Sophie
by Shannon Deep

Sophie, he wrote.

He paused, hurting. His writing looked strained—of course it was strained! He scratched out the name.

Sophie, Rick wrote again. This time the S didn’t look right, not at all balanced. It was not an S worthy of her name. He crossed it out.

Sophie, he wrote. And this time it was Sophie.

Normally, Rick wasn’t so particular about the way he wrote her name, but this was a special occasion. He felt the pressure to make it pretty, to make it count, and that formal air was making him nervous. He had reluctantly started writing letters to Sophie fourteen years ago at the suggestion of an infuriatingly soft-spoken grief counselor and it surprised him how naturally he took to it, how regularly he fell to doing it, and now how hard it was to give it up. There was a first letter, and there had to be a last, he told himself. Wasn’t that the idea of the exercise all along?

Rick couldn’t bring himself to start with, This will be my last letter, so he wrote:

The first time I heard your name I was only twenty—more than half my life ago! We were in Contemporary American Literature with that professor that everyone hated. It took two weeks of class before I arrived in time to hear the beginning of roll being called. Usually I came in right around G, but that day I must have accidentally wandered in early. I remember I was staring blankly at the professor’s left ear when he said, “Sophia Bell?”

Writing her name without his own attached at the end sent him careening back to that classroom. It was a stuffy, claustrophobic room with four small square windows that perfectly snagged the mid-afternoon sun, turning the classroom into little more than academic crockery. Dust motes and chalk residue floated leisurely in and out of the blocky beams of sunlight. Sometimes the dust swirled and puffed with the small eddies of air stirred up by the students fanning themselves with their syllabi.

In that tiny, sweltering classroom, clutching a book he hated and anticipating a discussion that would bore him, the words “Sophia Bell” sounded like cool, clear notes struck from a xylophone. Rick was an art history major; his time spent in Contemporary American Literature filled an English requirement and drained his will to live. Until that day, he mourned the death of every minute spent in that class.

Sophia Bell said, “Present,” in a glassy little voice.

He whirled around to see which girl belonged to such a remarkable name, scraping his chair legs on the floor and knocking his notebook off his desk in the process.

She was a slight girl with very long black hair and an angular face. Rick observed her as he scrambled to gather the loose papers that had deluged from his fallen notebook. Her skin was strikingly pale except for her rather rosy cheeks and her hands were hummingbird-quick, darting suspiciously around her writing instruments as she prepared to speak again.

“Professor,” she piped before he could call another name, “I prefer ‘Sophie,’ as I’ve said.”

She wasn’t pretty—traditionally speaking—but she certainly was interesting to look at. She looked incredibly small perched on the edge of her chair, her sharp face diminished by the frame of her straight dark locks. Rick marveled that he hadn’t noticed her before.

“Of course,” the professor said, “Sophie. Keep reminding me.”

Sophia Bell appeared to wilt, clearly disheartened. She must have been hearing the same thing for the past two weeks.

Instead of continuing with roll, the professor turned his gaze to the mess of papers on the floor. He peered over his reading glasses. “Mr. Winters, are we alright?”

“Uh,” responded Rick.

“It is Richard Winters, isn’t it? Or am I confusing you with….,” the professor trailed off as he scanned his roster.

“No,” Rick recovered, “I’m Rick, Richard. Sorry about the mess. Don’t mind me.”

The professor smirked. “Noted,” he murmured.

As the drone of unfamiliar names began again, Rick’s mind whirred like a re-oiled machine. Pensively, he nudged his unopened copy of My Life as a Man with the end of his pen and willed himself to grow eyes in the back of his head—eyes for Sophia Bell.

It wasn’t until a month later that the professor did mind Rick—as he was ordering him to leave his classroom.

Do you remember this, Soph? How I corrected the professor when he called you Sophia? He said I was rude and insubordinate, that I had no right to correct him—but that professor was an ass anyway. I’m glad for it, as I’ve said many times. How else would you have noticed me?

Rick smiled, remembering the sound of the classroom door slamming behind him and the hallway slowly coming into focus as the red lights in his eyes dimmed. Though outwardly calm, he had been so angry that he couldn’t see. His bones felt like they were on fire. He leaned against the cool glazed-brick wall. He noticed he was shaking.

