37. Noah
Chapter thirty-seven
Noah
By the time I get home, I'm a zombie. I don't even remember speaking to Carl when he let me in; I'll have to buy him a bottle of something nice as an apology.
This is best.
Awa's words echo in my mind the entire ride up in the elevator, as I push leftover quinoa salad into my mouth, tasting nothing, and even through my scalding hot shower. I want to wash off the bad memories of the last few hours, take my mind off what feels like a gaping chest wound.
It doesn't work. Neither do the three shots of whiskey I drink back to back, nor the half a joint Damon left the last time he was here.
This is best.
I clench my jaw. I suspect nothing will erase those words from my head, or the hard truth that saving the deal of a lifetime, holding onto a client that could be a marquee name by this time next year, and who just so happens to be a decent human being, might mean giving up the love of my life. And I never even got to tell her.
The walls of my bedroom spin, and I list to the side, knocking over my bedside lamp before collapsing onto the rumpled sheets.
"Oops," I snicker, and I sound like a lunatic, cracking up at a joke no one told. I guess I'm the joke.
Fortunately, there's no one around to hear me. No one to judge when the heartbreak and alcohol make me a little loopy. No one to love and come home to after a day so bad, I may never recover.
I scoff, disgusted with how sappy the liquor's made me.
I can do this. I can do alone. I've been alone for years.
Sure, there were always people around. People who were down for drinks or clubbing or free tickets to whatever blockbuster was premiering that night.
But they weren't with me. No one was. Not since Awa first looked at me with her deep almond eyes and told me that she felt it too, that connection our first night together.
I thought I had time. Time to fuck around, have fun, chase my goals. I assumed the right woman would find me when I was ready, unaware the right woman already had. But I wasn't ready. Fuck, I don't know if I'm ready now, but I wanted to try. Did I miss my chance?
I lie back frustrated, staring at the city lights dancing across my ceiling.
Fingers crossed it's not over. We can wait until the dust settles, see if there's an us on the other side of all of this. We found each other again nearly two decades later. That must mean something, right?
Brrrring! Brrrring! Brrrring!
I wince. Thanks to my new obnoxious ringtone—I can't afford to miss any calls from the studio, my partners, or Yong-rae—my head feels like it's splitting open. My hangover didn't even have the decency to wait until morning, I grumble.
Just as I flip the phone to see who's calling, a text comes in.
Dad
Dad: Come to Elias Wallace Medical Center now. Your mother collapsed.
"Room 1642," the receptionist mumbles without looking up. "Turn right when you exit the elevator, and walk until the signs turn fuchsia. That's the cardiac ward."
I gulp. Mom collapsed, and now she's in the cardiac ward?
I ride the elevator to the sixteenth floor, turn left and walk what feels like half a mile until I reach Room 1642. Someone scrawled Mom's name in blue marker on the dry-erase board by the door, which is closed.
Marie Park
What do I do now? Do I just go in, or—?
"Noah!" Dad breathes, making me jump when he whips open the door. There are bags under his eyes, and his shirt is partially untucked. He looks nothing like the stern, put-together man who raised me and everything like a distraught husband unsure how to fix things.
"Thanks for coming so quickly," he croaks. He retakes his perch on the side of Mom's bed, doing his best not to crease the sheets.
It's hard to reconcile the frail woman lying before me with Mom, who just last Sunday was wrangling everyone like tigers in a circus.
A baffling number of dishes left the kitchen as if on an assembly line.
Lasagna. Homemade focaccia. Caprese Salad.
Chicken Parmigiana. Even chocolate chip cannolis. It was Italian night—my favorite.
Mom fluttered around like a hummingbird, barely eating herself but keeping everyone's wine glasses full and scooping extra helpings onto her new daughters' plates.
She was beaming, seemingly overflowing with joy at all the new faces surrounding her dining room table.
But was it too much? Did she work herself too hard and—
"The doctor said it was a mild cardiac event," Dad says finally.
His voice is barely a whisper, and he's staring at where his hands hold Mom's.
"One second, she was pulling Tupperware lids out of the cabinet, packing leftovers for tomorrow's lunch, and the next, she was…
" He clears his throat. "If I hadn't seen her fall...
