Page 17 of The Caretaker
Noon shook his head in objection, and I closed my eyes to it. He cupped my chin like he had at the charity ball, and I nearly sobbed from the contact. “Look at me,” he said, and waited until I did. “Stacey wanted to start a family, but no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t conceive. We tried everything, but nothing worked. Turns out the problem was me. I’m someone who needs to be needed, who needs to take care of the people around me. But the one thing she needed from me, I couldn’t give her, and so she stopped needing me. I tried to compensate by loving her more. It was never enough, and I knew it, although I never stopped trying. So, I’m sorry too.”
I leaned into the hand now cradling my cheek. Did he know how badly I needed touch? Did he sense how deep Patrick’s neglect went? Was it written all over me? And did he think I was too needy, like Patrick did? I’d told him he didn’t need to make things okay for me, but I’d have been lying if I’d said that him trying didn’t feel good.
“Why weren’t we enough?” I asked.
“I was hoping you knew,” he rasped. “I was hoping you knew.”
I didn’t know either, and so we sat there at a loss, trying to come up with a million reasons why together.
After a while, when our cups were bone dry, Noon spoke. “She told me she’d fallen in love with someone else, and that she was leaving me for him. She said she was sorry. Said she never meant to hurt me. We argued into the wee hours of the morning. I begged her to cancel her trip, to not leave until we figured this all out. She agreed under the condition that we would get some sleep and pick things back up afterward. It had been a long day, she’d said. She was tired, and I was nowhere close to done. I can be like that sometimes.”
He’d probably driven through countless surrounding cities and states on the hunt for Patrick. I had no trouble imagining him fighting tooth and nail for his marriage, refusing to get a wink of sleep until they’d worked it out, until he’d given his all in trying.
“I don’t know if it was love, stupidity, or arrogance that made me believe her. Maybe a little of all three. I took the guest bedroom, and when I woke up, she was gone. She left her rings on her nightstand.” He spread his fingers, staring down at his own wedding band. “Any other day I would’ve said she removed them before falling asleep and then forgot to put them back on.”
“And now?”
“Now I know that her leaving them behind was a declaration. Our marriage is over.” He fisted his shaking hand. “I’ve never taken mine off.”
“Neither have I.”
He hid his hand under the table. It reminded me of when Gavin would hide things behind his back. Things he didn’t want taken away from him. “I’m not ready yet,” he said simply.
I understood what he didn’t say. Understood the questions he didn’t ask. Who were we if not theirs? Who would we be once the rings came off? He wasn’t ready to find out. Not quite yet.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not ready either.”
Eventually needing a distraction from the hell we were in, I made more tea while Noon made us omelets. Breakfast food was his specialty, he’d said. Neither of us ate much, and any rare moments of levity we found were eclipsed by the silences we fell into. The reminders of what happened to us lived in the silence. I couldn’t wait to curl up in bed again with a stiff drink, but I also couldn’t bear to be alone.
“I should go,” he eventually said, like leaving was the last thing he wanted to do, like he had nothing to go back to. “They’ll close the roads soon, if they haven’t already.”
He stood, peering down the hall leading to the front door. I didn’t allow myself to think as I grabbed his hand and said, “Stay. Please…stay.”
Noon
Now
MY MORNING SELF-CHECK-INSbegan with a run-through of my memories. Every day I awoke on the metaphorical edge of my seat, wondering if my world had righted itself while I’d slept. Today was no different, and as per usual, the results of that check-in were disappointing.
I untangled myself from the blanket, and, not for the first time, I considered if getting all my memories back would be such a good thing. If they returned, Stacey would still be gone.
The fire had burned out in the middle of the night, and I shivered against the chill in the house as I approached the floor-to-ceiling windows to watch the final dregs of darkness dissipate.
I didn’t know when my fascination with dawn began, but if I had to pick a favorite time of day, that would’ve been it. That sweet spot between night passing and day emerging, right before nature and the world came to life. Even with the disappointment of waking to learn that what I wanted more than anything hadn’t come back to me, my thoughts weren’t as erratic at dawn. I was usually able to reason with myself, to be more patient and temporarily content with what I didn’t know within the quiet privacy of my own mind.
It became harder to hold on to that contentment as the day progressed. My reasoning began to fracture, and exhaustionwould start to kick in after a full day of once again not remembering everything. Of not being the person everyone else remembered and so desperately wanted me to be. By nightfall chaos tended to erupt, both internally and externally, and once dealt with, once worked through—like I had last night with Solace’s help—I’d earn a fresh start, or more like a reprieve, at dawn.
I would’ve given anything to take a walk right then, but I didn’t want Solace waking up to find me missing and worry. I also didn’t want to get lost. Seemed my sense of direction only functioned when inside the city.
I wasn’t sure if Solace was an early bird, but I decided to have breakfast ready for him when he woke up. It was the least I could do after the panic attack he talked me down from last night, and for allowing me to stay over. Part of me said I should’ve been wary of his kindness, but I didn’t want to listen to that part of me because something about him felt right, and I wanted to cling to that, if only for a little while.
In a perfect world, we’d tour the town and I’d remember why this place felt so vital to me, then I’d return to my life in the city, leaving Haley Cove and Solace behind. Or maybe we’d end up being lifelong friends from here on out. That thought brought a smile to my face.
Thirty minutes later, the food was done and Solace still hadn’t made an appearance. I lowered the oven setting to warm, then placed everything inside before setting two mugs on the counter—a subtle hint when he showed up that his grandfather’s chamomile tea would be greatly appreciated.
With nothing left to do, I did a second walkthrough of the lower level, fully able to take in every detail now that I didn’t have Solace unintentionally distracting me with his cloudless blue gaze. Those oceanic eyes of his made it hard to focus on anything else.
Before realizing it, I was at the top of the stairs, walking toward his open bedroom door and then beyond it. A voice in my head screamed that I was crossing a line. We didn’t know each other well enough for me to be traipsing into his bedroom without invitation, but my feet didn’t get the memo.
