“Can we talk outside?”
Sophie looked worried. “Mom—”
“It’s fine,” I said, standing.
Linda led me to a small family waiting area at the end of the hall. The room smelled faintly of coffee and disinfectant. A muted television played a cooking show no one was watching.
For a moment, Linda simply looked at me.
She had always been kind to me. Warm, even. She used to send me home with leftovers and call me son when Sophie and I visited for holidays.
Now her expression was guarded.
“She told me not to be angry with you,” Linda said.
I looked down.
“That sounds like Sophie.”
“It does.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know that isn’t enough.”
“No,” Linda said. “It isn’t.”
I accepted that.
She sat in one of the chairs, and after a moment, I sat across from her.
“When Sophie lost the first baby,” Linda said, “she called me from the bathroom floor. You were asleep in the bedroom. She didn’t want to wake you because you had a presentation the next morning.”
My chest tightened.
“I didn’t know that.”
“I know.”
She folded her hands tightly in her lap.
“After the second loss, she said you both stopped speaking the same language. She said you looked at her like she was a room you couldn’t bear to enter.”
