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Sophie is in her own world, lying down on the sofa, an arm dangling while she sings to the movie.
I make another cup of tea and creep into the den.
“Can I watch the video with you?”
“Sure.” She snaps up and makes room for me to sit next to her, then puts her feet into my lap.
This is going to be my life for a while… I like it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Darragh
Isigned Ana and me up for another prenatal yoga class when Sophie’s Brownie group announced a bowling night. First, I asked the group leader if they needed a chaperone, but apparently that event has a waiting list.
Moms apparently love bowling night. I’m guessing because it has a bar.
To which I said, I’d pick Sophie up. She’s not to get in a car with anyone but me tonight.
As I’m about to step into Sophie’s room to see if she’s ready, two delicate voices stop me in my tracks.
From a mirror on the far wall, I see Ana sitting on the bed…sewing something onto Sophie’s Brownie vest.
Her group did away with sashes years ago, and changed over to a boxy vest. Her uniform is also khaki pants and a powder-blue, short-sleeve, button-down shirt. The last I remember, the entire uniform was sitting in a laundry pile, waiting to be ironed.
Olivia had taken care of that for me in the past.
Now, Ana did it. And I didn’t even ask her.
“Were you a Brownie?” Sophie asks Ana.
“No.” Ana doesn’t look up from sewing.
We sure weren’t Boy Scouts back home, either. None of my brothers were. Da felt it was too risky to be close to strangers like that. Camping and bunking with kids I barely knew gave too many opportunities to slip up and say the wrong thing. Like how our father often came home with blood on his clothes.
I’m not surprised Alexei didn’t let Anastasia or Katya enroll in the Girl Scouts.
When I saw little girls in blue dresses and wearing berets, I asked another mother about it. She’d said they were Daisies. The youngest group, before Brownies.
Wanting Sophie to lead a normal life, the kind I was denied, I signed her up.
“Then how did you know to sew these like that, Ana?”
I can’t see what Sophie is talking about. She came home from the last meeting with a new badge. And Ana immediately said she’d sew it on.
“I saw the other girls had them sewn into this pattern.” Ana holds it up.
All of Sophie’s badges are rearranged. Olivia sewed them in a horizonal pattern down each side of the vest.
Ana took them all off and created shapes since the badges are triangles.
“Do you like how it looks?” Ana puts the vest on Sophie and turns her toward the mirror.
“Now I look like everyone else!” Sophie spins and hugs Ana. “Thank you! Thank you!”
I’m crushed every time I see them together.
Their conversation drowns into white noise, but I make out something to do with which badges Sophie is going for.
