6 #2
Noah scraped his diced onion into a smaller bowl and obediently donned a pair of thick oven mitts.
One by one, the dishes, all cooked to perfection, made their way to the community table, where they waited for dinnertime under aluminum-foil tents.
When all was ready, everyone sat down in long lines on either side of the feast while a dozen conversations tangled together.
Then, a tinkling sound began at the far end of the table.
“Hear ye, hear ye!” Mr. Huxley called. “I proclaim it time for the annual giving of thanks. I’ll go first. I’m thankful to still have two good legs to stand on, though one is admittedly better looking than the other.”
Everyone around the table laughed, since it was well known that Mr. Huxley had a prosthetic leg.
“Now, go this way,” he ordered, gesturing to his right.
Mrs. Kiernan pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’m thankful to have two new grandbabies this year, both healthy.”
The tradition continued down the line, and other neighbors mentioned their health, their friends and, of course, the ability to feed their families for another season. Finally, it was Noah’s turn. He casually pushed his chair back and rose to stand.
“This year, I am thankful for mail,” he said.
There was a confused sort of pause around the table .
“For mail?” Mr. Kiernan asked, and Noah nodded. He cleared his throat, the anticipation making his mouth dry.
“Yes, for mail. Specifically, for the letter saying I’ve been accepted to grad school at UT Chattanoo—”
He didn’t get to finish, because his mother leapt from her chair like it was on fire.
“NOAH JAMES!” she shouted. He staggered as she threw her arms around him with more force than he was expecting. “You’re gonna be a doctor!”
“Of physical therapy,” he clarified. “But yes.”
The table burst into applause and excited chatter, only some of which he could hear over his mother’s babbling.
“How long have you known? When do you start? Why didn’t you tell me!?” she asked.
“Next fall,” he said, returning her hug. “And I wanted to surprise you.”
She grumbled something about his timing, though her cheeks were wet and her smile was happy when she pulled away. “I am so proud of you! I knew you would do it.”
Noah felt a hot prickling sensation along the bridge of his nose, which only got worse when he looked around the patio.
Mrs. Hernandez was dabbing her eyes with a napkin, and Mr. Huxley was nodding his head, as if he’d known this day would come all along.
Noah’s family, such as it was, was beaming at him.
These were the people who meant the most to him in the world—the ones who had been there through the hardest times of his life.
So why could he only think about the one who wasn’t there?
He accepted all the congratulations and praise his neighbors heaped upon him, wearing them like a cape for the rest of the meal. He put on a big smile and twirled the little ones high in the air like helicopters. He made his usual jokes. But somehow, it all felt hollow.
And he knew his mother could tell.
When they were finally alone in their quiet kitchen, his mom deftly washing the many dishes and Noah drying beside her, he kept his eyes on the speckled countertop and waited.
At last, she cleared her throat. “Honey, let it out,” she said simply.
Those four words gave Noah permission to open the box where he stuffed all the things he didn’t want to think about—the things that rarely saw the light of day.
“I want to tell him,” he said. The words felt sharp in his throat, like pieces of glass, and he clamped down on the sudden wave of emotion that surged into his chest. “I hate him so much I can’t breathe, but I still want to tell him. And I wish I didn’t.”
Noah heard the clink of dishes touching the bottom of the sink, and then the faucet turned off.
His mother’s warm fingers, still damp from the water, moved against the side of his face, turning it—and the rest of his body—toward her.
He stepped into her hug like he was a little boy again and not a grown man of almost twenty-three.
“Honey, don’t let him take this from you,” she said softly. Her hands moved along his spine in a comforting rhythm. “You deserve to get what you want.”
“Do I?” Noah asked, his cheek resting against her temple.
“Yes,” she said firmly, “you do. Noah, your father made the biggest mistake of his life when he chose not to be part of yours. You are a good man. ”
“But I’m just like him!” Noah blurted, unable to help himself. “Everybody always said so.”
“You are the good things about your dad. You’re his persistence, his dedication. You’re his brains, his sense of humor... his loyalty.”
Noah scoffed. “Like that means anything,” he muttered.
“Honey,” his mother started, pulling out of his arms. She looked up at him with the same blue-gray eyes he saw in the mirror every day.
“The Ian Campbell I knew loved you fiercely. From the day you came into this world—screaming to wake the dead—he was so proud of you. He knew you would do great things with your life, and maybe...”
She paused, like she wasn’t sure how to go on. “Maybe that’s why he left. Maybe he knew you and I were strong enough to be okay.”
Noah couldn’t believe his ears. He stared down at his mother with his mouth hanging open. “ What? ” he breathed.
“I’m not saying it’s okay! What he did to us was unforgivable,” she went on quickly. “But, I don’t know, maybe I’ve made peace with it. Well, not peace, exactly, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t your fault. We didn’t do anything to deserve—”
“No, we didn’t!” Noah said, hearing his volume rising.
“We didn’t deserve to have our lives turned upside down!
To lose our house! To work ourselves to the bone scrubbing toilets and flipping burgers and walking every flea-ridden dog in five miles just to patch the tires on a car that’s falling apart at the seams! ”
“Noah . . .”
“You were supposed to have a restaurant!” he went on, the floodgates opened.
“You were supposed to earn Michelin Stars! I was supposed to play baseball! I should be able to come see you more than four times a year! And now... now that I’m doing something with my life, I can’t even enjoy it because all I want to do is find him and rub it in his face!
” Noah stopped, panting as if he’d run a mile.
The silence following his outburst was heavy, and Noah fixed his gaze on the opposite wall and waited for the dust to settle.
When he could finally look down again, he saw quiet tears track down his mother’s cheeks, and a wave of shame hit him in the chest. He was supposed to be the happy one, the comic relief. It wasn’t his job to remind her how hard their lives had become; she could look around and see that for herself.
“Baby, you can’t live like this,” she said at last, wiping her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “You have to be able to go after what you want without letting the past weigh you down. We’re in a good place now.”
Noah rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, his jaw set tight.
“We are ,” his mother insisted. “Maybe it’s not the same place we would have been in if he hadn’t made the choice he did.
Maybe there’s an alternate universe out there somewhere where everything is different, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t okay right now.
I have a steady income, and I’m getting to cook, even if it’s not with my name on the front doors.
You have a reliable job and an almost-finished college degree, and you’ve been accepted to graduate school in a field you love.
You didn’t play college ball on a full scholarship, but you plowed your way through the barriers with a determination that inspires me.
You did that! You, not him. What you’ve earned is your own; don’t let him take it from you. He does not deserve it.”
Noah set his jaw and tried not to remember the night he’d stood on the curb after baseball practice and waited for his dad to pick him up, not yet knowing how everything was about to change.
Those had been the last normal minutes of his life; the last ones where he felt whole and undamaged.
Maybe one day he’d forget the wave of betrayal that had washed over him when he’d finally walked home and found his father’s keys and cell phone on the counter beside a list of feeble excuses.
Maybe he’d be able to wash his mind clean and learn how to forgive.
Maybe one day.
But not yet.