Page 33 of Ten Years and Then…
“Trust me. I always felt better after my Mom got me a Frosty, no matter what was wrong. I trusted you yesterday with the ice skating. You can trust me now.”
Nora, December 25
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Nora said, sitting down on Daniel’s bed. It was really comfortable.
He sat down next to her. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.” With his arm around her, looking around at his childhood bedroom, she could almost make herself believe it.
Almost. “Yes, there is. And not just yesterday. I should have told you about my Dad. And my Mom. And a lot of other stuff. You told me so many personal things. So many secrets. All this stuff that had to be so hard to talk about. And I haven’t.” Maybe Christmas day, with Daniel’s family and his neighbors waiting downstairs, wasn’t the time to talk about all her family baggage. Or maybe that was just another excuse not to trust her boyfriend with seeing parts of herself that she wasn’t very proud of. There’d always be some reason not to be honest with him.
“Nora, you don’t have to talk about things that are hard, or that hurt. If you want to, I’m here, and you know I love you. But it’s up to you what you do or don’t share. Not me.”
She put her arms around him, kissed him quickly, but she pulled away before he could kiss her back. They were in his childhood bedroom. And the door was open. Anybody could come walking by and see them.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have—this isn’t the right time for that.” She took a moment to collect herself. “Anyway. I do want to share. I just … I’m not real happy with how … with the way I ended up at Rachel’s.” She took his hands in hers, squeezed them, and he squeezed back. That helped. It gave her the strength to tell it all.
How ugly her parents’ divorce was. How she’d started acting out—sneaking off to parties, drinking, meeting boys, all of it—just so she could have something to feel besides how much she hurt when her parents kept hurting each other. How she’d learned about both Joelle and Jean-Paul within a couple of hours of getting home from school. How she came down to Rachel’s apartment even though Rachel wasn’t there. How lonely her apartment was at night.
Daniel listened to all of it, never looking away, never letting go of her. When she was finished, he hugged her, tighter than he ever had, and then he got up and went to his closet. She heard him grunt as he got on tippy-toes and searched around for something on the top shelf. He came back with an old, ratty teddy bear. She guessed its fur had been a rich brown once upon a time, but it was a sad beige now. Daniel had to have had the bear from kindergarten. Or maybe even before that. She wondered when he’d stopped sleeping with it and exiled it to the closet.
If she asked, he’d tell her. But she was never going to.
“I can’t do anything about your parents, or all the awful stuff you had to go through. But, here.” He handed the bear to her. “That’s Mr. Fuzzles. I want you to have him. Take him back with you to your Aunt’s place, and maybe you’ll feel a little less lonely.”
Before she could answer—and thank God, because the only answer she could think of was kissing him like she’d never kissed him before—there was a knock on the door, even though it was already open. Mrs. Keller was there.
“Nora, you shouldn’t be sleeping all alone in a strange apartment on Christmas night. You’ll stay here tonight. You can have Lisa’s room, she won’t mind.” She laughed. “Well, we won’t tell her, anyway. Once everyone goes home, I’ll put clean sheets down for you. And Daniel is right. When you go back tomorrow, please take Mr. Fuzzles with you. It’s kind of nice to know he’s needed again.”
Nora had no words; she just jumped up, tears streaming down her face, and hugged Daniel’s mother for dear life.
Daniel, Christmas night, bedtime
Daniel didn’t know how to feel. Nora was sleeping in Lisa’s room, not even ten feet from him. And Mom was fussing over her like Nora was her own daughter. Mom must have fussed over Lisa just as much—but he’d never noticed.
He was noticing a lot of things now, seeing a lot of things differently—more clearly—since he’d met Nora.
But at the moment, nothing felt clear at all.
He was an adult. Almost twenty. He had a girlfriend. They’d slept together. Made love.
But he was also lying in his childhood bed, with all his old toys in his closet and Mr. Fuzzles down the hall in Lisa’s Cinderella bedroom. And Mom was tucking Nora into bed. It felt like he was eight years old again.
It was just weird. Too weird.
Nora, at the same time
Much later, after dinner and dessert and coffee and goodbyes to all the visitors, Nora sat on Lisa’s bed, clutching Daniel’s—her—teddy bear to her chest.
Mrs. Keller knocked at the door and let herself in. “I saw the light was still on.” She put a stack of towels on the dresser, and handed Nora a bathrobe. “I don’t know if you like to shower at night or in the morning. Either way, here are some clean towels. And, well, you and my daughter aren’t exactly built the same. I think you’ll do better with one of my bathrobes.”
She wanted to cry again, but she’d embarrassed herself in front of Daniel’s mother quite enough already. “Thank you, Mrs. Keller.”
“I’ve told you a dozen times tonight, Nora. Call me Marie. Please.”
“Okay. Marie. I’ll try to remember.” She looked over at the phone. It seemed like a big imposition, when she already owed Daniel’s parents so much. But she asked anyway. “And—uh—you’ve already done so much for me today, but—would it be alright if I made a long-distance call?”
She patted Nora on the head. “Of course! Your mother or your father?”
It was obvious, wasn’t it? “Both. But I guess Dad first. He probably feels worse about how I ran out on him.”
