Silence.
“Your mom is really anxious to see you.” He wondered if anxious was too hard a word for Sophie to understand. “She’s waiting for us,” he elaborated. “If you’ve finished your picture, we need to get going.”
Sophie finally looked up from her coloring. Her face was pale and pinched with worry, but that wasn’t what made Liam feel as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. It was her eyes that had him gaping. They were huge, long-lashed and green. His sister Megan’s eyes staring out at him from his daughter’s face. Megan’s eyes, displaying Sophie’s heart-wrenching grief.
“Mommy isn’t waiting. She’s gone away,” Sophie said with unsettling calm.
“Well, yes, I know she went away,” Liam agreed. “She’s kind of busy right now. That’s why she sent me to fetch you.”
Sophie’s expression remained shuttered, as if she struggled to hold an unbearable weight of sadness inside. “Mommy is wiv my daddy. They’re in heaven. That’s far away.”
“Sweetheart, no!” Alexia swooped across the kitchen and hugged Sophie to her chest. “My God, I had no idea she was thinking that.” She rocked her niece back and forth, tears wetting her own cheeks although Sophie didn’t cry. “Sweetheart, your mommy is fine. She’s waiting to see you, I promise!”
“She’s in heaven,” Sophie repeated, but this time there was a faint question in her voice. “Wiv my daddy.”
Liam knelt beside Sophie’s chair, reaching instinctively for her hands. They were ice-cold and he chafed them as he spoke. “Sophie, I promise, your mom is waiting for you in Denver. She’s sad that your father is…” Dead? Murdered? Gone to heaven? Jesus, what euphemisms did you use to explain death to a three-year-old? Liam swallowed. “Your mom is waiting for you,” he finished lamely.
“We should have realized Sophie wouldn’t understand if her mother vanished almost the moment we told her about Jason,” Tom said. He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his cheeks. “Jeez, we really blew that, didn’t we?”
Alexia combed her fingers through her niece’s flyaway hair. “Sophie, sweetie, your mommy isn’t in heaven. She’s right here, I promise.”
“No, Mommy isn’t here,” Sophie said with incontrovertible logic. “Only you and Uncle Tom are here. And the other man.” She nodded toward Liam, finally acknowledging his existence.
“Well, she’s not right here in the kitchen, but Mommy is very close by. She isn’t with your daddy in heaven, I promise. She’s in Denver, like Liam said, waiting to see you.”
Sophie slowly put down her marker. “If my mommy isn’t in heaven, why did she go away?”
“She had grown-up stuff she needed to take care of.” Alexia chose her words with visible care. “She wanted to stay with you, but she just couldn’t. That’s why she sent Liam to get you.”
“I don’t know him.” Sophie kept her gaze fixed on her aunt.
“He’s a good friend of your mommy’s. Can you say his name?”
Sophie nodded. “Liam. It’s easy-peasey.”
“Right. Liam will take you in his car. It’ll be a little way to drive, but not nearly as far as going to Nana and Poppa’s house.”
Sophie said nothing, but Liam thought he detected a slight reduction in the tension that had held her spine straight and her tiny, skinny body so rigid that it looked brittle. The oddest ache was lodged in the pit of his stomach and he fought the urge to push Alexia aside and take his daughter into his arms. It was physically painful for him to see her so miserable.
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