excusing it.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“It sounds like you only want one conversation.”
She went to the counter, picked up the divorce papers she had brought a fresh copy of, and set them down.
“I signed these two weeks before Christmas.”
I looked at her.
“I had an attorney draft them in November.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because every time I tried to talk about us, you told me it was a busy quarter.”
I remembered two dinners I had missed.
A weekend I had shortened because a project manager called.
Her birthday trip that became one night instead of three.
I hated that those memories arrived now, when I wanted a simple villain.
“You still handed them to me while Sophie was outside.”
“Yes.”
“That was deliberate.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Claire’s eyes filled but she did not cry.
“Because I was furious. At you. At her. At my father. At myself. I wanted one thing in that room to be over.”
“So you picked the marriage.”
“I had already picked it.”
I looked toward the ceiling, where Sophie was somewhere above us.
Claire continued.
“I did not ask Dad to throw her out. I did not know he had taken her coat upstairs. I should have gone after her. I should have stopped him. I didn’t.”
Her voice dropped.
“And I can’t make that sentence less ugly.”
For several seconds, the refrigerator hummed between us.
Then Claire said, “I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“What are you asking?”
“To stop telling yourself Christmas Eve ended a good marriage.”
I looked at the suitcases.
She had packed only clothes.
No photo frames.
No kitchen things.
No books.
She was leaving like a person who expected to return for logistics, not for love.
“I won’t contest the divorce,” I said.
Claire closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she nodded.
“Okay.”
“But you don’t contact Sophie unless she asks for it.”
“That is between Sophie and me.”
“She is a minor.”
“And I was her stepmother for eight years.”
“You watched your father throw her outside.”
“I know what I did.”
“Then act like it.”
Claire picked up one suitcase.
At the door, she stopped.
“You want to protect her from ever being hurt again.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
She went on.
“And if you try hard enough, you’ll hurt her yourself.”
The back door closed behind her.
A few seconds later, Sophie spoke from the staircase.
“She’s right about that too.”
I turned.
“How long were you standing there?”
“Long enough.”
I rubbed my face.
“I’m sorry.”
She sat on the bottom step.
“You keep trying to make rules for me without asking what I want.”
May you like
“What do you want?”
Sophie looked toward the back door. “I don’t know yet.” That was the answer I had been trying hardest not to allow.
