can’t do something is right after they’ve already done it.” Sophie came into the living room and sat down beside Emma. “You gave me all those beautiful hand-me-downs when we were growing up. I’m just repaying the debt.”
“B-but . . . ,” Emma stammered as more tears flooded her cheeks.
Sophie slung an arm around Emma’s shoulders. “There are no buts in friendship. Your things are ordered, and you will be beautiful when they arrive. And, honey, it’s tough to shut off a grown-up’s credit card, so we’ll check into this.”
“Sophie, you don’t understand.” Emma tried to suck it up, but it felt so damn good to cry that she gave up and sobbed like she hadn’t done in years. “I have maybe a hundred dollars in my purse. I can’t begin to pay . . .” She buried her head in her hands and wept.
“I guess you’ll have to find a job or make something to sell.” Sophie motioned toward all the art supplies stacked in the corner of the living room. “The buyer comes out here every few weeks to get Filly’s, Arty’s, and Josh’s work. Produce something that will interest him, and you won’t need to depend on Victoria for anything.”
“I haven’t touched brushes since . . .” A flashback of the last painting she had been working on came to Emma’s mind.
“Since when?” Sophie pressured.
“I went to my apartment . . .” She frowned. “The night I went to my apartment and used a knife from the kitchen to slash my painting.”
“Why did you do that?” Sophie asked.
“I have no idea. The vision just came to me in a flash. My therapists say I have repressed-memory syndrome. Something happened that I won’t remember, but I just now remembered cutting that picture all to pieces,” Emma answered.
“What was the picture? Landscape? Portrait?” Sophie pulled her closer to her side.
“White clouds that looked like the snow angels we made one winter when we were little girls. Sunshine behind them and wheat fields ready for harvest on the ground below them,” Emma answered as she stared at the picture in her mind’s eye. “I was so angry about something that I destroyed the picture.”
“What did you do then?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t remember much past that. The next thing that comes to mind is being in an institution. Nancy would call this a breakthrough,” Emma said as she reached up over her head and picked up the phone from its base.
“Who are you calling?” Sophie asked.
Emma’s hands shook, and her insides quivered. This was Friday. Jeffrey would be driving her mother to get her weekly massage and facial at this time, so Emma called her cell phone number.
“Hello, who is this?” Victoria asked.
“It’s Emma.” The acrid taste of chocolate cereal mixed with stomach acid stuck in her throat, threatening to come up at any second, but she swallowed it down. Another vision popped into her head. She was leaning over the side of a bed covered in satin sheets and throwing up all over a white fur rug. She didn’t ever remember being in that room before. Was that the reason she hated the feel of satin?
“Are you ready to come home?” Victoria asked. “If not, we have nothing to talk about.”
Was this tough love? Emma wondered as she punched the speaker button. Knowing that Sophie was close by and could hear gave her the courage to go on. “Why did you cancel my credit cards? Did you freeze my bank account, too? How am I supposed to live?” she blurted out.
“If you want to make your own decisions or depend on Sophia to make them for you, then you can figure that out on your own. I’ll be damned if that gutter child gets a dime of my money,” Victoria told her.
“But that money is from Grandmother,” Emma said. “It’s my money, not yours, and Sophie is a famous artist. She doesn’t need my money.”
“Don’t sass me.” Victoria raised her voice an octave. “When you came home from college in a mental mess, we thought it best to let me handle your affairs, including the money that my mother left you. You should have stayed in the wellness center until I could find you a nice place where you could get help the rest of your life.”
“You were going to send me away forever?” Emma whispered. “Has this been your plan all along? To finally convince everyone that I had lost my mind and needed to be put away?”