“I think you mean Sophie,” was what he had said, was what started the whole thing.

The professor’s balding head had snapped to the left at the sound of Rick’s voice, trying to identify the source of this interruption. He had just called on Sophie, whose mouth was ajar in preparation for her answer. The silence that followed was what Sophia would later call “a pause pregnant with twins.”

Rick broke the silence under the frozen pressure of the professor’s glare. “She’s been asking you for six weeks to call her Sophie. It just seems to me that you should honor that.” Rick spoke calmly but his head was heating up and his limbs felt thick and heavy, like they were being inflated with mercury. He added, “Sir.”

And it didn’t matter now what the professor had said; in fact, at the time, sitting out there in the dim hallway, Rick could barely remember the volley of insults. What mattered was that he had stuck up for Sophie.

Sophie! What would Sophie think of him now? Surely she was mortified—a man she didn’t know getting into a fight with their professor over her name. She would hate him. She’d never even so much as glance at him again. She’d drop the class to avoid him. She’d drop out of college. She’d move away and become some minimum-wage slave at a diner, and it was all because of him! Why did he have to go and open his mouth? So stupid! Let the girl fight her own battles!

Rick argued with himself for the remaining twenty minutes of class and was so absorbed in his remorse that he was startled when she tapped him on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” was all she said.

Then she smiled at him, and turned and disappeared into the crush of students.

I always told you that you had no idea how it felt the first time you spoke to me. Made me want to do something grand—sing or something. I always told you I’d tell you a million different times a million different ways how it was, but I never got it quite right. And look at me, still trying!

As he formulated his next line, there was a tremendous tumbling of feet on the stairs. Rick leaned forward in his seat at the kitchen table just in time to see his daughter Angela pop into view as she crossed into the foyer to find her shoes. Rick quickly slid the letter under a pile of junk mail.

“Angie!” he called, leaning forward farther so that she could see his head poking into the frame of the doorway. “Where are you off to tonight?”

Angela walked into the kitchen distractedly, rifling through her enormous purse for her car keys. “Uh,” she responded, shoulder-deep in the aged brown leather, “nowhere unless I can find my….never mind.” She withdrew her arm and jingled the prize at him, which, as an eighteen-year-old, was more key chains than actual keys. “To the movies with Rachel and Lauren and then to Brad’s house to hang out afterwards. I think we’re having a fire.”

“Well, that’s nice,” Rick said. “What movie are you—”

“Oh, Dad!” she interrupted. “Do we still have those marshmallows? The big ones?” Angela walked behind Rick and began opening cupboards. “I said I’d bring something for s’mores but I don’t want to stop at the store.”

Though Angela had to stand on her toes to grope around in the highest cabinets, she was still a good four inches taller than her mother had been. Sophie used a stepping stool for putting away their groceries.

She found the bag of marshmallows. “Never mind!” she said, though Rick hadn’t answered her. “Ok, I’m off! What’re you going to do?”

“I’m going to meet Linda at eight. Until then, just putzing around, paying bills.” He threw a glance over the table, hoping there was a bill or two in plain sight to add credibility to his story.

“Cool, sounds fun,” said Angie. “Tell Linda I say hi and that I still want to go to the symphony with her next week.”

“Yeah! Great, she’ll be thrilled.” Rick rose to hug his daughter. “Bye, sweetie! Have fun. Let me know if you’ll be out past two.” Enfolding her in his arms, he could smell her hair and the skin around her ear—to him she would always smell like sleep. He stiffened.

Angie pulled out of his embrace and kissed him on the cheek. “Yeah, Dad. No problem.”

Rick resumed his seat and watched Angela hop around putting on her shoes. She waved to him as she opened the door and then disappeared, shutting it solidly behind her. Rick fished his letter out of the junk mail and tried to shift his mind back to Sophie, back to what he had to tell her.

But anyway, Sophie, I’m sorry that I’ve gone back to the very beginning, rehashing the first little bits of our life together. I guess it’s natural that I’ve been thinking about those days a lot lately, been feeling them a lot lately. I guess that’s normal because this is my good-bye, Sophie. This is my last letter.

