Page 22 of The Caretaker
“No,” he said, brows lowering at my assumption, “far from it. It fascinates me that you’ve managed to hold on to that innocent part of you that so many leave behind once they get a taste of how cruel the world can be. Cynicism and indifference taking its place. It’s refreshing, and admirable. Besides that, I’d never make fun of you for being who you are, Solace.”
I’d never looked at it that way. I’d spent so much time beating myself up for it, thinking it made me childish. If Noon were to be believed, it actually made me brave. It meant that there was something good left in me, something Patrick hadn’t succeeded in carving away. I fought to hold his stare, my insides now feeling as warm as my exterior. I broke the connection first.
“It was honest work, and it paid for my education,” I said once I was able to.
“What did you go to school for?”
“Teaching.”
“Nowthatadds up,” he said. “You have the temperament for teaching.”
“You don’t think I’d make a convincing model?”
Noon considered me, slinging an arm over the back of the neighboring chair. It was hard not to hide behind a sip from my mug as the weight of his attention bore down on me.
“You have the looks, and you can definitely nail the pensive gaze. I don’t know,” he ended with a shrug. “I can’t see you fussing over the perfect look and the best angles.”
“Thankfully, other people were paid to handle that side of it.” A wave of nausea rippled through me. I wasn’t sure if it was my system rejecting the nutrition it was no longer used to getting, or my emotions moving on to another stage. I pushed the plate aside, more than half of the breakfast uneaten. Noon reached over to take my hand, squeezing, letting me know it was okay.
“If you’re not careful, I’m going to get used to you touching me.” It was out before I’d thought it through. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I just meant you’re making it too easy for me to lean on you.”
“I know how you meant it,” he assured me. “And it’s okay to lean on me. I sure as hell have been leaning on you since I arrived.” Again, so open and honest. “It says a lot about my current state of mind to lean on anyone. I keep reminding myself not to.”
“You don’t have to remind yourself not to lean on me,” I said. “It doesn’t feel like I’ve done anything to help you, though. I can’t even help myself.”
“Not being alone helps more than you know.”
“I’m terrible company.”
“You’re not,” he disagreed, “but I don’t meanalonein that sense. There could be an army of people here and I’d still feel alone without you. Having someone who completely understands what I’m feeling means everything. Having someone to look after means even more.” Noon needed to feel useful, and I needed to feel cared for.
“How long have you and your wife been together?”
“A little over a decade. I’d just, once and for all, ended a two-year break-up-to-make-up cycle with my boyfriend at the time. The plan was to stay single, nothing but casual hook-ups. I spent a few months living according to plan, then I ended up in Stacey’s emergency room with a bad case of food poisoning. The rest was history. She was still a nurse at the time.”
“How many years have you two been married?”
“Six.”
“You told me what she’s like, but what attracted you to her? What made you decide she was the one?” I both hated her and wanted to know everything about her. Both disgusted and obsessed with her. Deep down, I understood it wasn’t about her,that my obsession was more about whatIdidn’t have to offer than what she did.
Noon inched my plate back in front of me, giving me a look that said he’d keep talking if I kept eating. “We had similar backgrounds. Single-parent households, odds stacked against us. We were ambitious, we challenged each other, we both wanted to make something of ourselves and get the hell out of Seattle. She got accepted to Cornell Medical School, so we packed up and headed for New York.”
“Did you know?” I asked. “Did you suspect anything at all?”
Noon relaxed in his chair, staring at his plate, like maybe the answer lay between the food he’d pushed around on it. “I’ve been asking myself that question every day,” he whispered, sighing. “I don’t know. I’m sure I could look back and find a whole host of signs. Our sex life hadn’t been what it used to be as of late. We’d lost the intimacy, the joy of lovemaking, from all the pressure we’d put on ourselves to conceive.” His lips pressed into a hard line. “We were friends before we were ever lovers, though, and I guess I believed my friend would never hurt me in that way, no matter what we were going through. I think the answer is that I never saw this coming. I didn’t think she was capable of it. Some may call that naive.”
“They’d be wrong,” I said. “Seeing only the best in the person you love is not naive. It’s fearless. You loved her unselfishly, without ever stopping to consider if you’d be hurt in the process. You kept loving her, loved her more, even, when things grew challenging. And something tells me you don’t plan on letting your pain change you.That’scourageous.” We’d risked our hearts on people who ended up not being worthy of it, and where I would have remained curled up in my corner to never trust again, Noon was here showing me the benefits of not allowing the pain to close me off. He led with an open heart and mind, even while knowing what doing that had cost him. I found thatcourageous. It was my turn to touch him. My turn to squeeze his hand. His answering smile conveyed gratitude.
“Dig in,” he said, nudging his chin toward my food.
“So bossy,” I muttered, stealing Gavin’s favorite phrase.
“Is that something your son used to say to you?” he asked, surprising me.
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“Your voice changed. Like you were mimicking him. Most parents do that when explaining something their kid said.” His own tone turned mournful, and I remembered he hadn’t been lucky enough to have children. Considering the constant, all-consuming pain I felt at having lost my child, I wondered if maybe Noon was, in fact, the lucky one.
