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El-Mudad laughed. “Brunch got a bit wild, then?”
“Brunch was brunch,” I protested, hoping we could drop the subject from there. Though Neil really was so much better than he’d been before, I didn’t want to normalize drinking in our household. “Have you and Olivia eaten?”
“Mariposa fed her and put her down for a nap around noon,” he said. “But I could stand something.”
I pulled my feet up and tucked them beneath me, scrolling through my options in the Kindle store while Neil called Julia. After he hung up, we all settled into our own worlds, all together. El-Mudad dozed with his feet in Neil’s lap on the couch. Neil scrolled idly through his phone. Olivia chattered to her doll and occasionally asked us questions about what was happening in the movie, even though she’d seen it a dozen times.
It was peaceful. It was charmingly domestic. And it was as far from the life Neil and I had planned as Earth was from Jupiter. But it worked.
It more than worked. I was incredibly blessed. But Deja and Holli were right; I would never be the kind of person who could just sit around, waited on and content.
“I’m going to write another book,” I said casually.
Neil looked up. “Are you? Sophie, that’s wonderful.”
El-Mudad didn’t open his eyes, but he did ask, sleepily, “What will it be about?”
“I think I’m going to write a novel.” I paused to let them process it. El-Mudad opened his eyes, and Neil’s brows rose in interest. I went on, “I’ve written two memoirs. But I’m only thirty. I don’t have a lot of life I haven’t already shared with the world.”
“And what you have now, you can’t share with the neighbors,” El-Mudad said, and I knew he referred to my mom and the rest of our family and friends.
“Right. But I do have stuff I could write about from a fictional perspective. If I can figure out how to write fiction.” I considered. “Maybe I could take a class at a community college or something. It isn’t as though I don’t have the time.”
“This is wonderful, Sophie. It truly is.” Neil’s face fairly beamed with pride. “The changes we’ve gone through haven’t been easy for you, I know. I’m glad to see you’re finding a constructive direction. And you did seem to like writing.”
“And you’re good at it,” El-Mudad backed him up. “Though I’m sure it wasn’t easy, writing the things you did.”
“No, it wasn’t. Those books were more about healing. This would be for fun. I’m looking forward to it.” I flicked the screen again. Maybe I could read Harry Potter to Olivia. Or Superfudge. Or James and the Giant Peach.
The fact that most of the books I could think of off the top of my head were children’s books gave me pause. It hadn’t really been that long since I’d read a book, had it?
“Well, no matter what your reason is for writing it, I’m sure it will be wonderful.” Somehow, Neil was able to make statements like that in a way that was genuine, rather than condescending.
“Do you know what a good plot would be?” El-Mudad asked. “A story about a pirate.”
“Okay...” I drew out the word. “Any particular reason you landed on pirate?”
With a smirk, he pointed to Neil’s ear.
I knew Neil didn’t appreciate the laugh we had at his expense at that moment, but I couldn’t feel too badly about it.
Chapter Eleven
By the end of March, Molly was well enough to have visitors. Once again, I packed my bags and headed to Calumet. This time, I went it alone, leaving Neil and El-Mudad behind with Olivia. Mom didn’t even want to come, which surprised me; she would usually have jumped at the opportunity to visit home.
I stayed with my grandma, which gave her a chance to show me all the pictures from her Ireland trip. She was in raptures; I was a lock for the Christmas letter this year. Staying in Calumet was definitely out of the way in terms of going to visit Molly; they lived near Baraga, a good hour from my grandmother’s house. Growing up in rural areas made one somewhat immune to driving long distances, though, and I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to stay with Sasha and Molly.
If they had offered.
There was no reason they should have, I argued with myself as I drove down US-41 toward Baraga. I hadn’t gotten the feeling that my visit to their home was entirely welcome, to begin with. But it was welcomed by Molly, and Sasha was at least polite to me.
My father’s real family had settled in the woods, in a big log cabin situated in a clearing. From the driveway, I heard the sound of rushing water. A nearby stream was apparently active enough not to have frozen over. It was the kind of place I had fantasized about living when I was a kid. My stomach pitched. I’d always assumed that Joey Tangen had been a loser. That they’d probably lived on nothing because he hadn’t cared enough to provide for them, the way he’d never cared to provide for me. Sasha had been frank about how much Molly’s medical bills had cost the family, so they weren’t rolling in the dough. But at some point, they had done well enough for themselves.
