29. Chapter 29 Staley
Chapter 29 Staley
T heo is so handsome in his charming crushed velvet blazer—the color of malachite—with the top of his dress shirt unbuttoned, standing before the ubiquitous affluent crowd. His appearance shines underneath the overhead lights. The lingering glances he’s tossing toward my side of the room are welcomed. Large crowds and fancy clothes turn me into a rubber band stress ball. When Theo’s mother implied that I wasn’t dressed appropriately, it took every neural circuit in my body working together to shut out the negative self-talk wherein I would inevitably nosedive into anxiety-town.
I close my eyes and inhale two deep breaths through my nose, followed by a complete exhale, leaving my lungs empty. Gabby sits beside me in a subdued state, afraid to look to her right where the modelesque Maeve exists with ease. Gabby doesn’t see how Maeve traces her outline as if she’s admiring fine art that she can’t touch. Witnessing the evolution of someone else’s love in the beginning stages is as splendid as falling in love myself because that’s where I’m at with Theo—head over heels, smitten kitten.
Theo and all of these lovely misfit players in my life keep me afloat between the times when I don’t know what to expect next. Dad used to say timing is everything, and maybe he was right. The timing is in the in-between, where watching Maeve fall in love with Gabby and helping Alex with his issues and mine are all reactants in me trusting in the possibilities of my love life.
Here I sit, breathing all my worries into trust, listening to Theo deliver a speech he’s been afraid to give for weeks. Leslie assured me I could turn off my ringer for the event. Her exact words were, Staley, for the love of all that is holy, have fun, or I’ll figure out a way to sync your Bluetooth with each neighbor’s house, and they’ll all know your little Luca Blue secret.
Leslie knows far too much about my personal life.
Theo’s voice—my favorite thing—carries across the room, settling my body into a full smile. He’s ten seconds into his speech when my phone vibrates. Ignore it, Staley.
He charms the crowd with jokes about his stutter and how he’s not illiterate as his mother implied. Deterring him from his current momentum would be rude, but I would love to run to the stage to tackle him into a full-on Hip Huddle cuddle. I’m proud of him for feeling the fear about speaking tonight and doing it anyway.
Theo’s voice is interrupted by the vibration of my phone. Leslie’s words remind me that having a life outside my dad is okay. I ignore it, but I am unwilling to turn it off completely. Focus, Staley.
“Before the auction b-begins, I’d like to share a piece I w-wrote myself. It’s ab—”
The intense vibration jars my phone against my goblet of water. I leave my phone face down and press the side button to decline it. Five seconds later, it buzzes again, and Maeve gives me a “Your man is up there doing something brave and scary. Pay attention, or with all due respect, I will cut you” look.
Hitting the silence button does nothing for the worry brewing in my body. The phone vibrates again. I flip it over to see the name behind such persistence in calling me at the worst possible time. Three ignores is more than I’ll allow myself.
Noah. God, I cannot remember the last time he called me. All of our interactions are either in the street or in his driveway. I slip to the side of the room, where the caterers create enough noise with their ice-water pitchers and serving trays to take the call.
“Hello.”
Big heaping, gulping sobs fill the background of the other end of the line. Panic sets in.
“Noah, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Staley, hey—”
Noah pulls his mouth away from the receiver because all I hear is him shushing repeatedly as if he’s calming an infant.
“Who’s crying, Noah?”
Between the crying and Noah’s quietness, bits and pieces of Theo’s speech trickle through, but I hear very little.
I already know the answer, but I want Noah to tell me it’s no one so I can return to my social life, where everything is semi-normal for a few hours; this is selfish, I know, but it’s not too much to have one regular night. An internal prayer for Noah to not break my heart is all I can muster. Noah used to call me at the most random of times before Dad became sick. He’d be in the grocery store and would call me up to tell me about the abundance of men wearing socks with sandals. We had inside jokes.
“Staley, it’s your dad. He showed up again. All I can make out is that he is looking for you. I’ve tried walking him back to the house three times, and he won’t leave my driveway. He won’t leave the flowerbeds. He keeps asking where you are, and now he’s crying.” Noah’s voice breaks a little at this last admission.
A broken heart is a silly thing to withstand because if one’s heart were to break—even the smallest part of it—the result would be catastrophic. And yet, mine slugs its way through its next beat, and the world slows down around me because this will be my death, and the autopsy report will say myocardial rupture, heart in pieces. It wasn’t the anxiety after all.
The tears fall from my eyes before I can stuff them back into my body. Before I know it, Alex is at my side in his black catering apron and holding a sweaty water pitcher in one hand, his eyes filled with concern, searching my face for an explanation.
“Noah, I’m coming home. I don’t know how long it’ll take me, but I’m coming, okay? Find Leslie. She should be at the house.”
Whatever he says to me next is all garbled. It’s as if my hearing is pinched off and silenced. Alex’s hands land on my shoulders to center my focus.
“Staley . . . Hey, what’s wrong?”
All I can do is shake my head back and forth because words fail me. Knowing that I can say something, but the words cannot come out how I need them to must be how Theo feels.
“Maybe you should sit down.” I shake my head because fleeing is the only option here. I have to leave.
