Chapter 12 #2
“I know that sound.”
“You remember it?”
“No.”
The denial came out angry.
“I don’t remember it. I know it.”
His fist tightened.
“It means you.”
My heart lurched.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
He opened his eye.
The expression in it nearly destroyed me.
“When I hear it, I turn toward you.”
I could not speak.
Frustration twisted his face.
“There’s no picture. I don’t see the yard. I don’t see you calling for me. There’s nothing I can describe.”
His hand pressed more firmly over his chest.
“But my whole body knows I’m supposed to find you.”
My eyes burned.
I reached for him and stopped inches from his neck.
“May I touch you?”
He nodded.
I cupped the side of his neck.
Noah leaned into my palm before I had fully settled it against his skin.
The response seemed instinctive.
Older than conscious thought.
Ours.
“What did it mean?” he asked.
“At first? Lunch.”
A broken laugh escaped him.
“Of course.”
“Then it became how we found each other when the yard was loud.”
“Did I answer you?”
“You whistled back.”
“I can’t do it.”
“You used both hands.”
“My left is trapped.”
“You’ll learn another way.”
His throat moved.
“What did it mean when I answered?”
“I’m here.”
His eye filled again.
“And when you called?”
“Come find me.”
Noah lowered his forehead to mine.
I stayed perfectly still beneath the contact.
His breath touched my mouth.
My palm remained warm against his neck.
His fingers twisted in my shirt.
“That’s what the dream is,” he whispered. “I’m looking for you.”
The room blurred.
I closed my eyes.
“You found me.”
His breath trembled between us.
“Did I?”
“I’m right here.”
We stayed that way for several heartbeats.
Foreheads touching.
My hand holding his neck.
His fist over my heart.
The urge to kiss him rose with enough force to frighten me.
I moved away first.
Noah opened his eye.
“Why did you pull back?”
“You need medication. And food.”
“That isn’t the reason.”
“No.”
He continued watching me.
I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the mattress.
The room tipped briefly.
I caught myself with one hand.
Noah noticed.
“You’re dizzy.”
“I stood too quickly.”
“You need sleep.”
“I slept.”
“For four hours.”
“I have managed on less.”
“That does not make it sensible.”
“It has kept me alive so far.”
While Noah used the bathroom, I dressed and went to the kitchen.
By the time his chair hummed through the doorway, coffee was brewing and eggs cooked over low heat. Rain silvered the harbor windows, and pale morning light lay across the uneven floorboards.
Marlowe positioned himself between Noah and the stove with shameless optimism.
Noah looked more alert after washing his face, though he still wore the distant expression of someone listening for a sound beyond the walls.
I placed his medication beside a glass of water.
He swallowed it, then pointed at me.
“Do the whistle.”
“You’re six feet away.”
“I want to hear it again.”
I gave the signal.
Two short.
One long.
Marlowe hurried toward me.
Noah smiled.
“He thinks you’re calling him.”
“You trained him to respond.”
“I did?”
“You said a family signal should include the entire family.”
Noah looked down at the dog.
Marlowe sat beside my leg, tail sweeping the floor.
“Did he answer?”
“With saliva.”
“That seems sincere.”
I carried the plates to the table.
Noah watched me sit.
“How often did we use it?”
“Every day.”
“That’s why it feels so strong.”
“Probably.”
“When did you last do it?”
“Before the accident.”
“You haven’t used it since?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I forgot.”
He absorbed that quietly.
“You forget things too.”
“More than I care to admit.”
“Not six years.”
“No.”
I moved his plate closer.
“But grief makes ordinary habits disappear.”
The answer quieted him.
He ate slowly.
Halfway through breakfast, his gaze shifted toward the stairwell.
“I want to go downstairs.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“Maeve is coming at ten.”
“It’s seven thirty.”
“You have exercises at nine.”
“I want one hour.”
“You had a severe nightmare.”
“And slept afterward.”
“You are still tired from yesterday.”
“I am tired every day.”
The sharpness in his voice made Marlowe raise his head.
I set down my fork.
“What do you want from the yard?”
“To be in it.”
“You’ve seen it.”
“From outside.”
“You were inside briefly.”
“Not properly.”
He touched his temple.
“I want to know what else is still there.”
“You may remember nothing.”
“I know.”
“It may hurt.”
“I know.”
“If you become dizzy on the stairs—”
“Reid.”
I stopped.
“I need one part of my life where I’m not lying down while people explain who I used to be.”
The anger beneath the words was earned.
I leaned back.
“All right.”
His shoulders loosened.
“After breakfast.”
“Thank you.”
“We use the stair lift.”
“No.”
“Noah.”
“I can walk down with help.”
“You struggled going up yesterday.”
“I was exhausted.”
“Descending is more difficult.”
“I want to try.”
Maeve’s warning echoed in my head.
Support was not control.
“One attempt,” I said. “At the first sign of dizziness, we stop.”
“Agreed.”
“The powered chair goes down before you.”
“Yes.”
