Take Me Home for Christmas. Brenda Novak

Sophia have a drinking problem? If so, she wouldn’t want anyone to know about it, which made Eve feel like some nosy, intrusive bystander, gawking at the scene of a car crash. “She’s grieving, like you. The process affects us all differently.”

      “It’s more than that,” Alexa insisted. “She won’t eat, won’t let me open the drapes, hardly ever talks to me.” She plucked a blade of grass. “I’m going to have to call my grandma, but—” she turned her watery gaze to her father’s elaborate marble headstone “—then she’ll make me come and live with her.” Getting to her feet, she picked up her bag of groceries. She seemed so weary she could hardly move.

      Eve couldn’t let her go home by herself. “Why don’t I come with you?” she said. “I’ll check on your mom, see if there’s anything I can do.”

      She’d expected Alexa to be relieved to have reinforcements, but her lips slanted into a frown. “Thanks, but...you’d better not. No one’s supposed to know,” she said and started off, all but dragging those groceries along.

      Eve wasn’t sure what to do. She stood where she was and watched her for a few seconds, then jogged to catch up. “Lexi, I’m your mom’s friend, as I told you. And it sounds like she could use a friend right now.”

      “But then she’ll find out I told you,” Alexa said.

      “You only told me because you love her and you want to get her the help she needs.” Eve took the bag of groceries. “So let’s put these in my car and drive over together, okay? We’ll do what we can to get her back on her feet.”

      Alexa looked as if she was afraid to even hope, the poor girl. “You think it might work?”

      “Sometimes we have to fight for those we love. What I think is that we need to stage an intervention.”

      Alexa remained skeptical. “Is an intervention like rehab? Because she’s already done rehab. That lasted the whole month of September.”

      Eve secretly winced at the information the innocent Lexi had revealed. But at least it enabled her to view Sophia in a far more sympathetic light. Sophia had always been the girl who had it all. But maybe she was just more skillful at hiding her troubles. “It’s not rehab. It’s where your loved ones get hold of you and shake some sense into you, get you turned around and heading in the right direction.”

      For the first time since Eve had confronted her, Alexa lifted her chin and seemed to overcome her tears. “Will it work?”

      “We won’t know until we try.”

      Her sniff sounded more decisive than before. “Yes,” she said with a nod, “I want to stage an intervention.”

      Eve reached out with her free hand. “Let’s do it,” she said, but before they left the inn, she checked the sack, found it full of cold cereal and snack items and decided to grab a few ingredients from her own pantry.

      9

      Voices carried up to Sophia. At first she imagined she was still in rehab, that some of her fellow “inmates”—as they’d jokingly referred to themselves—were talking in the hall outside her room. But when she opened her eyes and blinked at the ceiling, she realized she was at home. Then the rest of what had happened during the past month came rushing in on her. Skip was dead but he hadn’t just stepped out of her life like she’d long hoped he would; he’d done everything he could to ruin her first. She had a thousand dollars or so to her name and no way to earn more. Alexa needed her but she was turning out to be as terrible a mother as Skip had always accused her of being. And all of that reminded her of why she didn’t want to wake up. She was going to lose her daughter. Agent Freeman had warned her. There didn’t seem to be a damn thing she could do about it, though. Except sleep. Sleep was her only escape.

      She almost drifted off again, but Alexa was talking to someone in the cathedral-like entrance of their house, and curiosity got the better of her.

      Had her daughter brought home a friend from school?

      No, she’d come back a while ago. Alone. She claimed she was being treated as well as ever, but Sophia hadn’t seen any proof of her life returning to normal. Where were the girls who used to hang out with her? The girls who liked to come over and play in the game room? Or visit the garage to see the two Ferraris Skip owned? Or make an ice-cream creation at the soda fountain in the basement?

      Sophia couldn’t think about that, wouldn’t think of it. It hurt too badly to suspect that her daughter might be suffering more than she said. That she might be hiding her pain because she was worried about Sophia.

      She’d left after school to go to the store. She must’ve run into someone there.

      “Alexa?” Sophia called.

      The talking quieted for a moment, then her daughter responded. “What?”

      “You got home okay?”

      “Yes.”

      “Who’s with you?”

      “I brought a...a friend.”

      Good. She needed one.

      When they moved into the kitchen, Sophia couldn’t hear them anymore, so she pulled the blankets over her head. At least her daughter was safe. At least Lexi had something besides soup to eat. Now Sophia didn’t have to regret letting her go out alone.

      The pungent smell of garlic and tomatoes woke Sophia some time later. She didn’t think she’d been sleeping long, but she knew her daughter didn’t have the cooking skills to create such a delectable smell—like an Italian restaurant. Maybe her friend was helping her.... She was about to call Lexi’s name, to find out what was going on, when she heard a light tread on the stairs and saw a woman, not a girl, poke her head into the room. “Hey.”

      Sophia squinted, trying to identify this person, but it was too dark to see. She’d been keeping the blinds shut. The sun had set since the last time she’d fallen asleep, anyway. The digital clock on the nightstand told her that. “Who is it?”

      “Eve.”

      “Ted’s friend?” Sophia definitely didn’t want anyone connected with him to see how badly she was faring.

      “Your friend.”

      That couldn’t be true. She didn’t have any friends. She’d alienated them when she was a teenager, right before making the biggest mistake of her life by marrying Skip. But she didn’t want word of her diminished state to get back to Ted, so she struggled to put some energy into her voice. “Oh, hey. Sorry I’m not feeling well. Maybe you could come back another time.”

      “But then you’d miss the amazing dinner Alexa and I cooked for you. Where’s your robe?”

      “What?” She’d expected Eve to apologize and excuse herself. That was what most people would do. It wasn’t as if they knew each other all that well.

      “You have a young lady downstairs who’s setting a beautiful table, just waiting to show her mother all the wonderful things she helped make. So I’m going to wrap you up in your robe and walk you down the stairs. And you’re going to have dinner. Maybe once you’ve got some food in your stomach, you’ll have the strength to shower.”

      “I can’t,” she said. “I—I’m sick.”

      “Then we’ll take you to a doctor.”

      She didn’t want a doctor. She was terrified of what a doctor might tell her, terrified she’d wind up like her mother. She just wanted to continue hiding from the world until she could get back on her feet. “I’ll get up later. Maybe another day.”

      “You can’t put it off, Sophia.”

      She raised her head. “Why not?”

      “Because it’ll only get harder.”

      There was truth in that.