She brews me an herbal tea that I’m hesitant to drink, considering the last time she gave me a home blend I hallucinated. She insists it will alleviate my hangover. I relent, and she’s right. I do feel better.
“What are your plans for the week?” she asks me.
I sigh. “To be either drunk or asleep, ideally.”
“Why don’t you stay here? Stay the week. I can give you clothes. You have a toothbrush. What more could you need?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Nothing at all.”
So I stay with Sophie. I stay with her through New Year’s, the decorations and champagne back at my place pointless.
I don’t mind. I’m happy to be with Sophie. Happy to be occupied.
And most of all, happy not to be alone.
Like Sam, Sophie doesn’t understand my enthusiasm for New Year’s.
“I’ve been alive for so many years,” she says. “I think it’s made me a bit indifferent. Besides, I honor the passing of time on the solstice.”
“Oh,” I say.
“But you enjoy New Year’s, so we shall celebrate!”
“We don’t have to.”
“We don’t have to do anything, darling. We’re free,” she says. “And freedom means doing what you want. I think I’ll make duck.”
She makes us duck and brussels sprouts. She makes us flower crowns. She has us write resolutions on pieces of parchment with quill pens, fold them and burn them over a special candle she made and placed inside a pewter bowl. The candle smells like sage. When we burn the parchment, the flame turns purple.
“Is that good?” I ask her.
She doesn’t answer.
I have a lot of lofty resolutions, like being more patient, like not forgetting to put on deodorant, like learning to make things the way that Sophie makes things—food and soaps and tonics and balms.
Like overcoming my uncertainty and figuring out how to wield whatever power I had that night at Rhineland.
Like finally getting over Sam.
As midnight approaches and we sit watching the grandfather clock in the library, I confess to her my sadness about not having anyone to kiss at midnight.
“Is that your measure of joy?” she asks, deadpan. “Kissing a man?”
“I guess not,” I say. “When you put it like that . . .”
“You have to let it go, Annie,” she says. “Promise me. At the stroke of midnight. No more of this self-pitying talk about being single or alone or missing Sam. He gave you a gift. Look at where you are now. This is only the beginning.”
“You’re right,” I say. “I’ll try. I can promise you I’ll try.”
“Good,” she says. “I’m very serious about promises.”
“I know.”
“Very, very serious.”
“I know, Sophie. I promise you, I will try.”
She smiles and moves herself closer to me on the couch, resting her head on my shoulder. Ralph has fallen asleep on my knee, his legs spread out flat, his top hat askew.
When the clock strikes midnight, the lights flicker, and I have a strange, evanescent vision. I see a version of myself I don’t quite recognize parting the dark, standing before me and wearing an alien grin.
I rub my eyes and blame the wine.
“Happy New Year, pet,” Sophie says, raising a glass to me. “May it be your best one yet.”
“Happy New Year, Sophie.”
When I leave a few days later to go back to my apartment and my routine, Sophie sends Ralph with me.
“Why doesn’t he live with you for a little while?” she says. “Keep him.”
I don’t do much of anything the first week of January, but I do teach Ralph how to play fetch.
RESOLUTIONS
“I never make New Year’s resolutions,” Madison says, licking the remaining yogurt from her spoon. Beth is still in the Poconos skiing with her family, meaning Madison will be eating lunch in my classroom for the next two days so she doesn’t have to brave the cafeteria alone. “If I want to do something, I do it.”
“That’s good,” I say. I haven’t made any progress on my resolutions, and I’ve already come dangerously close to breaking my promise to Sophie. Last night I pulled up Sam’s Facebook page for a split second, then x-ed out of it before I could see anything.
“I think a lot of people make resolutions so they can tell themselves they’re trying to be better, instead of actually just being better,” Madison says. “You know what I mean?”