6
He turned down one side street and then another before finding himself in front of a red-brick apartment complex that had seen better days.
He wasn’t sure when exactly those days had been, but they were certainly before he and his mother had moved in eight years ago.
He parked along the street and climbed from his car, which creaked and groaned with every movement.
The ancient Toyota Camry was just lucky to have made the trip in one piece.
Well, in the same number of pieces in which it had left his house that morning, anyway.
The rear door handles were missing, replaced by zip ties that only functioned from the outside.
The passenger’s side window would roll down with ease, but it took three people to put it back up—one pushing from the inside, one pressing from the outside and another holding down the button.
Both the bumper and the fender were dented, and the driver’s side door hung crooked, only latching if you pulled up on the frame while you closed it.
He didn’t bother to lock it when he walked away; not even the thieves in this neighborhood wanted a car like his, and there wasn’t anything inside worth stealing.
The sounds of a party met him on the sidewalk, drawing him down the central walkway between buildings three and four. He rounded a corner to the rear patio and found chaos in progress... but the good kind.
Doors were open on both sides of the shared outdoor space, and his mother’s neighbors scurried in and out, covering long folding tables with mismatched tablecloths, dragging chairs of all kinds out onto the concrete slab, and trying to corral the children who darted around the legs of their elders.
Noah bent down and caught a little girl as she rushed past. “Argh!” he yelled, tossing her into the air.
“Noah!” she squealed. She threw her arms around his neck and held on, already knowing what would come next.
Noah let go of her waist, and she wrapped her short legs around his torso, hanging on like a monkey.
She giggled as he shook from side to side.
“Get off!” he yelped, spinning around in a half-hearted attempt to dislodge her.
His efforts attracted the attention of the others, and soon he was covered in child-sized barnacles.
They clung to both his legs, climbed up his sides and leapt onto his back as if conquering Mount Everest.
“Help!” he called at last, conceding the defeat the young ones craved, and a woman nearby laughed fondly .
“It’s good to see you, Noah,” she called. “Children, let him go.”
Noah’s captors reluctantly obeyed.
“How long will you be here?”
“Did you bring us candy?”
“My mama’s making pie!”
Their excited chatter became a whirlwind of noise, and Noah knelt in the center of the storm. “Just for today, not this time, and that sounds amazing!” he said, answering them each in turn. “But right now I need to see my mama. Do you know where she is?”
“I do!” chimed half a dozen voices, and Noah instantly found himself being ushered toward the open back door of apartment 4D. It was a little like crowd surfing with a band of dwarves.
“Miss Ava, Miss Ava! Look who’s here!” the children called as they all but shoved him across the threshold. The smell of cooking food assaulted his senses—too many scents to name—and his mouth began to water.
“Did you find him?” a woman called from the small kitchen, and Noah heard the oven door close with an unholy screech.
He really should find a way to fix that.
Ava Campbell stuck her head around the corner, and her whole face lit up at the sight of her only son and his entourage.
“Good work, kids!” she said as she wiped her hands on a dish towel.
Noah’s young companions scattered, their job done, and he was able to wrap his arms around his mother for the first time since the semester began.
His near-constant work schedule and unreliable car didn’t encourage many trips home.
“So, your fan club remains,” his mom observed, and Noah gave a self-deprecating shrug.
“Yeah, but don’t tell anyone at school; you’ll ruin my image. ”
His mother snorted and pulled out of his embrace far enough to begin her inspection. “You look tired, honey,” she said, running her hands along his shoulders the way mothers often did. “Are you getting enough sleep? And is your hair... blue?”
Noah waved her concern away with a careless hand.
“Sleep is for the weak,” he insisted. “And sort of.” He left a quick kiss on the top of her head before stepping toward the kitchen, where he found the counters laden with produce and supplies.
Three pots bubbled quietly on the stove, and the oven light revealed two casserole dishes visible through the small window.
“You know everyone is bringing food, right? Not just you?” he teased.
