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“No,” he answered. But then heard himself add, “We lived together for a while.” He wasn’t sure why he said it. It hardly mattered.
“I’m sorry,” she said simply.
“It just didn’t work out. It’s been six months now. It’s fine.”
“That doesn’t seem very long.”
“Well,” he added with a sardonic smile, “I hadn’t been home for three months before that. I’m not so good at settling down.”
Sophie curled her legs under her and watched him for a moment. “I understand that.”
“Really? I wouldn’t think you’d be sympathetic. Seems like you were born to settle down.”
She winced as if he’d struck her, and Alex immediately regretted whatever he’d done to offend her. “Hey—” he started, but she spoke over him.
“I’d like to travel. I’d like to move on. But I help with my dad’s ranch, and he needs me. He’s getting older. I wouldn’t walk away from that.”
Now he was the one wincing. “Like I did, you mean.”
Sophie shrugged. “I wouldn’t judge that. I grew up with the same scandal you did. You saw your chance to escape and you took it.”
“And you didn’t.”
“I haven’t seen my chance yet.”
“You went to college, obviously.”
Her smile wasn’t natural and wide this time. It was tight. “I took most of my degree work at the University of Wyoming online. I only spent a year in Laramie. Then I commuted to Salt Lake City for two years to get my master’s, but I only had to be there six or seven days a month. My brother...
” She paused for a long moment, but then just shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s always been a little lost. He was so young when she disappeared.”
Alex’s mind cruelly flashed back to those first few weeks after his dad had left. Alex had been nine, his brain more than solid enough to record every moment. “I’d think maybe that would be a blessing,” he finally said.
“I’ve thought the same thing. But I guess not.”
“How old were you?” he asked.
She smoothed a hand over her skirt, her gaze gone distant. “I was almost five. My birthday was three days later.”
“Jesus,” he said, the hair on his nape rising in horror.
“I wasn’t even that scared at first. I knew she’d be back for my birthday. She had to make a cake. She had to—” The words ended in a strange little hiccup. Sophie took a few breaths and then cleared her throat. “It feels like it was a hundred years ago, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
“And then sometimes it’s right there all of a sudden, with no warning. It must be easier when you’re not here.”
“It is easier. No one knows about it, so after a while it’s almost like you don’t know about it anymore either. It’s almost like it didn’t happen. You should try it sometime. Get away.”
“Run away,” she corrected, but he couldn’t tell if it was an admonition or a yearning.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Her gaze stayed distant for a long time, but then she shook her head and smiled. “I can’t. Maybe someday.”
Alex wasn’t sure why he felt a stab of disappointment. He’d be moving along in a few days, what she did or didn’t do with her life was none of his business. Maybe it was only that it felt like a judgment of his own life.
Other people stayed. To take care of a mother. A father. Or the woman they loved. They stayed because normal people didn’t drift the way Alex did.
