Chapter 14
Fourteen
Caroline
Monday, Noah handed back the muffin basket, this time filled with fresh croissants and a note taped to the handle: “Your turn for coffee.”
I laughed when I read it, and even more when I noticed he’d spelled my name in chocolate on one of the pastries.
After the morning rush, he came over to my table. “You ever do any volunteer work?”
“I’ve done a few things,” I said. “Why?”
He slid into the chair across from me. “I go out to St. Catherine’s every Saturday. Kids’ home. It’s nice to have help.”
I hesitated, thinking about all the things I had to do—laundry, bills, maybe another round of job applications—but none of them sounded more interesting than this.
“I’m in,” I said.
“Great. I’ll pick you up at nine?”
I blinked. “You drive?”
He grinned. “Not as well as Mario, but I’ll get us there in one piece.”
All week, I thought about it—what to wear, what to bring, if I should bake something for the kids. I Googled the orphCarolinege, read everything I could, and still felt unprepared.
When Saturday rolled around, Noah was waiting outside my building in a charcoal-gray SUV, the kind you see in movies about witness protection. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt, looking so normal I almost forgot how intimidating he’d been with the suits last week.
“You nervous?” he asked as I buckled in.
“A little.”
He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other tapping the beat to the radio. I watched the city fade into suburbs, then woods. The tension in my chest loosened with every mile.
When we pulled up to St. Catherine’s, the place looked like any old school—brick, playground, a rainbow of chalk drawings on the sidewalk. The second we stopped, a dozen kids burst through the doors, shouting his name.
“Noah! Noah!”
He barely had time to park before they swarmed him—hugging his legs, pulling at his arms, shouting to be picked up. He knew all their names, asked about their grades, who’d lost a tooth, who won the last soccer game.
A girl about eight latched onto his hand and wouldn’t let go. “Who’s she?” the girl demanded, pointing at me.
Noah winked. “That’s Caroline. She brought cookies.”
I hadn’t, but I promised to next time.
The morning was a blur of chaos—crafts, games, helping in the kitchen. Noah fixed a broken swing set, bandaged a scraped knee, then sat with a few kids to build a Lego castle that actually looked like a castle.
Watching him, I saw a version of Noah that didn’t exist in the city. Softer, lighter. He laughed, really laughed, and the kids couldn’t get enough.
At lunch, we sat at the end of a long table, kids crammed in on both sides. A nun with kind eyes poured us coffee and told me, “He’s their favorite person in the world.”
I believed it.
When the day ended, the kids hung onto him, refusing to let go. He promised to return next week, and every face lit up.
On the drive back, he was quiet. I glanced over, unsure what to say.
“I like you here,” he finally said, eyes on the road. “With the kids, I mean. You’re good at it.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said.
He shrugged. “Sometimes just showing up is enough.”
I stared out the window, watching the city reappear, and wondered if that could be true.
When I got home, I checked my phone and saw a message from Adele. “How’s the weekend?” it said.
I almost wrote “same old,” but I stopped.
Instead, I typed: “I met someone amazing today. Remind me to tell you about him.”
And for the first time in a long time, I meant it.