“You keep your right hand on the rail.”
“Yes.”
“Say it as though you mean it.”
“I will cling to the rail with the desperation of a sailor in a hurricane.”
“Acceptable.”
He finished his eggs.
The staircase took fifteen minutes.
Noah stood at the top with his right hand locked around the rail. Caleb had installed a second temporary rail at hip height, making the descent safer.
I positioned myself one step below Noah and slightly toward his injured side.
He placed his right foot on the first tread.
Then the left.
He breathed through the movement.
“One,” he murmured.
I kept silent.
The second step came more easily.
At the fourth, his face tightened.
“Pain?”
“Pressure.”
“Hip?”
“Yes.”
“Do we stop?”
“No.”
We waited until it eased.
Then continued.
By the time he reached the bottom, sweat darkened the back of his shirt.
He leaned against the rail.
I held my hands near his waist without touching.
Noah looked at me.
“You didn’t narrate.”
“You asked me not to.”
“Thank you.”
I brought the chair behind him.
He lowered himself into it.
The expression on his face was not triumph.
It was relief.
He had done something on his terms.
I opened the workshop door.
Cold air entered first, smelling of rain and salt.
Then the deeper scent of Callahan Marine Works reached us.
Cedar dust.
Machine oil.
Resin.
Wet rope.
Metal heated, worked, and cooled a thousand times.
Noah guided the chair over the threshold.
Then stopped.
His eye closed.
I stood behind him.
“What is it?”
He raised one hand.
“Wait.”
The yard would not officially open for another hour. Rain ticked against the corrugated roof. A refrigeration unit hummed in the storeroom. Somewhere outside, a loose halyard struck a mast.
Noah breathed in.
“I know this.”
The words were almost soundless.
“The smell?”
“All of it.”
He opened his eye and turned toward the left partition.
“There’s a utility sink behind that wall.”
“Yes.”
“A blue mug over it. Cracked at the handle.”
“Yes.”
His gaze moved toward the main workbench.
“The outlets on that side fail whenever the dehumidifier is running.”
My pulse jumped.
“That began last winter.”
He rolled toward the bench.
Beside a locked cabinet, he stopped.
“My soldering station.”
“Yes.”
He did not ask which drawer held his precision tools.
His right hand reached for it automatically.
The drawer slid open.
Cutters, probes, microdrivers, crimpers, and small pliers lay in fitted spaces. Each slot had been labeled in Noah’s handwriting.
He stared down at them.
“I arranged this.”
“You reorganized everything after Owen borrowed three cutters and returned none.”
“I remember being angry.”
The statement sharpened the air.
“Can you see it?”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“But I know I was angry.”
“That matters.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
His attention shifted toward the break room.
“The kettle clicks after it turns off.”
“For nearly ten minutes.”
“The refrigerator light is too bright.”
“You covered half of it with tape.”
Noah guided the chair through the doorway.
A strip of black electrical tape still covered one side of the refrigerator housing.
He touched it.
“I remember putting this here.”
This time, wonder overtook the frustration.
Not a complete scene.
Not a conversation.
An action connected to himself.
He had placed the tape there.
He knew it.
Noah laughed.
The sound echoed through the empty workshop.
“I remember hating that light.”
“You called it interrogation lighting.”
“Did I?”
“Frequently.”
He rolled back into the main bay, still smiling.
A battered radio sat on the shelf near Owen’s bench.
Noah pointed.
“That station loses reception before rain.”
“It does.”
“Turn it on.”
I crossed the room and switched the radio on.
Static burst from the speaker.
A voice emerged, distorted by interference.
Noah laughed again.
“That sounds terrible.”
“You refused to replace it.”
“Why?”
“You said a radio that predicted bad weather had practical value.”
“That is flawless reasoning.”
“I disagreed.”
“You were wrong.”
His smile struck me with such painful familiarity that I turned away under the pretense of adjusting the volume.
At eight fifteen, Caleb came through the side door carrying a paper bag.
He stopped when he saw Noah near the main bench.
“Well.”
Noah looked up. “Morning.”
Caleb lifted the bag. “I brought pastries in case Reid refused to let you downstairs.”
“I can hear you,” I said.
“That was the intention.”
He approached Noah without forcing cheerfulness into the moment.
“You look better.”
“I slept.”
“That is generally how mornings are supposed to work.”
Noah accepted the pastry Caleb offered.
“What is it?”
“Apricot.”
“Do I like apricot?”
Caleb glanced at me.
I said nothing.
He looked back at Noah.
“I like apricot. You are free to reach your own conclusion.”
Noah bit into it.
Chewed.
Nodded.
“Acceptable.”
“I’ll take that victory.”
Owen arrived a few minutes later with rain on his shoulders and marine cable tucked under one arm.
He greeted Noah just as calmly.
No embrace.
No exaggerated brightness.
Only, “Your bench still looks better than Caleb’s.”
Caleb objected at once.
Noah rolled closer to Owen’s side of the workshop.