Page 30 of Nora Goes Off Script

“Hey, I’m Leo,” he says, sticking his hand out to Ty’s mom, who seems to be unable to control her smile. “I think I owe Ty here an apology, and I wanted you to know.”

“What? Oh, I’m sure he’s fine. We just can’t get over the fact that you’re directing this play. Never in a million years.” Ty has both of his arms around his mom’s waist.

“I made him cry. And I’m really sorry.” To Ty, “You’re such a good actor, I forgot you’re ten. Forget all that stuff I said, okay? You were doing it perfect before.”

Ty lets go of his mom and hugs Leo. “Okay,” he says.

•••

“You’ve just gotto own up,” Leo says at dinner, gnawing on a chicken bone. “If you do it enough, it’s not even that hard. ‘I blew it, I’m sorry.’ It’s not such a big deal.”

“I really thought Ty was going to lose it,” says Arthur.

“It’s the only way. When you screw up, you’ve got to make it right,” says Leo. “This is my dad’s favorite thing to talk about—personal responsibility. If you own up to not being perfect, life gets easier. And let’s face it, I was totally off base. I don’t know anything about kids. You guys are the only kids I know.”

I wonder if my kids are thinking about Ben. I wonder if they ever noticed how he’d double down on every misstep just to avoid admitting he was wrong. I hope they can’t see on my face how absolutely in love with Leo I am in this moment. I hope that, while I can no longer be saved from myself, they are taking this at face value: We have a nice houseguest who’s helping with the play and sharing his worldview. But I have to admit that the four of us around the kitchen table feels like something much more than that.

“I’m embarrassed when I have to say sorry. Like I feel all hot inside,” says Bernadette.

“Then you should keep doing it until it’s easy,” says Leo. “But only when you’re actually wrong.”

“I don’t think Ty’s going to be a very good Oliver,” says Arthur.

“Me neither,” says Leo. “But we gotta let that go and just do the best we can.”

Arthur nods at Leo, like with a profound understanding. Something is happening over chicken and rice and green beans. Wisdom is being exchanged. Some might call it parenting. I marvel at the fact that this moment was created by someone besides me. Even when Ben was here, I used to wake up in the middle of the night worrying that every life lessonmy kids would ever get would come from me. Do they know how to cross the street? Do they know to run in a zigzag if they’re being chased by a bear? The lessons they’d learn from Ben would be more like cautionary tales: Don’t be an entrepreneur if you don’t want to work at it. Don’t belittle your kids if you want them to love you.

Leo smiles at me over his wineglass. We clean up; we watchWheel of Fortune. He insists that I go up and read to them and tuck them in. He goes out to the tea house and we text until we both fall asleep. This routine is preposterous really. I barely sleep, and I haven’t written a word since that first kiss. But I don’t want a single thing to change.

CHAPTER 11

Most mornings, we snuggle our way through the sunrise and listen for the creak of the screen door. It’s a Saturday, but Bernadette is not a late sleeper. “Move over,” she commands before she’s all the way outside. She sits next to Leo, and he puts his arm around her. She leans into his chest. I haven’t noticed this before and wonder if it’s the first time. I can’t make my mind compute how long Leo’s been here, but suddenly it feels like he always has been.

“What’s on for today?” he asks her.

“I have soccer; Arthur has a baseball game. But there’s a food truck festival at Craft Park. We should go.”

“I’m there,” says Leo.

“You will be swarmed,” I tell him.

“I’ve been swarmed before,” he says. “You guys can protect me.”

We get through soccer (a success) and baseball (less so) and head straight to the festival. It’s packed. There are ten food trucks and at least twenty people in each line. There’s a band playing country songs and a station with kegs. Besides the fact that I am getting out of a crappy station wagon with my two kids, I feel young and light.

“Want a beer?” my boyfriend asks.

“Sure,” I say. My kids run off and I stand there watching him. He gets in the back of the beer line, hands in his jeans pockets, until one and then two and then ten people notice him and turn around. Based on his body language, he seems perfectly fine with it. Soon the whole line is in conversation with him, laughing in turns. A little girl hands him a pen and a paper bag, and he signs it. As the line moves, he almost seems like he’s keeping the conversation going, asking questions, nodding. The lady from the too-fancy-housewares shop joins the group, and they exchange a few words.

I imagine him coming to this thing year after year, remembering names and key facts about everybody, watching the kids grow up. He’d cry at Mr. Mapleton’s funeral and remember how he’d just met him after he got the new hip. “She’s stoned,” someone is saying, and I snap out of it to see Kate and Mickey standing next to me.

“I am not,” I say. “Just lost in a daydream of sorts.”

“And here he comes,” says Mickey, nodding at Leo making his way back to us with two plastic cups of beer. “How am I ever going to compete with this?” Mickey’s a firefighter in town and maybe the best guy I’ve ever met. Neither Kate nor I feel the need to reassure him.

“Hey, Kate.” Leo hands me my beer and shakes Mickey’s hand. “I’m Leo.”

“Well, you seem to handle a crowd pretty well,” says Mickey. “If I were you, I might have just stayed in the car.”

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