“Yeah, yeah, but you know how I am. Hungry bellies call, and I have to answer.”
Noah lifted the lid of one pot and peeked inside without comment. Yes, he did know how his mother was. Cooking was her love language. She’d probably been a chef in another life—and almost in this one, too—but fate had had other plans.
He tried not to think about that.
“What can I do?” he asked, replacing the lid.
His mother smiled broadly and pointed to a wide silver chef’s knife on the closest cutting board. “You can chop onions,” she said, and Noah stifled a groan. He always had to chop the onions.
“You just like to see me cry,” he grumbled good-naturedly. He moved to the sink and began to scrub his hands.
His mom only cackled. “It’s good for you,” she said. “A man who never sheds tears forgets how to comfort others.”
“Confucius says . . .” Noah quipped.
She bumped him with her hip as she moved to the stove. “Hush! ”
“I’m sorry! You sound like a fortune cookie,” he protested. He shut off the faucet with his elbow the way his mother had taught him and reached for a roll of paper towels. Then he moved to the cutting board and picked up an already-peeled onion before chopping it neatly in half in one swift motion.
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” his mother answered.
The sound of pounding feet grew louder and then faded as one of the children ran past the open back door.
“Annie! Slow down!” a woman yelled, and Noah couldn’t help but smile. Annie Hernandez had been in a hurry for every one of her seven years on this Earth. Noah remembered the night she was born; he’d been fifteen, and Mrs. Hernandez’s screams of panic had woken him from a dead sleep.
That was also the night their gloomy apartment complex had started to become a tribe.
His mother had rushed across the patio in her pajamas to bang on the frightened woman’s door.
Mrs. Kiernan in 5A had called an ambulance, and her husband had waited in the parking lot to flag it down.
Mr. Huxley next door had made Julian, who was about to be a big brother, a steaming cup of hot chocolate to calm his nerves.
Annie had waited for the ambulance before making her appearance, but only just. Noah had been on the patio when she’d started to cry.
From that day forward, people had begun to speak when they’d passed each other outside, as if the events of that night had forged some unseen bridge between strangers. Neighbors who had been neighbors for years finally learned each other’s names.
And Noah’s mom had started to cook.
First, of course, she’d taken care of the Hernandezes, slowly filling their fridge and freezer to prepare for the exhausting months ahead while they tended to their newborn.
Then, she’d started cooking for the others.
Cookies for the kids, casseroles for the working mothers, meat pies for the old men.
And, almost like magic, the favors began to return.
Mr. Romano, after enjoying a sausage quiche, offered to fix their leaky kitchen window.
Mrs. Everleen, smitten with Noah’s mother’s raspberry tarts, patched the torn knees of Noah’s school jeans.
Nobody had much to spare, but little by little, one person’s talent met another person’s need—and they discovered that life was better together.
Now, doors were open as often as the weather would allow.
Children from one unit could often be found in another, and meals and chores and carpools were shared whenever possible.
It was a different world from the one Noah and his mother had moved into on that drizzly evening so many years before.
And somehow, all it had taken was a baby.
Ironically, the same thing that had forced them there in the first place.
Noah scored half the onion in parallel lines, then curled the ends of his fingers so that the tips pressed against the vegetable’s white flesh.
The knife flashed as the flat part of the blade moved against his knuckles and made a satisfying click against the wooden board beneath it.
His eyes began to burn and water, but he resisted the urge to wipe them with the back of his wrist.
“Good to know you can still chop like a pro,” his mother commented from the far side of the stove.
Noah gave a half smile. “It’s hard to forget years of you yelling ‘don’t chop your fingers off!’ every fifteen seconds.”
“Well, you still have all ten of them, so I must have done something right,” she went on. “Besides, women like men who can cook, so I did you a favor.”
Noah grunted as an image of Olivia flashed across his mind. He wondered if he’d ever have a reason to cook for her.
“When you get done with that, go ahead and take the dishes from the oven and put them on the big table outside. I’ve got to make room for the stuffing,” his mother went on.