2. What I Carried Home
two
What I Carried Home
Nora
I've been carrying last night in my chest like something I'm not ready to put down yet.
"Do you believe in lust at first sight, Daddy?"
The question leaves my mouth before I can stop it, but I've always been comfortable talking to my Dad about everything, so it's not a surprise.
My father turns his head with agonizing slowness, the vertebrae in his neck clicking against the cotton pillowcase. The effort drains the color from his already gray skin, leaving him pale under the harsh afternoon light cutting through the blinds.
The look of surprise is vivid in his faded eyes as he gives me a slow, trembling once-over, his gaze tracking from my face down to my hands.
"Do you… mean love at first sight, Nora?"
For a second I almost laugh.
My father still believes those are the same thing. Love. Lust. Hope. As if they all arrive holding hands. As if one can't wreck your life while the others watch.
His voice is thick, and the syllables drag out. Before he can finish the sentence, the left corner of his mouth twitches, dropping by a fraction of an inch into that terrifying, slack slope the doctors told me to get used to.
His right hand, the only one that still obeys him without an argument, twitches against the faded quilt, his fingers clawing weakly at the cotton threads.
"Yes," he breathes, his chest heaving with effort. "I had that… with your mother. You know that. The second she walked into the library in Galveston. No doubts."
I shake my head, keeping my eyes fixed on his left arm.
I refuse to look at the slackness of his jaw; instead, I focus entirely on the tight, locked muscles of his forearm.
I pour a few drops of the lavender-scented mineral oil into my palm, the liquid cold against my skin, and continue to massage his left arm.
I work my thumbs in deep, circular motions along the rigid line of his brachioradialis, trying to force life back into tissue that has forgotten how to move.
"No, Daddy," I say softly, my voice steady despite the prickle of heat behind my eyelids. "I don't mean love. I mean instant infatuation with someone."
He remains silent, so I'm forced to explain further. "Complete, blind attraction from just the sound of their voice."
I stop for a minute, my thumbs sinking into the crook of his elbow as I pick my words carefully.
"An intense coup de foudre," I whisper, the French syllables feeling smooth and foreign on my tongue. "That just sweeps you entirely off your feet, leaves your lungs empty, and doesn't care if you survive the fall."
If my father was surprised before, he looks completely dumbfounded now. His right eyebrow hitches upward, his good eye widening as he stares at me through the shadows of the room.
The silence stretches between us, punctuated only by the rhythmic, mechanical hum of the small oxygen concentrator in the corner and the heavy, dry scrape of his breath.
"Is there… something…" He pauses, swallowing hard, his throat clicking as his tongue fights the paralysis. "Something you want to… tell me, Nora? Who is… who is he?"
I force a small, practiced smile to my lips and shake my head, my fingers resuming their steady, rhythmic slide down his wrist.
"No, Daddy. Just an old thought. Just wondering about how the world moves when we aren't looking."
How could I possibly tell him the truth and explain everything that transpired a few days ago?
How could I look into my father's face and tell him that after all these years, seven years of absolute silence, the man who took my virginity and methodically broke my trust in every single man on this earth was still bothering me?
Stanley.
Stanley had almost broken me in ways that didn't leave bruises but left my mind looking like a collapsed scaffolding.
He never raised his voice. That was the worst part.
Quiet men with money don't need to. He had spent years ensuring I felt small, ensuring I believed that my intellect, my architecture degree, and my very skin belonged to the oil-money empire his family ran out of Houston.
Running into him coincidentally at that professional mixer in downtown Houston a few days ago had shattered the fragile glass cage I'd built around myself. Seeing his smooth, unblinking smile and his soft, predatory voice had sent me into a blind, suffocating panic.
That panic was the exact reason I had gotten into my car, driven forty miles south into a county where nobody knew my last name, and walked into that dark, smoky bar in Galveston. I hadn't been looking for an escape in the form of a man.
But somehow, I found him.
Meeting that stranger at the bar and going through with exactly what my body and my starved, bruised heart desired was the most exhilarating, terrifying thing I had ever experienced. It hadn't been a mistake. It had been my choice just as much as the stranger's.
