Page 102 of When the Stars Fall
Noah fellasleep on the drive home. I pushed his sweaty hair off his forehead and unclipped his seat belt. Dirt and grass were ground into the knees of his jeans and a ketchup stain decorated his blue T-shirt. His eyelids fluttered but he didn’t wake up.
I gathered him into my arms and lifted him out of his seat. He was small but when he was asleep, he was heavy. Closing the car door with my hip, I hiked him up as Brody pulled into the driveway and climbed out of his truck.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when he met me by my car.
“I’ve got him.” Without bothering to answer my question, he took Noah out of my arms. I beeped the locks on my car and followed him to the front door of my two-bedroom cottage nestled in a grove of cypress trees. Jesse called it a Hobbit house. But it was cozy and the perfect size for me and Noah.
Brody stepped aside and I unlocked the door and pushed it wide open to give him space.
“You want him in bed?” he asked as we crossed the living room.
I nodded and followed him down the hallway then ducked into the bathroom and ran a washcloth under warm soapy water.
In Noah’s bedroom, Brody was undressing him on his red racecar bed that Kate and Patrick had bought for him. His room was decorated in red, white and navy, his toys corralled in canvas totes on a low shelving unit that spanned one wall. I opened the oak dresser and grabbed a pair of SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas. His favorite cartoon.
He was half-awake now, his eyelids so heavy he could barely keep them open but that didn’t stop him from trying.
“Hi Daddy,” Noah mumbled.
“Hey buddy. We need to get you out of this T-shirt.” Noah sat up and held his arms in the air, letting Brody take off the T-shirt. He was down to his underwear now.
“I need to pee,” he said as I wiped his face with the warm soapy washcloth. “Really really bad.”
“Hurry,” I said. He scrambled off the bed and ran to the bathroom. Noah had this habit of waiting until the last minute.
“Uh oh,” I heard from the bathroom. “I missed.”
Brody laughed. I sighed. I swear Noah missed the bowl more often than not. I was always cleaning pee off the floor. Off the seat. Sometimes when he was showing off, it even sprayed the wall.
It took me another fifteen minutes to finally get Noah to settle down. Fast asleep now, tucked under his navy comforter with white stars, I made sure the nightlight was on and closed his door softly before I joined Brody in the living room.
I paused in the doorway as he set a framed photo back on the bookshelves that spanned the opposite wall. It was a photo of the three of us—me, Brody, and Jude when we were kids. We were sitting on the McCallister’s back porch eating popsicles. We weren’t looking at the camera and the photo caught us mid-laugh. We looked so happy. So carefree. The boys were probably telling those stupid pickle jokes they’d found so funny that summer. I was sitting in the middle, and I guess that was how it had always been.
Now I’d driven a wedge between them and I had no idea how or if we could ever come back from this.
Brody turned to face me, his back to the shelves that heaved with well-loved books and memories—framed photos and knick-knacks and the pottery bowls and vases my mom and I made the summer she was getting chemo. I crossed the hardwood floor and sat on the worn leather sofa, tucking my legs under me.
“How’s your horse?”
He turned his hand over and studied the dried blood on the palm. “Got himself tangled up in barbed wire on the neighbor’s property. Had to fix the fence. Those horses have thirty acres to roam free but they still try to push the limits. That’s the thing about wild horses.” He lifted his head, his gaze meeting mine. “As long as there’re fences, they’re not truly free.”
“The fences are there to protect them and keep them safe.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t know that. They see a fence and they want to know what’s on the other side. Just like we did when we were kids.”
It was true. We’d always gone where we were told not to. Had always pushed the boundaries. “Why are you here?” I smoothed my hand over the crocheted yellow throw blanket hanging on the back of the sofa. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
His eyes narrowed on me. “I need to call ahead now to see my own son?”
“No. Of course not. I was just surprised to see you here.” He was still standing, his posture rigid, arms crossed. This didn’t feel like a social call. “What was all that at dinner?”
“What was all what?” he asked, deliberately not understanding me.
“You know what I’m talking about. Why did you put your arm around me? Were you trying to rub it in Jude’s face?”
He threw his hands in the air. “Here we go again. It’s all about Jude.”
“It’s not all about Jude but that was...” I shook my head, my gaze landing on the rustic wood coffee table in front of the sofa. Jude made it from hundred-year-old oak. “You two were like brothers and now you act like you hate him.”
