The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [85]
There was one other problem, though. A big one: Sophie had recognized her.
Over their afternoon snack the day before, Zoe had caught the child staring at her across the firepit.
“You’re the most beautiful lady I’ve ever seen,” Sophie had said, and Zoe could not help but be flattered that a child would find her, at sixty years old, befitting of that compliment.
“You look just like Zoe,” the girl went on, and Zoe’s pleasure gave way to fear.
“I’ve been told that before,” she said, dismayed that, even with her blond hair chopped off to her chin, even with the stripe of gray at her roots and without makeup, she could be recognized by an eight-year-old child. “I don’t see the resemblance myself, personally,” she said.
“You look exactly like her,” Sophie said. “Like she looked in that Christmas movie.”
“Oh, yes, I remember that movie,” Zoe said. She had taken a role in that PG movie at Max’s insistence, although she’d balked at playing a grandmother. A stylish pip of a grandmother, to be sure, but a grandma nevertheless.
So, a kind driver who picked Sophie up would take her to the police station or sheriff’s office or whatever they had out here, and then Sophie would tell them that a woman who looked exactly like Zoe had taken care of her in the woods. Not such a problem, she thought. People thought Zoe had been dead for months, and even if someone doubted that fact, they’d never guess that she would hole herself up out here in no-man’s-land.
“I think you really are Zoe.”
Zoe started now at the sound of Sophie’s voice. She turned her head to see that the girl had rolled over on her sleeping palette and was staring at her.
“Well,” Zoe said, sitting up. “You certainly had a good long sleep. How do you feel this morning?”
“I saw you from the side,” Sophie said. “You have that little bump on your nose, just like Zoe.”
She thought of arguing, of telling her that any number of people had that little bump on their noses, but she could see by Sophie’s face that the child would not be fooled.
“You’re right, honey,” she said with a sigh. “I am Zoe.”
Sophie sat up, a grin on her face. “I knew it!” she said. She was so damn cute when she grinned, that Zoe had to smile herself.
“And I have a favor to ask of you,” Zoe said. “A very big favor.”
“What?”
“Today I plan to walk with you out to the road and—”
“Through the woods?” Sophie’s smile faded.
“Yes. It’s a long way. But that’s the only way to get you out of here.”
“I can’t go into the woods again.” Sophie’s face paled at the thought, her freckles standing out against her skin.
“It’s the only way out, Sophie. I can’t think of another way.”
Sophie said nothing, but the small crease between her eyebrows deepened.
“I will take you to the road. But…this is a little hard to explain…I don’t want anyone to ever know that I’m here. It’s very important. So I have to ask you not to tell anyone that you saw me here. It has to be our secret, okay?”
“Who should I say gave me this shirt to wear?” Sophie held her arm up in the air, and the rolled-up sleeve of Zoe’s blue shirt slipped down to her shoulder.
“You can tell them a lady in the woods helped you. Just not who that lady was. Okay?”
“Why don’t you want anyone to know?”
Zoe guessed that Sophie had never heard about her suicide, and there was no point in bringing that up. “It’s too hard to explain,” she said. “I got very tired of being recognized everywhere I went, so I just wanted to be someplace where I wouldn’t see anyone for a while.”
“Oh.” Sophie nodded, as though she completely understood.
“So here’s what we’ll do,” Zoe said. “I’ll make some breakfast for us, and then we’ll make some kind of shoe for you to wear, and then we’ll start walking.”
Sophie looked out the window, where the trees formed a green wall against the rest of the world. To Zoe,