For seven long years, I had spent every single day being careful. I kept my posture rigid, my boundaries absolute, and my world small enough to stay safe from the corporate shadow of Stanley's family. I never let a man get close enough to see the blueprints of my mind.
But that night?
One night of not being careful, one night of tearing down the walls and letting the fire burn felt like something I could finally afford. I had looked at the ledger of my life, weighed the risks, and decided I had enough emotional collateral to spend it all on a man whose name I didn't even know.
I told myself it was just the one night. A temporary release valve.
When I woke up the next morning in that motel room and found out that he was gone, the sheets were cold on his side of the bed, I didn't feel abandoned. I felt the clarity of the choice I had made.
That was the part I couldn't seem to explain to myself.
I wasn't ashamed. I should have been. A careful woman doesn't climb into bed with a stranger.
A woman who spent seven years rebuilding herself doesn't hand over every wall in a single night.
But if someone offered me the choice again?
The same bar. The same man. The same motel room. I would walk into that fire twice.
But the universe didn't give me time to breathe. All of that clarity and the residual heat had flown out of my head thirty minutes later when the hospital called to tell me my father had been found on his kitchen floor in Moonrise, his left side entirely dark.
I had shoved the memory of the stranger into the furthest, deepest drawer at the back of my mind, packed my bags, and driven straight to this old, creaking house on the coastal plains.
Regardless of how I discussed things with him, how could I possibly explain all of that to a man who still thinks love is a library book in Galveston?
But now, with my fingers slick with oil and the smell of lavender fighting the scent of old wood and thinking back, I can almost picture him again in my mind, the image so vivid it makes my skin prickle under my clothes.
A sudden wave of heat curls deep in my belly, a heavy ache that makes my breath catch in my throat.
My mind races back to the motel room, the memory of his large, calloused palms sliding over the curve of my hips, the rough, silver ridge of the scar on his left wrist pressing against my inner thigh.
I remember the unyielding strength of his chest against my breasts, and the way his deep, gravelly growl had vibrated against my collarbone when he took me.
My pulse spikes, a sudden thudding in my ears that has nothing to do with this quiet bedroom, and my skin turns hot, my nipples hardening against the lace of my bra under my linen shirt.
"Nora?"
My father's voice cracks and drags me back to the reality of his bedside. I jolt guiltily, my hands freezing against his arm, my heart hammering against my ribs as if I've just been caught stealing.
"You… didn't answer me, Nora. Are you… Looking for someone?"
I clear my throat quickly, sliding my hands away from his skin and reaching for a dry towel to wipe the excess oil from my fingers. I don't look him in the eye as I fold the cloth.
"No, Daddy. I'm not looking for anyone."
He continues holding my gaze, telling me he doesn't believe me for a second. I squeeze his shoulder briefly before adding. "I told you, I was only curious. The medication the doctor gave you makes me think about how fragile things are, that's all."
He sighs, and I can hear the wet, rattling sound that originates deep in his chest. He closes his eyes for a long beat, his right hand moving to rub at his temple where the veins are blue and prominent beneath his thinning hair.
"Fragile… yes. This house… It's getting too big for me, Nora. The floorboards… they creak at night. I keep thinking… I keep thinking about the stairs."
"You don't need to worry about the stairs, Daddy," I say, sitting down on the edge of the mattress.
"We're keeping you on the first floor. I'm going to redesign the downstairs bathroom next week.
Knock out the old tub, put in a zero-threshold shower with grab bars.
As an architect, I can tell you the structural joists under the pantry can take the plumbing redirect easily. "
He lets out a weak, slurred chuckle that turns into a cough. "Always… always building things, my girl. Just like your mother's father. You see… You see the bones of a house."
My mother used to say the same thing.
When I was small she'd take me through old houses and ask what I noticed. Cracks. Drafts. Floors that sagged in the middle from carrying too much weight for too long.
I thought she was teaching me architecture.
Years later I understood. She was teaching me people.
Look for what's struggling. Look for what's carrying more than it should. Look for what might break if nobody pays attention.
I haven't stopped looking since.
She also planted bluebonnets every spring. Not because they were pretty. Because they came back. Drought. Flood. Heat that cracked the earth open. The bluebonnets always came back.