Page 4 of When We Were Young
A month ago he had been called out to a wicked car crash. Four girls flying down Highway 37 south toward Bloomington. The driver must’ve gotten a text, because she crossed the centerline and hit a semitruck. Head-on.
Only a handful of times had Noah responded to a call as horrific as that one. The driver died with her phone still in her hand. The girls in the backseat, too. Just the female in the front passenger seat lived long enough to be taken to the hospital.
Noah remembered removing her broken, battered body from the wreckage. As they loaded her into the ambulance he had one thought: the girl was never going to make it. And she didn’t. Died halfway to the emergency room. But he would never forget the way her body felt in his arms. Gasping for breath, heart barely beating, death minutes away.
The same way Noah’s marriage felt tonight.
No wonder Emily didn’t want to watch.
He walked through the kitchen and down the hall toward the bedroom. Emily hadn’t slept here for a long time, though Noah had offered. Her spot was in the den now, on the sofa. Better than trying to sleep in their bed, she had told him. With or without him. At least until he moved out. The kids had never noticed, and the arrangement was easier on everyone.
The silence between them was too loud for either of them to get much rest.
When Noah reached their room he grabbed on to the doorframe and stared at the bed, the place where their love had once been the center of their universe. Some mornings he would wake and watch her sleep, her long, blond hair, the way it fell in waves past her shoulders, her flawless profile and pretty cheekbones.
He’d lie there like that, just watching her, waiting for her to open her pale blue eyes. People said Emily looked like Kate Hudson. Noah thought they were wrong. Emily Andrews was far more beautiful. The most beautiful girl Noah had ever seen.
Once upon a yesterday, he would take her hands in the morning and pray for her, asking God to protect her and bless her day. He exhaled. When was the last time he’d done that? The last time they’d prayed together about anything?
Noah couldn’t remember.
Deep breath. You can do this.His suitcases were on the floor, empty and ready. He picked up one, then the other and set them on the bed. Sadness pressed in around him again. For a long moment he stared at the comforter, the pillows. He ran his fingers over the familiar softness.
Here was where they had loved and laughed and cuddled their babies on long nights. Noah straightened and blinked a few times.Now it’s just a place to pack my bags.
Already he had packed up his home office—all except his computer. And a few boxes he had in his closet. The rest of his things were in the garage waiting for him to toss them into the bed of his truck tomorrow. All he had left were his clothes.
Noah walked to his dresser and opened his top drawer. He pulled out two handfuls of socks and tossed them in one of the suitcases. Then he returned for his T-shirts, but as he reached toward the rear of the drawer something sharp pierced his finger. He pulled his hand back and rubbed at a tiny spot of blood.
“What in the world...” He pulled the drawer out further.
Only then, as the light hit that spot, did he see what it was. A sinking feeling churned at Noah’s stomach. He stepped back and shook his head. No way. The room began to spin, and Noah grabbed the dresser to steady himself. Really? Now, when he only had hours left in his own home, when all that remained was to pack up the essentials? Now, he would find this?
The pin was part of a boutonniere. The one he had worn on their wedding day.
Noah picked it up and looked at it, studied it. Crazy, because he had searched for this a year ago and couldn’t find it. He had thought it would make a good social media post for their seventh anniversary.
Now it was nothing more than a marker. Like the stone over Clara’s grave.Here lie the remains of Noah and Emily’s marriage.Thunder shook the house, but it was nothing compared to the silence. Nothing compared to the flower in his hand.
Dried and crumbled, sharp enough to cut him. And long since dead.
Just like their marriage.
2
Up until now, Emily Carter hadn’t told anyone Noah was leaving. She rarely talked to her dad, and Noah’s family lived in London. Conversations with them didn’t go deep and were every few months at best.
But for all the ways she’d held the sadness inside and hidden it from her private and public worlds, today it would all come to the surface. Because in an hour, Emily and the kids would go to Ryan and Kari Taylor’s house. Kari was onto them. She knew something was wrong with Noah and Emily.
Of course the other reason their breakup was about to be public was more obvious.
Noah was moving out tomorrow. He was headed home to finish packing.
Which was why at five o’clock that evening Emily buckled Aiden and Olivia into their car seats and took them to Chick-fil-A for dinner. Two boxes of chicken tenders later, and the three of them pulled into Jackson Creek Park. The rain was holding off for now. So for the next half hour she pushed the kids on the swings.
Anything but head back home.
“Higher, Mommy!” Aiden’s cheerful singsong voice cut through her sad thoughts. “All the way to the moon!”