Hadn't gotten up to ask where my blue tie was for an arraignment... "
He keeps trailing off, as if the thought of what could have happened is just as painful as what did happen. Dad hasn't been without Mom since his twenties; more than half his life. Who would he even be without her?
I move from my seat in the chair by the window to stand behind my father. Should I put my hand on his shoulder? Does he even want my support?
"What exactly is a 'mild cardiac event'?" I ask, choosing words over physical contact. He snorts.
"That was my question," he grits out, obviously still angry. "It means the blockage in her heart is only partial, not complete. They gave her blood thinners and statins to stabilize her, and they don't think she'll need surgery. She'll be under observation for a few days, though."
In a rush of emotion, I pull my dad up to hug him. How must it have felt to almost lose the woman he loves? The woman at the center of his entire life? She's at the center of all our lives, and apparently, we need to do a better job of lightening her load.
"Were you out partying when I called?" he asks. I stiffen and drop my arms immediately. He gestures to my shirt. "I can smell the marijuana on you."
Shit. Why is it that every time I'm around him, I feel thirteen years old again? Caught smoking pot in Mom's herb garden when I was supposed to be doing my chem homework. It's not like I'm still high now; the adrenaline from his text was like a shot straight to the heart.
"I was at home, actually. I had a rough day. And if you didn't know, it's legal now." I can't keep the hurt out of my voice, and he turns to me. He frowns when he sees my guarded expression.
"Noah," he sighs. "You and I have never seen eye to eye. I know I'm to blame—I pushed too hard, expected too much—but I'm trying. Is there any way we can get past all the mistakes I've made?"
I shrug one shoulder.
"Maybe start by not saying you expected too much. Henry met those expectations. He exceeded them. And all you see me as is a disappointment?"
"I was trying to say that my expectations were unreasonable!"
He rakes his hand through his hair—a mannerism he passed down to me, though his is cropped low—and tries to bring down the volume of his voice.
"I had no right to push you into Debate Club when you really wanted to take the Marketing elective. I should've listened when you said law school didn't feel right instead of shutting you out.
"That fight—" His voice breaks, and I see him swallow. "Your mother almost left me over the things I said that night."
"I remember," I murmur.
He'd been furious when I went behind his back to transfer from Yale to USC.
Said I threw away all the strings he had to pull to get me in.
He swore he'd stop paying for school if I chose to waste my potential, but I did it anyway.
He didn't speak to me for three months. The same months I first knew Awa, and retreated into my schoolwork and an unhealthy level of hedonism.
He idly brushes his fingers over Mom's hand, then turns to face me directly.
"I was wrong." I can hear the sincerity, the remorse. "You were your own man then, and you've more than proven yourself in the years since. Not that you need to!" he rushes to add.
Manly or not, I'm holding back tears. The apology isn't perfect—he is Dad, after all—but it's still a miracle. I turn to wipe my eyes with my sleeve, but he grabs my arm, pulling me in for a hug.
"Almost losing your mother puts a lot of things into perspective. I don't want to lose any of you. You are my everything."
His words are muffled by the fabric of my shirt, but they land, right in my heart.
"I guess my plan worked," I hear in the background.
"Mom!" I wail at the same time Dad cries, "Marie!"
We pull apart and throw ourselves at Mom, careful not to give her our weight or jostle the tubes to the many machines.
"Don't you ever do something like that again!" Dad scolds softly, nuzzling his nose against Mom's cheek.
Her hands tousle my hair. Dad just apologized. All is right with the world.
"How else could I get you two to put your differences aside and finally talk?" she asks.
"That's not funny, Mom," I pout, tears still streaming from my eyes.
"At all," Dad agrees.
The three of us spend a few more minutes in quiet connection before the door to the room bursts open. The Parks and their significant others flood inside, everyone talking at once.
"Oh my God! What happened?"
"Thank God you're OK!"
"Dad's text almost gave me a heart attack."
I'm forced to disentangle myself by Adam, who's wedging his body between Mom and me like a jealous toddler. I don't mind, though. Mom is OK. My brothers are here. In this room, I am surrounded by love. Nothing else matters.