Hummingbird Lane by Brown, Carolyn (good books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

“It’s all right. I’m right here,” she whispered. This was the first time that Emma had had to be the strong one, and she hoped she was doing a decent job of helping her friend. Even though she was sad for Sophie, it was an amazing feeling to be needed. She wasn’t an expert on relationships, but she could be there for her one hundred percent.

The clock on the stove said that it was after ten when Sophie awoke. Rebel used to say that everything, no matter what it was, looked better in the light of day. She was wrong this time. Nothing was better.

With a long sigh, she started to get up and realized that Emma was sleeping on the floor right beside the sofa. Anyone who would sleep beside her on the floor was a friend indeed. Suddenly, tears were flowing down Sophie’s cheeks again. She didn’t deserve a friend like Emma, one who would give up sleep and then stay right by her side the whole night through. After the way she had felt about the baby that she lost, she didn’t deserve anything. Her negative feelings had caused her to lose the baby. Maybe she shouldn’t be with Teddy after all.

“My baby would have been a happy child. He would have had Rebel for a grandmother, and once I got over the shock, I could have cleaned houses with you and worked nights on my art.” Sophie eased off the sofa and made her way to her bedroom, where she crawled into bed and pulled the covers up over her head. Just saying that out loud made her a little less sad.

Her phone pinged, so she reached out with a hand and felt around on the nightstand until she located it. When she had a hold on it, she brought it under the covers to discover several messages and two missed calls from Teddy.

She dried her wet cheeks on the sheet and called him.

“Are we okay?” Teddy asked.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You’re saying the words, but your tone isn’t agreeing with them,” he told her. “I can be there in a few hours.”

“No, don’t. I don’t deserve for you to love me or to come down here and comfort me. I don’t even deserve to know someone like you. Do you even realize that there must be something wrong with you to want to spend the rest of your life with someone like me?”

“Good God, Sophie!” he said.

She could imagine him running his fingers through his hair.

“What’s gotten into you? Have you lost your mind? We were so happy right up until I left. This is more than a fight about a sofa. What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“Nothing is wrong with me. I just need to be alone,” she said and ended the call.

She turned the phone off and laid it on the bedside table. She could call her mother, but Rebel would throw a suitcase in her car and be there by suppertime. Sophie couldn’t face her, not with these feelings that had come over her.

“Would I have been that way with my baby? Would I have been a smothering mama?” she whispered as she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

Three sets of eyes full of questions met Emma when she went to the supper table that evening. She wasn’t sure what to tell them. In what should have been the happiest time of her life, Sophie had hit rock bottom. She hadn’t been out of bed all day, except to go to the bathroom. She hadn’t eaten a single bite of food, and when Emma tried to talk her into getting out of bed and going to supper, she refused.

Arty said a quick grace and then raised an eyebrow toward Emma.

“I don’t know what to do for her,” Emma said. “She’s always been the strong one. Now all she will say is that she doesn’t deserve to be happy. She and Teddy are fighting over something as silly as which sofa to take to their new house. She had a great showing and sold a lot of pictures, but that didn’t make her happy. I don’t know what happened or how to fix it, but I feel like it’s up to me to take care of it.”

“Usually when she comes home from a few days with Teddy, she’s whistling and all fired up about getting back to work,” Josh noted.

“Is she sick?” Filly asked. “Maybe she’s pregnant.”

“She’s sick, all right,” Emma said, “but not because of a baby.” She held her plate out for Filly to dip chicken potpie onto it. “I see the signs of deep, major depression. She won’t eat, and she’s holed up in her bedroom under the covers.”

“You can rescue her like she did you,” Josh suggested.

Good grief! Emma thought. I’m barely taking baby steps in this hunt to find myself. How can I ever rescue someone as strong as Sophie has always been?

“How would I do that?” Emma asked. “I can’t imagine being in a better place than right here to heal.”

“For you,” Arty said. “But Sophie needs to get her own mojo back. She used to disappear into the Big Bend park while she was here, and that seemed to make her happy. Take her there, and don’t come back until she’s healed.”

“I’ve got a couple of sleeping bags you can use,” Josh offered.

“I’ll pack food to last a few days,” Filly said.

“I’ll help Filly with that food idea. We can combine what we’ve got in our trailers so y’all won’t starve,” Arty said. “When are you leaving?”

Emma felt like a whirlwind had just hit her. She wasn’t sure how to even get to the park, much less camp out for days, or until Sophie got her mojo back, as Arty put it.

“Who’s going to help me carry her out kicking and screaming?” Emma asked.

“That part is your job,” Filly answered. “Did you kick and scream when she