Page 3 of When We Were Young
Noah clenched his jaw. If that were true then maybe they were doing the best thing: taking a bow before things got truly ugly. Before the kids suffered.
The kids. Gravity doubled down.
Aiden was four and Olivia, two. Neither would remember the show, as Emily called it. They would also never know the joy and security of having both parents under the same roof. Which was maybe also a good thing. Better not to know their parents fighting and scratching and clawing at each other.
Better to see a more beautiful picture of their mommy and daddy after the divorce. When they had separate addresses. Noah squinted toward the distant trees. Kids rebounded. At first they’d notice that Noah wasn’t around as much, or that they had to go to a different place to see him.
But time would heal even that. Another gust of wind blew over him. Yes. The kids would be fine. He was convinced. As for their social media, he would take a break, of course. And then he’d start it up again. Focus more on the followers and ways to encourage them. Less about him. Nothing about Emily.
The clouds were darker now, the next storm almost overhead. Time to go home and do the one thing he never thought he’d do. Pack up his bags and leave the girl of his dreams.
Noah stooped down once more and spread his hand over his sister-in-law’s name. “I’m sorry, Clara.” His eyes welled up again. “If I could have found a way, I would’ve loved Emily forever.” He blinked a few times so he could see. “I’m sorry.”
Clara once had a game she liked to play with Noah. She’d limp toward him, her eyes lit up. That big one-in-a-million grin stretched across her pretty face. Then she’d tilt her head. “Forever, right?”
“Forever and ever,” Noah would say.
“Daddies don’t... always... leave.” She had said it a thousand times since the day Noah and Emily married. They knew their lines by heart, he and Clara.
“Not this daddy.” Noah would put his hand alongside Clara’s cheek. “Not ever.”
It was Clara’s game because deep down she needed reassurance. Needed it every day. Seeing her own father leave had altered her life. Never mind her limited abilities, she understood the loss. And because of that there was one thing she desperately wanted for her beloved sister.
That Noah Carter would never, ever leave.
His heart wrestled within him.Clara, forgive me.He ran his fingertips over the granite letters in her name, and as he did he could see her again, the sparkle in her blue eyes, the innocent crooked smile. Clara never believed she had special needs. Never let cerebral palsy stop her from caring about people. She couldn’t do a lot of things, but Clara definitely knew how to love.
She did it so well that back then Noah couldn’t imagine their home or their lives ever being anything but beautiful. Couldn’t imagine love running dry. The way it had now.
Once more he stood, and with a final look at Clara’s grave, he turned his back to the wind and walked toward his truck. He had rented an apartment across town, his new home starting tomorrow. The third day of November. Four days before their eighth anniversary.
So far he had no furniture, which suited him. He’d sleep on the floor—penance for finding a way to fail Emily. Then when his new reality became something he could live and breathe under, he’d haul himself to a furniture store and get the basics.
All while wishing God had shown them a different way, a way to save their marriage. For Emily to stop snapping at him and for him to find a way to reach her. But that prayer had gone unanswered like so many others in the last year. Noah stared at the stormy sky once more. Clara wouldn’t be here beneath the cold wet merciless dirt if God had answered their prayers.
A quick step up into his truck and Noah set out for their house in Clear Creek, where they still lived as a family. Where they were still a they. The four of them, for one more night. After he moved out, Emily and the kids would live there. Buttheywouldn’t live there. Never again.
The house was three blocks south of their friends Ryan and Kari Taylor. The Taylors were maybe in their early forties, and every Wednesday night they led a Bible study. A year ago it was something Emily looked forward to every week. Noah tagged along because that was what Emily wanted.
Now the two of them hadn’t been to the study in over a month. Once they decided to end things, when they were sure there was no going back, no saving their marriage, they stopped attending. No point hanging out with people committed to staying together.
Yes, Ryan and Kari Taylor were two more people he was about to let down. Two more on a growing list. Kari was the sister of Ashley Baxter Blake, his fire chief’s wife. So in no time everyone at the Bible study and at the firehouse was bound to know what had happened. How @When_We_Were_Young had fallen apart.
Noah kept his eyes on the road. Rain began to pound against his windshield and he could hear words in the rhythm.You don’t have to do it... don’t have to do it... don’t have to...
As if all of heaven were crying because this was the very last night Noah Carter would live under the same roof as his family.
Three bolts of lightning shot down around him like so many well-aimed spears. Noah slowed his truck in the deluge and flipped his windshield wipers up a notch. Was God trying to tell him something? Sending lightning to get his attention? However bad this storm, it was nothing compared to the one raging inside him.
At home, Noah pulled into the garage and walked through the back door. He took off his boots and stood there, listening for their voices. Emily and Aiden and Olivia. In another life he would’ve called out to them, anxious to see their faces. Ready to hug their necks.
But not today.
His family wasn’t home. They were spending the evening with Ryan and Kari.
“Anywhere but here,” Emily had told him last night. “Watching you pack.”
The memory of her broken voice twisted Noah’s heart again. He didn’t blame her.
