James set down his water glass. He stood up slowly, the way a man does when his back has been carrying too much for too long. He walked to the door in his socks, checked the peephole out of habit, and stopped breathing. He didn't open the door. Not immediately.
He stood there with his hand on the dead bolt and his forehead almost touching the wood. And he breathed through his nose the way he'd taught himself to do years ago when the anger got too big for his chest to hold. In. Out. Don't react.
Think. He looked through the peephole again because some part of his brain refused to accept what his eyes had already confirmed. It was her. Sophia Mitchell standing on his porch in the cold in a jacket that wasn't heavy enough for November in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her arms wrapped around something small and bundled in a blanket the color of old cream. James hadn't seen this woman in six years.
Six years, 4 months, and some number of days he had stopped counting because counting had been making him crazy. And he was a man who needed to stay sane for his daughter. His jaw tightened, his hand tightened on the deadbolt, and then against every instinct he had built up over six years of rebuilding his life from the foundation, he unlocked the door and opened it. The cold air hit him first, then her eyes. Sophia's eyes were the thing about her that James had never been able to forget, no matter how hard he tried.
They were dark, wide set, and they had this quality, this infuriating, beautiful, maddening quality of looking like they were always on the verge of understanding, something that everyone else in the room had missed. Right now, those eyes were red- rimmed and exhausted. There were shadows under them that hadn't been there six years ago. Her face was thinner. Her hair, which she used to spend considerable time and money maintaining, was pulled back into something that was barely a ponytail.
She was wearing earrings, he recognized small gold hoops, and that detail hit him somewhere he hadn't expected. Because he was the one who had given her those earrings, and the fact that she still had them did something complicated to his chest. The baby in her arms stirred, made a small sound, settled again. James looked at the baby. Then he looked at Sophia.
Neither of them said anything for what felt like a very long time. Finally, Sophia opened her mouth and her voice came out smaller than he'd ever heard it. This woman who had once held her ground in arguments that lasted 3 hours. This woman who used to walk into rooms like she was already winning whatever conversation was about to happen. "James," she said, just his name.
Like that alone cost her something. He waited. I know, she said. I know I have no right to be here. I know you probably want to close this door right now, and I wouldn't blame you if you did.
But I need, she stopped, pressed her lips together, looked down at the baby, and then back up at him. I need help, and you're the only person I trust enough to ask. James leaned against the door frame, crossed his arms. "Sophia." "Yeah," it's been six years.
I know. Six years. No phone call, no letter, no nothing. I know, James. You disappeared.