Chapter 17 Noah #2
“Don’t get all high and mighty, Weeping,” Marcy retorts. “It’s not like you bring anything to the table, like they say.”
As Willow’s eyes blur with unshed tears that she swiftly blinks away, a cold wave descends on me as I battle shame mixed with a dose of anger.
“I’m not sure where to start, Marcy. Maybe with her generosity?
She spends her winter weekends as a volunteer teacher of adaptive skiing, after all.
Or her courage? Talking here about her being a thru-hiker.
But if you’re insisting on something she ‘brings to the table,’ let’s see.
She makes me laugh, her beauty makes me look good just by being by her side, her magic touch is already turning the store around, and she makes a mean oatmeal. I could go on all day.”
Marcy grunts, seeming unsatisfied, then stands, fists on the table to stand up.
My wife’s cheekbones are red, and she struggles to keep her voice soft. “Let me help you,” she tells her mother. She avoids my gaze as she helps her mother down the hall.
“Thank you for dinner, Marcy!” I holler.
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, waving back as she disappears in the dark hallway.
My heartbeat is still out of whack, and I hope my anger didn’t show. When Willow comes back minutes later, I feel her shake as I set a hand on her arm.
Marcy’s illness is taking a toll on her, physically and emotionally, and she seems to have her reasons to be upset at us. At me. But I hate how it’s affecting Willow.
We dash under the rain to her car. “Why don’t you let me drive,” I offer, expecting her to say she’s fine.
But she hands me her keys, and I open her door, watching her ball onto her seat.
I quickly round the car and get in. “Hey,” I say softly.
She looks up at me.
“I’m sorry,” we both say.
“Come here,” I add, taking her into the most PG hug.
She leans into me, letting me rub her back, burrowing her face deeper in my chest. I drop a kiss on the top of her head and she lifts her face to me. “You give really good hugs.”
“So I’ve been told,” I say smiling.
“Can we go home now?” she whispers, rubbing her arms and staring out the windshield.
I drive us in silence, desperate to make her feel better. But sweeping this under the rug won’t do it. Willow is embarrassed, and she needs to know she has no reason to be. “We should talk about what happened,” I say as we both walk into the kitchen.
She shrugs, the look of defeat in her eyes undoing me. “As long as you don’t try to fix it,” she says.
“What do you mean?” Of course I want to fix it. I’m responsible for this, dammit. Without this marriage, none of this would have happened. I need a drink. “D’you like bourbon?”
“Not really.” She frowns. “You go ahead. I’ll meet you in the… what’s the name of the room at the front?”
“The parlor.”
She giggles and leaves with a finger wave, sashaying with exaggeration. “I’ll meet you in the parlor, dahling.”
My gaze goes to her ass—where else?— and my mood improves incrementally.
When I join her, there’s a fire roaring and little lamps lit here and there.
I haven’t been in this room in forever—I’m glad chimney sweeps are scheduled on the regular.
“Where’d you find the firewood?” I ask as I set both our drinks on a side table.
“Oh, there was an old chair that worked out just fine,” she answers, making me startle. But my gaze darts to a neat woodpile on the side of the fireplace.
“I brought this in this morning. That’s okay, right?”
“You’re the lady of the house,” I say, my dick slightly twitching at the words—and what the fuck is that about? I hand her the whiskey sour I made for her. “Let me know what you think.” I hope she likes it. Bourbon has a way of mellowing you; it’s a shame for her to miss out on that.
She takes a sip. “It’s really good, thank you.” Then she lets out an airy laugh. “Look at us, all proper, sipping whiskey in front of a fire in the—the what now? The parlor?”
I nod, liking the way the flames dance on her skin and make her hair look ablaze. “We look like we’ve been married fifteen years.”
“Dahling, Nanny said Noah the third threw a tantrum. Whatever shall we do?” she says in a mock British accent.
I nearly choke on my drink. “Noah the third?”
“Obviously,” she says, swinging her foot, looking at the fire. “Your father was Noah, right, although everyone called him Mac?” Her voice is soft, as if she needs to be careful.
I take a long gulp of bourbon. “How d’you know that?”
She lifts an eyebrow. “We’re married, remember? I did my homework.”
Shit. I should do mine.
“That’s not true. It was in his obituary,” she says even softer. “D’you miss him a lot?”
A vise tightens around my stomach, memories flashing, bitter snippets in my soul.
Dad becoming a different person after Mom died.
Dad losing interest in us, in his businesses, in Emerald Creek.
And then meeting Gail. “I missed him a lot after our mother died. He… he checked out. His passing was a shock but… we’d already lost him.
He wasn’t even living here anymore, in the end. ”
“That must have been so tough,” she says softly. A ball forms in my throat. How nice would it be, to have someone to share the burden with?
Eager to change the conversation, I ask, “So—what happened back there?”