Chapter 5 #3
“What’s wrong with the menu?” Leah asked.
“Too many words.”
“You don’t have to read it now.”
“They want it back.”
I pulled the sheet toward me. “I can fill it out.”
Noah glanced at me.
“What do I eat?”
“Whatever you choose.”
“I don’t know.”
I studied the options.
“Would it help if I narrowed it down?”
He nodded.
“Breakfast: oatmeal or eggs.”
“Eggs.”
“Lunch: soup or turkey sandwich.”
“Soup.”
“Dinner: pasta or chicken.”
He hesitated. “Pasta.”
I checked the boxes.
“Tea?”
“Yes.”
“With milk?”
He looked irritated. “I don’t know.”
“Black tea with milk,” I said. “You can change your mind tomorrow.”
His expression eased.
“Okay.”
Leah took the completed menu and set it aside.
“I brought photographs.”
Noah’s gaze went to her bag.
“More?”
“We can stop whenever you want.”
He nodded.
Leah sat close to his right side.
I remained near the foot of the bed.
The first photographs were easy.
Emma at a school concert.
Clara covered in mud.
Leah standing in front of her new house.
Noah asked questions. Some of the answers amused him. Others left him quiet.
Then came a photograph of Marlowe.
The dog lay on his back with all four paws in the air, Noah’s sock caught between his teeth.
Noah stared at it.
“He’s mine?”
“Ours,” I said, then immediately added, “He lives at the apartment.”
“What kind?”
“Golden retriever. Mostly.”
“What does mostly mean?”
“He has some criminal tendencies.”
Leah showed him another photograph.
Noah and Marlowe slept together on the couch, the dog’s head tucked beneath Noah’s chin.
His fingers tightened on the edge of the album.
“He looks old.”
“He is,” I said.
“Does he miss me?”
Every answer available felt dangerous.
“Yes.”
Noah shut his eye.
Leah waited before turning the page.
The yard came next.
Noah in work clothes, standing beneath the hull of a sailboat.
Noah holding a heat-damaged switch panel.
Noah at the anniversary party with Caleb and Owen.
He studied the tools, the boats, the shape of the workshop.
“That’s Callahan Marine?”
“Yes.”
“Your place.”
“Our workplace,” I said.
He looked at me.
“You hired me.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“You were qualified.”
“That’s all?”
The question was innocent.
My pulse kicked hard.
“You were the best applicant.”
Leah hid a smile.
Noah noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Tell me.”
“She thinks I should say I hired you because you were attractive.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Not only because you were attractive.”
His mouth curved.
It was small and tired, but real.
The next photograph showed us on the ferry.
Noah looked at himself first.
Then at me.
He kept looking.
“Where?”
“On the way to Port Ash,” I said. “We went for the weekend.”
“Why?”
“Anniversary.”
His gaze moved to the arm around my shoulders.
“What did we do?”
“Walked. Ate. Argued about directions.”
“Who was right?”
“Me.”
“You answered too fast.”
Leah laughed.
I felt something warm and dangerous awaken beneath my ribs.
Noah turned the page.
The photograph in the kitchen stopped him.
He stood behind me, chin on my shoulder, both hands folded across my chest. I was looking down at a bowl of dough. He was looking at the camera, smiling.
“Did we cook?”
“You cooked,” I said. “I provided criticism.”
“Was it good?”
“No.”
Leah snorted.
“It was edible,” I amended.
Noah touched the image.
“You look different.”
I did not know which of us he meant.
“How?”
His brow tightened.
“Less…” He searched. “Hard.”
The word hurt because it was true.
In every recent reflection, I looked carved from exhaustion.
“I was on vacation.”
He looked up at me.
“You smiled more.”
“I did.”
“Because of me?”
Leah went still.
I answered because he deserved truth without performance.
“Often.”
Noah’s eye shone.
He looked back at the photograph.
“I don’t remember making you happy.”
“You don’t have to carry that right now.”
“But I did.”
“Yes.”
His breath left shakily.
The album began to tremble in his hand.
Leah took it before it slipped.
“That’s enough,” she said.
“No.”
“You’re tired.”
“I want to know.”
“You can look tomorrow.”
“I’m missing everything.”
His voice rose.
The light above his bed seemed suddenly too bright. He squeezed his eye shut and pressed his right hand to his forehead.
“I know,” Leah whispered.
“No, you don’t.”
“Noah—”
“You had the years. He had them. Everyone keeps showing me things like I should be grateful, but I wasn’t there.”
“You were,” I said.
He turned on me.
“Then where am I?”
The question filled the room.
I had no answer.
His breathing became ragged.
A tear slipped from beneath his closed eyelid.
“I look at him,” Noah said to Leah, pointing toward me without opening his eyes. “And he knows my face. He knows what I eat and where I sleep and how I hold a cup. I don’t know anything.”
Leah began to cry.
I remained at the foot of the bed because touching him would have been for me.
“You know you’re angry,” I said.
He drew a broken breath.
“You know this is unfair.”
His hand lowered from his forehead.
“You know you’re frightened.”
He opened his eye.
“And you know you don’t have to protect either of us from that.”
His face twisted.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I keep hurting you.”
“You’re injured. That isn’t the same thing.”
“I see your face.”
“I’m responsible for my face.”
Despite everything, a rough laugh escaped him.
Then pain cut through it.
He folded toward his uninjured side with a groan.
I called the nurse.
Medication came. The lights went lower. Leah closed the album.
Noah’s body slowly loosened as the pain receded.
Leah bent and kissed his forehead.
“I have to leave before dinner,” she whispered. “But I’ll call tomorrow.”
His eye opened sluggishly.
“Already?”
“I have work Monday.”
“And the girls.”
“Yes.”
He looked suddenly young.
“You’ll come again?”
“As soon as I can.”
He nodded.
Leah stroked his hair.
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
The words came automatically.
They belonged to memory.
I looked toward the window.
When I turned back, Noah was watching me.
I could not read his expression.
Leah stood and hugged me near the door.
“He’ll find you,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes.
“Don’t promise things you can’t control.”
“I’m not promising memory.”
“Then what?”
She pulled back.
“You.”
I did not understand.
She left before I could ask.
Noah had fallen asleep.
The blue album rested on his table.
I sat beside him until the room darkened and the harbor lights appeared beyond the glass.