Two Noah
two
Noah
Noah kept his voice even, trying to reason with his son as he pulled into his ex-wife’s driveway, but Jake was in no mood to be reasonable.
“You promised !” Jake wailed. His face was all red and scrunched up.
“Jakey,” Noah said, holding in a sigh. He hadn’t promised . He hadn’t even said yes . He’d said We’ll see . But lately Jake had been treating every slightly positive answer like some sort of blood oath.
This time, it was having McDonald’s for dinner.
But tonight was Angela’s night, and she had already planned for dinner. Noah couldn’t tell Jake that, though, without making Angela into the villain who’d said no . So he was stuck.
“Sometimes plans change.”
Surprises happened. Things came up. Marriages fell apart.
That was life.
“Come on, your mom’s waiting.”
Jake huffed and got out of the car, running for the garage door to punch in the code. Noah took a deep breath and followed more slowly.
It still felt weird, sometimes—well, all the time—coming to Angela’s house.
It had been their house, before the divorce.
Angela had suggested selling it and splitting the money, but Noah had insisted she keep it.
She’d been the one paying the mortgage, after all.
She’d been the family breadwinner, being a partner in a law firm, while it had made more sense for Noah to stay home with Jake.
Now he had his own little apartment, and he’d taken up carpentry again, but he insisted Angela keep their old house so Jake could have at least a little stability.
By the time Noah made it to the kitchen, Jake had already blazed through the house and up to his room.
“Hey, Noah,” Angela said, pulling him in for a side hug without spilling her coffee.
Angela Russo—she’d kept her name when they got married for professional reasons, so she’d never had to change it back after the divorce—was a head shorter than Noah, soft and fat, with her brown hair pulled back into a tight power ponytail.
She had mischievous blue eyes and a bright smile she’d passed on to Jake—when he wasn’t mad about McDonald’s, at least.
“Hey.” He dropped the hug and looked around the kitchen. It was still more or less decorated the same, though Angela had bought a set of purple-enameled cookware after Noah moved out. A big Dutch oven was on the stove, bubbling away with something that smelled…
Good might’ve been too generous, but edible, certainly.
Noah had always been the cook in the family. He’d had to learn early on.
“Go ahead,” Angela said, resigned.
“What?”
“Say it.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
Angela quirked an eyebrow. Noah shook his head and pressed his lips together.
Finally, she laughed. “I was trying a new recipe. I don’t think it’s a good one.”
“Well, Jake did say he wanted McDonald’s tonight.”
“Is that why he was in a huff when he came in?”
“He claimed I promised him.”
“Nine going on fifteen,” Angela sighed. “Where’s this coming from all of a sudden?”
“No idea.” Noah wished he did. He’d been talking it over with his therapist, but she thought it was probably just a phase. “Well, I better go…”
“Actually,” Angela said. “Are you free?”
“Why?” Noah asked. Though he was. Truthfully, the night life of a divorced thirty-eight-year-old dad wasn’t particularly thrilling.
“Want to grab some Mickey D’s and have dinner with us? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
She said it lightly, but there’s something I want to talk to you about was never good. It usually led to Jake has the stomach flu or I ran into your mother at the grocery store or I accidentally pulled the car into the garage too far and hit the freezer .
One time it was I don’t think we should be married anymore .
But it sounded important, either way.
“Sure. I’ll go grab it.”
“Best. Day. Ever!” Jake pronounced before stuffing way too many fries into his mouth.
Now that he wasn’t mad at the whole world (but mostly Noah), he was back to smiling and laughing.
Jake had his mom’s smile—and her brains, thank goodness—but he had Noah’s big brown eyes, and Noah’s peachy complexion, and Noah’s thick hair, though Jake’s was more chestnut than black.
He also had a missing front tooth. He wedged a fry in the gap and showed it off. “I’m a narwhal!”
Noah snorted and mussed Jake’s hair. When Jake wasn’t raging against the unfairness of the world, he was Noah’s favorite person.
Well, he was Noah’s favorite person all the time, but it was certainly easier to get along with him when he wasn’t being a nine-year-old misanthrope.
