“Yes …,” Sophia said. She made no move to start the engine.
I said, “How about I buy you dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“What’s the problem, Sofe?” I asked. “Something on your mind?”
She looked over at me. She said, “I had no idea Aunt Grace had changed her hiding place.”
“Well, she’d better change it again,” I said, “because already she’s told at least two people where the new place is.”
“And so I put the money back in the old place,” Sophia went on, as if I hadn’t spoken.
“What money?” I asked.
“My money. Two thousand, nine hundred and sixty dollars.”
For a second, I misunderstood. I said, “You stole that money?”
Which didn’t make sense, of course, since no money had been stolen, but all Sophia said was, “Me? No.” She started the engine, and we pulled away from the curb.
I said, “Begin at the beginning, Sophia.”
“See, I felt so responsible,” she said. We arrived at an intersection, and she braked and looked over at me. “I knew Aunt Grace held me to blame for bringing you into her life. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘all right, I’ll just put my own money there to replace the money she’s missing.’ So I took it out of my savings. I called in sick at work on a Tuesday, Aunt Grace’s podiatrist day, and I let myself in with my key and put the money in the flour bin.”
“But… how would she explain that? First her money is missing, and then it magically isn’t?” I said.
“She could explain it any way she liked,” Sophia said.
“And for sure the new bills would be a different denomination from the old ones. You never saw the old ones, did you? You don’t know if they were tens or fifties; you don’t know if they were rubber-banded, or stuffed in an envelope, or tucked away in a wallet, do you?”
“No, and I don’t care, either,” Sophia said. She flung her head back so recklessly that a hairpin flew out of her bun and landed in the rear seat. “All I cared about was clearing your name.”
“Some criminal you would make,” I said.
Then I saw what was bothering me. Forget the logistics; forget the question of denominations, rubber bands …
I said, “You believed I did it.”
“No, no,” Sophia said.
A car drew up behind us and honked.
“You actually believed I stole that money.”
Sophia took her foot off the brake. We crossed the intersection, but on the other side she pulled over to the curb and parked. “It’s not the way it looks,” she said, turning to face me. “I just couldn’t stand for her to suspect you; that’s all.”
“Well, geez, Sophia, are you going to start stashing bills every place there’s been a burglary I was in the neighborhood of? That could get expensive.”
“No,” Sophia said, “because I don’t have any more to stash. I used my whole savings account, and next month’s rent besides.”
I put my head in my hands.
“But, Barnaby? It’s no problem. I’ll just steal it back again, the next time I’m over there.”
“Sure,” I said, raising my head. “Unless meanwhile she goes to bake a pie or something and finds your money before you get to it.”
“She won’t do that. She keeps her flour in the freezer, not the flour bin,” Sophia said. “I could leave it there forever!” Then she started smiling. “You know what this reminds me of?” she said. “That O. Henry story, the Christmas one. ‘Gift of the Magi.’ ”
“How do you figure that?” I asked her.
“I mean, here I give you this gift, and it turns out you have no need of it. Still, though, it wasn’t for nothing, because it proves how much I love you.”
“Well,” I said.
I have to admit I was touched. No one had ever done anything like that for me before.
I said, “But that story had both people giving gifts, didn’t it?”
“You are your gift to me, Barnaby,” she told me. And when she leaned close to kiss me she smelled of flowers, and her lips felt as soft as petals.
Sometimes I thought I’d been right in the first place: Sophia was my angel.
11
IT WAS A TRADITION in my family — I mean, my own little failed or-family, family in quotation marks — that Natalie would remind me when Opal’s birthday was coming up. She would phone about a week ahead, no doubt doing her best to find a moment when I was out so that she could leave a message on my answering machine. “Barnaby,” this year’s message went, “Opal’s birthday falls on the actual day of your visit this year; so you’ll be able to bring your gift in person instead of mailing it. I just thought you’d like to know that.”
I imagined her congratulating herself on her subtlety. “Don’t act like the cad you are and forget your own daughter’s birthday,” she was saying, but it came out sounding all thoughtful and solicitous. I pictured her dimples denting inward with satisfaction as she hung up the phone.
Another tradition was, my gifts were always disasters. (A goldfish that died, a storybook that gave Opal nightmares, a pencil case that snapped shut on her thumb and made her cry.) So this year I asked Sophia to come shopping with me. She picked out a stuffed hedgehog — a sort of bristle ball with a button nose — and then she wrapped it for me, better than I could have done, for sure, with a satin bow and a silver gift card. On the card I wrote, Happy birthday from Barnaby and Sophia. Adding Sophia’s name was a spur-of-the-moment decision — I’d just wanted to thank her for helping — but she looked so happy when she saw it that I was glad I’d thought of it.
We drove to Philadelphia in her Saab, with me at the wheel till we reached Locust Street. There I climbed out, and she took over. “I’ll see you in three hours,” she said, because she no longer spent Saturday nights at her mother’s. She’d told her mother she had her own life, now, to get back to. Her mother had said, “Well, fine, then. Just don’t bother coming at all, if that’s how you’re going to be.” But Sophia came anyway, every blessed Saturday, calmly ignoring her mother’s sulks and pointed remarks. Sophia was such a sunny person. She didn’t let people get to her. I admired that. I wished I could bring her to Natalie’s with me.
But as it was, I had to go it alone. Stand alone at Natalie’s door like a poor relation; wait meekly for someone to answer my ring. It was Opal who answered, thank heaven. No sign of Natalie, although she must have been nearby, because Opal called, “See you, Mom!” before she let herself out.
She was wearing a rose-colored jacket, so new that I had to pluck an inspection tag from the sleeve. Beneath it she had on a lace-trimmed dress and white lace tights and patent-leather shoes. I said, “Don’t you look nice,” and she grimaced and said, “I had to get dressed ahead of time for my party. It’s at three.”
“Well, happy birthday,” I said. I handed her my gift.
Then we stepped into the elevator, which was still standing there from when I’d ridden it up. Opal lifted the gift box to her ear and shook it, but she didn’t open it. Used to be, she would rip right into it. Maybe she’d lost hope by now.
“Mom and Dad’s present was a canopy bed,” she said as we descended.
I hadn’t known she called him “Dad.” It gave me kind of a jolt.
“The canopy is white eyelet, and there’s a ruffled spread to match.”
I said, “Isn’t that—” and then stopped myself from repeating the word “nice.” Instead I said, “Watch your step,” because we had reached the lobby.
It wasn’t till we were outdoors, heading toward Ritten-house Square, that I realized we were missing the dog. “Where’s George Farnsworth?” I asked her.