Rick stopped. His pen was shaking. Usually writing to his dead wife relaxed him, calmed him down when he a rough day, salved his soul when he missed her, but this letter….this letter was excruciating. He needed to write this letter; he needed to tear this letter to shreds and never think of writing it again. His words were frozen, jammed up inside the pen. He could see every one squirming around inside; he had said them all in his head a hundred times—a thousand. Now was the time to write them down, make them count. And he was paralyzed. There was far too much to say. Having started at the beginning, he was compelled to unfold their life together to the very end. All at once scenes of Sophie seized him, each one grappling for his attention separately.

There was Sophie in a sundress on the hood of his car, complaining good-naturedly that his class ring was far too heavy to wear around her neck.

There was Sophie peeking out from between her scarf and hat, blinking at the snowflakes.

Sophie was crying after she cut her hair short.

Sophie was asleep in the armchair, his dissertation arrayed on her lap, a red pen clutched in her small hand.

Sophie placed her cool white palm on the small of his bare back.

Sophie said, “Thanks,” and smiled at him.

And though he fought it, another memory came back to him, rushing over him like a frigid wave and snaring him in its undertow:

Sophie dead in the snow, her gray-mittened hand puckered around a little brick of charcoal.

He knew now that there was no escaping it, though sometimes when he checked himself early enough he could stave off the memory, cut the strip of film before it wound itself fully around the reel. Once he saw the mitten, Rick was lost. The mitten led to the piece of charcoal which led to the incomplete smile of the snowman that Sophie and their daughter had been making. That smile had seemed like a cruel smirk as Rick knelt next to his wife’s prone body which was made unfamiliarly large by the snow pants and heavy down coat she was wearing. Three-year-old Angie was asleep half on, half off her mother’s chest, just a gray nylon puff in a red tassel cap.

Rick had run outside in just his pajamas and boots. How had he not noticed that it had been three hours since they’d gone outside? How had he not peeked out his study window at them? How had he been so absorbed in his work? Rick slogged out to them as fast as he could, the deep snow spraying from his boots like shrapnel with every shuffling footfall. His arms flailed ridiculously; he thrashed them like blue flannel propellers to gain momentum.

A week later Rick’s neighbor to the left would tell Rick’s neighbor to the right that Rick’s frantic calls to his wife and daughter as he leapt through the snow were what first brought her to the window. It had been that neighbor that had called the ambulance, had run out to him as he knelt in the snow, clasping his daughter to him. That neighbor had taken little Angie inside and made her a cup of cocoa while the paramedics stripped Sophie in the yard and performed CPR on her, mostly for the benefit of Rick looking on pathetically with damp, snow-caked knees, because it was immediately clear to them that she had been dead for more than an hour, and that little Angie, at a loss, had simply curled up to nap with her mother. The neighbor to the left had never heard the word “aneurysm” before and had to think hard lest she mispronounce it when relaying the story to the neighbor on the right.

As the memory began to flicker out, Rick was still present in the moment of his horrifying discovery. At first, he had thought Angela dead, too. He had bent his head over Sophie’s nose and mouth, hoping to feel a warm breath on his ear even though he had seen her sharp blue eyes fixed unerringly on the blank winter sky. Were anyone to ask him, he would still be unable to say fifteen years later which disturbed him more: Finding himself staring at his daughter’s sleeping face as he realized that her mother was dead, or simultaneously sensing that one smelled distinctly like sleep, the other, snow.

The plastic ticking of his cheap wall clock above the stove brought him back to himself suddenly. It was seven thirty-five. He was meeting Linda at eight and the walk usually took him about fifteen minutes. It was now or never.

I’ve met someone else, Sophie. And I think it’s going to go somewhere real. This isn’t like Cathy or Jan—I could tell you about those ones because they didn’t matter. I knew they would never be anything to me. But, I’ve been seeing Linda for five months, and I’m sorry but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you about her till now. Angie likes her, too—they went prom dress shopping together, you know. Even though she’s off to college next year, she still needs a mother, and Linda would make a great one. And now I’m sure that this is what I want and what I need to do. I’ve thought about it a thousand times, planned out this letter every night for a month on the insides of my eyes before falling asleep. I’m finally admitting that I’m in love with her and this is the only fair way to do things.