After dinner, Jake wanted to go play with his Lego sets, but Angela asked him to wait.
“I’ve got something to discuss with the both of you.”
Noah’s burger turned into a spiky lump in his stomach. He swallowed. “Sure.”
“You know how we always talked about going to Italy? Back when we were married?”
Angela’s grandparents were Italian. Though they’d raised their kids—including Angela’s dad—in Kansas City, they’d moved back to Italy long before Angela and Noah had even met.
He and Angela had always talked about visiting them, with Jake, too. He was their first great-grandchild.
It never happened, though.
“Well, I think we should.”
“Should what?” Noah asked. She wasn’t seriously suggesting…
“I think we should go.”
“To Italy?” Jake asked. “Do they have macaroni and cheese there?”
“Maybe,” Noah said, then course corrected, because the last thing he needed was Jake thinking he’d promised Italians had mac and cheese. “Actually, I don’t know. You’ll have to find out.”
He turned back to Angela. “You’re taking Jake, I guess?”
“I’m taking both of you,” she said. “If you’ll come.”
“I can’t afford a trip like that!” Noah was doing okay financially, but an international trip wasn’t exactly in his budget.
“I’ll cover you,” Angela insisted. “Noah. You wouldn’t split the house, you wouldn’t take alimony, you wouldn’t take anything. Take the trip at least.”
Noah shook his head. Angela’s grandparents weren’t even his family anymore. One of the hardest parts of the divorce had been losing Angela’s big extended family. Noah’s own was…
Well, complicated didn’t even begin to cover it.
Angela sighed. “You know what sweat equity is, right? It’s when the work you do counts for something, too. You paid into our marriage just as much as I did. Let me pay for the damned trip.”
Jake gasped.
Noah jokingly put his hands over Jake’s ears—he’d heard his mom swear before, plenty of times, even if Noah didn’t swear much himself. Jake shook Noah’s hands off with a laugh.
“Fine.” If money wasn’t a good enough excuse, at least his job was. “If I can get the time off work.”
“I already talked to Rick. He said you’re good as long as you bring him back a souvenir.”
“You what?” Noah blinked. Rick was the union’s business agent, the one who matched carpenters to jobs. He wasn’t Noah’s boss, per se, but he did keep Noah’s schedule. Angela couldn’t just talk to him. “I—”
“There’s another thing.”
Noah’s stomach dropped. There was something in Angela’s voice, some little shake. Like the day she’d said she wanted a divorce.
“Nonno and Nonna are thinking seriously about retirement. You remember they have that little wine store?”
Noah nodded. It was somewhere on a lake in Northern Italy. He’d seen it on a map, but he couldn’t remember the name.
“They asked if anyone in the family wanted to take it over, and I told them…” Angela swallowed. Her cheeks were turning pink. “I told them I would.”
Noah’s brain ground to a halt.
Angela? Wanted to move to Italy?
It made no sense. Angela had worked so hard to become a partner at her firm. She had family here; she had friends. She had Jake.
“We’re moving to Italy?” Jake asked, his voice quiet and nervous.
“I am,” she said. “And we’re going to go look at it and see if you want that, too. Okay?”
“What about my friends? What about my soccer team? What about—”
“Hey.” Noah kept his voice gentle, even though it felt like an elbow to the heart that Jake had skipped over What about my dad ? “We’re not doing anything without taking your feelings into account. Okay, buddy?”
It felt like he had sand in his throat, but he couldn’t worry about his own feelings right now, not right in front of Jake. He wished Angela had talked to him about this first, given him time to process it on his own before dragging Jake in, but he swallowed that back.
He’d deal with that later, too.
“You get to decide if you want to move with your mom or stay here with me.”
“Exactly,” Angela said. “That’s why I want us to go together. So we can all see it and make an informed choice. All right?”
“You’re staying here?” Jake asked, voice small.
“I am,” Noah said. “But no matter what, we both love you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Noah looked back to Angela, who at least looked a little guilty, her bottom lip tucked under her teeth.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that. I just wanted to get it all in the open.”
“It’s fine.” Noah bit back a sigh. It would be fine. “When were you thinking of going?”