Page 12 of It’s Me, but Different
I don't know what to answer. I don't know what to feel when I hear her words. I'm practically trembling. That young woman who fell madly in love with Sloane Merriweather years ago no longer exists. She transformed into a lawyer, into a wife, into a mother, and now into a widow.
And yet, something deep inside me still responds to her presence as if not a single day of separation had passed.
And that terrifies me.
“We should go back to the hotel,” is my only response.
Chapter 7
Sloane
Ana Sofia's scream echoes across the entire slope like the echo of a nightmare. Before I can process it, I'm skiing toward her at such speed as if I were in one of my competitions from years ago.
“Ana!” Esme comes behind me, and I pray she doesn't fall too in her rush.
The girl remains sitting in the snow, with one hand covering the right side of her chin, while her eyes fill with tears. Small drops of blood fall on the snow like tiny red flowers.
“Let me see, honey,” Esme whispers, kneeling next to her daughter and trying to catch her breath.
“It's just a scratch,” I murmur, though I'm not sure if I want to calm the girl or her mother. “You had the bad luck of landing on a branch that had fallen from one of the pines. Nothing serious,” I assure her.
Ana Sofia sobs harder, I think not so much from pain as from surprise and fright.
“Hey, champ,” I interrupt, taking off my gloves to dry her tears. “You know what? All the best skiers have scars. They're like medals of honor. You're nobody without a scar or two.”
Ana Sofia looks at me with wide eyes, as if she had just discovered a great secret.
“Do you have scars?”
“I have a bunch,” I admit, pointing to a barely visible line on my chin. “I got this one when I was about your age. I fell on a slope in Switzerland and thought it was the end of the world.”
“And what happened?”
“My sister River made me hot chocolate with marshmallows and told me the best adventures always come with some scar to tell. And she was right. I'll show you the one I have on my knee later. That one is really big.”
Esme gives me a look I don't quite know how to interpret, but there's something in it that makes me feel like we're back in those college days when we thought the world was ours and everything seemed possible.
“Do you want to keep skiing, or would you prefer we call it a day?” I ask, though I shift my gaze toward Esme, seeking her approval.
“I want to keep going,” she responds immediately, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her pink jacket. “But… can you stay close, Mom?”
“Of course I'll stay,” Esme assures her, standing up and brushing the snow off her jeans.
During the next hour, I ski with Ana Sofia down the green slope, not separating from her for an instant; the last thing I need is for her to fall again. Esme watches us from the side of the slope, talking on the phone intermittently. Her conversations reach me in fragments, but the words I manage to hear hurt like stabs to the heart.
“…the opening of the new office…”
“…discussions about the partnership…”
“…I can't commit to full time…”
“…I need the extra money, but the kids are still small…”
“…I prefer to maintain flexibility…”
Small fragments that tell a story of struggle. A mother who is rejecting the opportunity for a brilliant professional future to better care for her children.
Exactly what I wasn't capable of doing eleven years ago for her.