Before I know it, Alex is pressing me into a comforting hug. I break into noiseless cries, grateful for the comfort.
“What’s wrong, Staley?” Harrison’s smokey timbre interrupts my meltdown.
Alex pulls back as Harrison interrogates the only person trying to calm me, his face concerned.
“I’m not sure. She took a call, and I think she needs to get home. But that’s all I could put together.”
Harrison nods at Alex and wraps his arm around my shoulders, guiding me toward the back of the room.
“Staley, I’ll have my driver take you wherever you need.”
I’m on autopilot and nod at Harrison. If jumping off a cliff right now were something to get me to my dad quicker, I’d do it without a parachute. If appropriate, I’d shout across the room to Theo, letting him know I don’t have a choice in leaving and how sorry I am to miss all the words he has yet to say. As Harrison holds the door open, the thought of leaving Theo during this significant moment wrecks me. I don’t want to disappoint him.
As I look over my shoulder, Theo stares at me through the bright lights. His expression is all sorts of worried and confused. It’s not lost on me how he casts a questioning glance across the room to where Alex stands watching me leave and then back to me again, hoping the whole scene before him will make more sense. Concern washes over his face as he drops his eyes back to his paper. He wants to yell at me too. I can sense it, but I shake my head. I hope he knows I wouldn’t leave him unless it were crucial. The last thing I hear from his mouth are as follows.
“As I was s-saying, this is an original piece of work. It’s called ‘Sunlight’s Kiss.’”
While waiting for the car, Harrison tries to get to the bottom of my upset. I assure him it’s nothing I can’t handle, and I hope he’ll drop it. It would be easy to put everything on the table and tell him that my dad has dementia.
I’m underwater on all of our bills.
I haven’t had my head meds consistently in weeks, and some days, I think I’ve forgotten how to breathe normally, except for when I’m with Theo and my new friends, who fill me up with things to look forward to.
Also, I’m head over heels, permanently excited in my pants, in love with Theodore Sullivan.
Tell him what’s wrong, Staley. You trust Harrison.
“Harrison, thank you for the car. I need to go.”
My sniffling gives away how not okay I am.
“Okay, Monroe, I’m going to let it slide this one time. But I owe you, and when you’re ready to tell me what the hell is going on with you that’s got you five thousand types of upset, I’m here. Don’t make me call Claire because I will.”
Harrison hugs me and gives me a smirky older-brother kind of smile until I promise him that I will follow up with him. On the drive home, I take the deep breaths Alex taught me and use the 5-4-3-2-1 technique: see, touch, hear, smell, taste. I do this until we arrive in front of my house. I thank the driver and fret when I see neither my dad nor Noah in the driveway.
Leslie stops me in the kitchen with heavy eyes. Her hands reach for mine.
“Staley, I’m sorry. I must have nodded off. Russell went to bed with no issues and nothing unusual. I was reading on the couch when he slipped out the front door.”
She squeezes my hands with extra pressure at the end of her confession. I’ve been right where she is at least twenty times since Dad was diagnosed. It’s the worst feeling to know the person you’re supposed to keep safe slipped out on your watch.
“Leslie, don’t.”
A small tear rolls down her cheek. It’s her responsibility to watch him, and she assured me that it was fine for me to be out tonight. Being angry at her right now isn’t productive.
“If it’s okay with you before you leave, I want to talk to Noah and apologize for the situation again. I don’t want to be on any worse terms with him than we already are.” Speaking to Noah is the last thing I want to do.
“Oh, he’s not home. He’s with Russell.”
She points down the hall past the pictures and concert memorabilia, memories of a life full of love.
Noah went to half of the concerts plastered on the wall with my dad. They were great friends for the longest time, and now it’s as if he’d sell his house for a dollar any time my dad ends up in his yard to get away from us.
Walking past the memories hits me in all the ways Noah was prominent in every single one of them. I was on his shoulders at some of those concerts, and I danced in the general admission lawn areas of those concerts. There was so much goodness, but I can hardly touch the memories in my mind anymore.
Dad’s door is cracked, and soft light from the table lamp casts across the floor, interrupting two pairs of shoes. The shoes lined up perfectly, laces undone from one with care and the other still in their tied and knotted form, hit me right in the gut. If I’ve learned anything by studying all of the poems Theo has thrown my way in class, it’s that suddenly, these two pairs of shoes placed next to one another make all of the sense in the world. Complexity often overshadows the mundane acts of love. Noah has lovingly undone the laces on my dad’s shoes and left his tied.
Noah’s dark hair is mussed up from what appears to be the hardest night of his life, either from pulling it out from the inconvenience of Dad crashing his house again or from emotional exhaustion. Which—same. Noah lies with his back flat against the bed with my dad tucked in tightly to his side, his head across the expanse of his chest. They breathe in unison. Dad’s face is soft and relaxed.
The truth hits me; in poetry, Theo would call what I’m feeling figurative language, a simile. But the familiarity of how these two men are entwined in a position of comfort where one and the other are invested in nothing more than trust and well-being. I know this position all too well—The Sweetheart’s Cradle .