Page 30 of The Caretaker
Perhaps he needed the privacy he couldn’t get while here to fight for his wife. Maybe he wanted her back. Did I want himto fight for her? Did I want Patrick in a position to be forced to settle for me? No, I didn’t want either of those things. Most of all not the former.
“Would you stay with her if you could?” I asked, once the suspense became too much. “Do you still want her?”
Noon considered the question for a long while. “I could have forgiven her for it all the night it happened—or the night she told me about the affair, I should say. We’ve been together for a long time, and marriage has its ups and downs. People make mistakes. I could have forgiven her mistake, even one this big.” He peered into the dark, the breeze disturbing his hair. The ends—a lighter shade of brown than the roots—were beginning to curl in places, signaling his need for a trim.
“But I begged her to stay,” he said, voice thick with emotion. “I begged her, and she told me she would, but when I woke up she was—” His mouth snapped shut, unable to say the words.
“She was gone,” I said.
He nodded, gazing over at me. “Is it crazy of me to say that her not staying felt like the biggest betrayal of all?”
“No,” I said, “because Patrick not coming home that night feels similar.” It said they weren’t sorry. It said they didn’t feel bad about the pain they’d caused. It said they wanted each other more than they wanted us to be okay. More than they wanted to help us understand. That part of their betrayal had cut us both soul deep.
“She doesn’t want me anymore.” Even with the fire helping to light up his eyes, the life inside them dimmed. “So me saying that I wouldn’t stay with her even if I could feels kind of pointless.”
“It’s not pointless,” I argued. “I think your answer,ouranswer, to that question indicates if we’re ready to move on or not.”
“Would you stay with Patrick if you could?”
I sucked down a deep breath before responding; Noon tangling his hand with mine gave me the courage to. “If you had asked me that right after it happened, after I’d had a chance to admit to myself that I’d be lost without him, I would have said yes.”
“And now?” Noon asked.
“Now I feel like I’m finding myself. Now I don’t feel so lost.”
Everything began to change the day Noon showed up, and it continued to do so. His tentative smile said he understood the significance of what I’d said and how it related to the timeline of his arrival here.
“He was my first everything. My first kiss, my first lover. My only kiss, my only lover… I’m used to him. Used to the way he makes me pay for Gavin’s death. Used to the way he reminds me that I deserve it.”
“I have a feeling that if I said what happened to your son wasn’t your fault, you wouldn’t believe me.”
I released his hand to touch his forehead, the lines furrowing it smoothing away. “It isn’t my hope to one day wake up and believe that it wasn’t my fault.”
“What do you hope for, then, Solace?”
“To one day make peace with the fact that it is.”
Noon reclasped our hands together. He didn’t try to change my mind or convince me that my outlook was wrong. He just sat in my grief with me.
“Being without him never gets easier,” I said. “The wound never scabs over. The pain remains acute.”
“I’m guessing the pain will always be close to the surface,” he whispered, and I wondered if the ache in his voice was on behalf of my loss or in remembrance of his. Of the children he wanted but couldn’t have. Knowing Noon, it was a mix of both. “I’m sure not being able to openly grieve in your own home didn’t help,and not having the support you needed from your husband. He should have been leaning into you, not away from you.”
“Being constantly watched through a lens of blame and scorn didn’t help one bit,” I admitted. It felt like that was what Patrick needed, and because of what I’d done, what he needed had mattered most. I just wished what he needed had been me.
Noon got down on his knees in front of me after I’d closed my eyes and turned away to wrestle with my emotions. I took a shuddering breath, then gazed up at him. Even on his knees he towered over my seated form. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful when you cry?” he asked with humor and awe, trying to be a light in my dark moment.
“Can’t say I’ve heard that before,” I said, playing along.
“Never stop doing it,” he said. “If that’s what you need, then never stop doing it.” Noon withdrew his phone from his pocket, and after a few taps on the screen “Tears in Heaven” began playing. He maxed out the volume before setting the device on his unoccupied chair, then stood from his kneeled position, making a show of holding his hand out for me to take. “Shall we dance?”
My whole body trembled with emotion now. For once I didn’t fight it or care, because Noon said it was okay not to, and I trusted him to be right. I let him pull me into his chest and wrap me up tight in his arms as we swayed to the most beautiful sad song ever written. And when I broke down further, when my sobs drowned out the song that he’d set to repeat, he didn’t attempt to make me feel better with pointless platitudes. He didn’t lavish me with words meant to make my well of infinite tears dry up. All he said was, “Grieve for as long as you need, Solace. I’ve got you.”
True Heart Bear.That was who Noon exemplified in that moment. Kind, affectionate, and attentive. The most caring creature that ever was.
Noon
Now