And everyone says that this happens. How could you prevent it? they ask. And while I know that in my head, my heart still hurts a little for you. It doesn’t feel right. I feel like I’m betraying you. And I can hear what you’d say to that! And still…

And as my last letter, I feel like I should be saying something significant, something profound and incredibly powerful, something that communicates to you and elucidates to me exactly what our relationship meant. Exactly what it still means. And I am at a loss. It was always you who was good at words. Next to you I might as well be mute.

Rick paused again, aware now that he was breathing hard. Reading over his last few paragraphs, he winced at how he seemed to ramble. But Sophie would forgive him, she always had; her red pen was friendly.

So, my Sophie, this is it. I don’t even have to say that I’ll never forget you, but I’ve said it anyway. And I know I don’t have to tell you how I love you, but I’ve told you anyway. There is still that piece of you in me that can never be dissolved, Linda or not. That’s the way it is with first loves, isn’t it? My first love, my Sophie.

He signed it, “Love, Rick,” as usual.

Before the tears could start Rick folded up the letter. It was written on the best stationary he could find, just like all his letters to her. He tucked it in an envelope and absently reached for a stamp before remembering himself with a pang. It was seven forty-three; he’d have to walk quickly to be on time.

Outside the street was getting dark, spottily illuminated by the orange wash of streetlights that were blinking on, one by one. It was the kind of mottled twilight that always makes people walking side-by-side look like they’re holding hands. The start of summer this year had been cool, and the letter rustled impatiently in his jacket pocket, causing Rick to close his hand around it gently, even though it was in no danger of falling out. He kept a brisk pace, his eyes focused straight ahead, and his thoughts trained only on the physical elements of his task.

Rick was surprised to find that he was slightly out of breath when he reached the wrought iron gate of the churchyard. He tried to open it quietly because he knew the priest was an impossibly light sleeper and the manse was more or less connected to the actual church. The church itself was completely dark which made all the stained-glass windows appear to be the approximate color of dried blood. Padding around to the back of the building, Rick noted that the grass had recently been cut and all the hedges that bordered the cemetery neatly trimmed. It always made him happy when things looked nice here.

As he passed through an opening in the hedges, Rick noticed a suitable stone about the size of his fist and stooped to pick it up. Brushing it off, he continued his walk toward the back of the cemetery, not even pausing to look at any of the gravestones. He knew precisely where he was going.

It was only when he stopped at a small white headstone that he allowed himself to come back to the moment. He crouched in front of it and ran his fingers over the name. Sophie Bell Winters felt the same way every time but he never grew tired of it. Taking the letter from his pocket, he pressed it into the grass in front of the grave and put the stone on top. The ground around the headstone was littered with similar monuments. Graying scraps of paper peeked from beneath stones and a sudden gust of wind could cause an out-of-season stationary snowstorm. With his back to the stiff breeze Rick could hear the excited flutter of paper all around him.

He rose, brushing his palms against his thighs, sloughing off imaginary dirt. Glancing around at the gravesite, he was struck by a sudden compulsion to never see Linda again, to never leave the cemetery, to never write Sophie a last letter.

And then he decided that he could do at least one of those things.

Before he could change his mind, Rick squatted and flipped over the stone he had just placed. Seizing the letter, he ripped it in half, then in half again. He took each of the four pieces and shredded them as fast as he could with his fingers, tossing the bits into the breeze as he went. He watched as some of them were whipped into the air and disappeared into the night like tiny white balloons into the sky above a carnival. Other pieces drifted downward and collected at his feet or scuttled along the ground, plastering themselves against headstones and becoming ensnared by blades of night-dewed grass.

Satisfied that there would be no last letter, Rick leaned forward and kissed the headstone lightly, then rose to his feet. Usually he liked to look back at Sophie’s marker as he left, letting it become a little white smudge at the sidewalk before turning away from the church and walking back home, but this time he refused himself the indulgence. Rick strode away from the grave at a focused cadence; after all, he was almost late.

Across the street and a block up from the church Rick watched a light blue sedan clumsily parallel park in front of his favorite café. A middle aged woman got out of the car and began to fish around in her purse for change for the meter. Rick smiled.

It was Linda. Right on time.