Read Online The Objects of Her Affection by Sonya Cobb - Free Book Online Page A

she had once proudly hung up her coat all by herself.
    Now she was like a cat being taken for a walk on a leash, flattened on the ground, hissing. When Sophie tried to put shoes on her feet, she balled them into fists. She ate her breakfast in tiny bites, chewing in slow motion. When it was time to walk out the door, she would become engrossed in highly urgent tasks, such as reuniting every single Magic Marker lid with every single long-dried-out Magic Marker. Any attempt to interrupt this project would cause her to fling the markers across the room, throw herself to the ground, and pound the floor.
    The morning after Sophie’s visit to the museum, Lucy put on an elaborate performance as The Child Who Is Too Gravely Ill to Attend School. Her stomach hurt, her throat burned, she couldn’t hear, her nose was running, she felt like throwing up, she had cavities. She began to hack like an old woman with emphysema.
    “Let me see your throat,” Sophie said. Lucy opened her mouth as wide as it would go, and Sophie peered solemnly inside, wondering why three-year-olds never had morning breath.
    “All right. Let me feel your forehead.” Lucy watched her mother carefully as she gauged her temperature. “Let’s have a look in your ears now.”
    “Am I sick, Mommy?” she asked softly.
    “I’m still checking.” Sophie held a tissue to her nose. “Blow.” Lucy blew as hard as she could. Nothing came out.
    “I’m going to feel your tummy now.” She pressed lightly on her stomach. “Okay…”
    “Maybe I should take some of the grape medicine,” Lucy suggested.
    Sophie sat back. “In your condition,” she said, “medicine will only make things worse.”
    “My kudishan?”
    “It looks like antipreschoolitis. It’s very important to dress warmly, and eat a good breakfast.”
    For the rest of the morning she played along with Lucy’s delusions of illness, murmuring sympathetically and giving her warm milk. Once Lucy had cheerfully finished her cereal and Brian was dressed and waiting by the front door, Sophie took Lucy in her arms, felt her forehead again, and looked in her ears and her throat.
    “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “What, Mommy?”
    “You’re cured! It’s a miracle.”
    She quickly transferred Lucy into Brian’s arms, along with her lunch box, then opened the door and waved good-bye. Lucy’s eyes were narrowed, but by the time she stiffened her legs and gathered breath for a scream, the front door had swung shut with a thud.
    Once Elliot was dressed and installed on the living room floor with a pile of Tupperware, Sophie sat on the couch and reached into her bag for her laptop. As she pulled it out, the front of the bag slumped against her hand, heavy with the contents of its inner pocket. She pulled her hand back and pressed it against her belly, becoming still. She sat like that for a few moments, huddled inside her secret, insulated from everything around her, including Elliot, who was absorbed in his own private world of plastic towers.
    She remembered now how she had told Brian she was late for a conference call, then asked Marjorie to escort her out of the offices. After emerging on the second floor balcony, she’d hurried past the monumental baroque tapestries lining the walls and quickly descended the wide, dizzying staircase in the center of the Great Hall. Striding toward the entrance, her mind already flying through the heavy doors, past the columns and down the steps, her breath snapped back into her throat at the sight of two figures silhouetted against the glass. A museum guard in ill-fitting blue polyester, his rear resting on a tall stool, was craning his neck over a dark shape, which was held out by a woman in a short dress and flat shoes. The shape, Sophie saw as she drew closer, was a purse. The woman was holding it open for the guard. He was peering inside.
    Sophie had not slowed, had not hesitated; she’d merely jerked her eyes away and continued on her trajectory,