Page 19 of The Matchmaker
“Are you working today?” Gemma asks, interrupting my little daydream. “I might swing by with Noah later. I have nothing in for dinner.”
As though summoned from off-stage, the front door opens, and Noah appears. Gemma’s son is an angelic-looking, increasingly moody pre-teen who I’ve known since he was five when Gemma moved them back to Ennisbawn after her divorce. She’d been brought up here but is closer to Adam’s age than mine, so we never really interacted until she returned. We quickly grew close once she did, and she’s now one of my best friends, meaning Noah is practically a godchild to me. I have a huge soft spot for the kid, something he exploits the hell out of.
“Hi, Katie,” he says now, placing a loaf of bread on the kitchen table. He’s the spitting image of Gemma, with the same blonde curls and hazel eyes. Right down to the smattering of freckles over his nose. In the last year or so, he’s also got her resting bitchface down to a tee, to the point where I swear, she must have taught it to him.
“Hey,” I greet in what I hope is a very cool way. It must be because he gives me a nod as Gemma holds out a palm.
“Change.”
“They didn’t have any.”
She raises a brow. “They didn’t have any change from a five-euro note for one loaf of bread?”
Noah shakes his head, his face solemn. “Because of the economy.”
I choke on my water. I can’t help it. And when Gemma glances my way at the sound, Noah uses the distraction to slip his headphones back over his ears, tuning us out as he starts making a sandwich.
I don’t miss the flicker of concern that crosses my friend’s face. Last week, Noah got suspended from school for fighting in the playground. It isn’t the first time something like that has happened and Gemma was furious, but he insisted he’d been sticking up for another kid and no one could get their story straight.
“Are you going to tell Darren?” I ask, dropping my voice even though Noah’s listening to music. “About the school?”
“Absolutely not,” she says, like the very mention of him leaves a bad taste in her mouth.
Gemma’s ex-husband moved back to Manchester a few years ago and started a new family. Now he doesn’t even send his own son a Christmas card.
We do not like him.
“One of his teachers suggested sending him to a therapist.”
“Noah?” I frown, considering it. “It might help.”
“Yeah, and who’s going to drive him the two hours it will take to get there? Who’s going to pay for it?” She plucks her phone from the charger and drops it in her purse. “Remember when I thought moving back here was the thing that would change my life?” she asks. “And now I’m turning forty-three as an overworked single mother with a precarious rental situation?” She gives me a tight smile. “That’s fun.”
“It will be okay,” I say automatically, but she’s not listening, her attention back on her son. When he was younger, the two of them were best friends, but, like most parent/child relationships, it’s gotten more difficult the older he gets. I know she worries about him. They bicker all the time, but, much like Granny and me, it comes from a place of love. Everything Gemma does is for Noah, which wouldn’t be a problem if she didn’t often forget about herself in the process.
“Okay,” she says, clapping me on the shoulder as she grabs her coat. “I’m going and I’m gone. Noah? No—” She tugs his headphones off his head, earning herself a scowl. “Hi. It’s me. Your beloved mother. We’re short-staffed at the home. I’m going in for three hours max and then I’ll be back. Katie’s going to mind you until then.”
A horrified look comes over his face at the wordmind. “I’m eleven,” he says like he means twenty-two.
“Exactly,” Gemma says. “Eleven. A child. A tiny little child who needs protecting and guarding and—”
“Mam—”
“—dinner and baths and an hour of television if you’re good.”
“Are you going or not?”
She grabs him by the cheeks, kissing him soundly on his forehead before he can stop her.
Lifesaver, she mouths to me again, and then she rushes out the door, leaving us alone.
There was a time when my looking after Noah caused great excitement in this house. When we’d get into our pajamas and eat pizza and play board games no matter the time of day. Now he just looks like he’s being punished.
“Do you want to playFortnite?” he asks, after a good thirty seconds of him probably thinking of ways to get rid of me.
“Do you want to playThe Sims?” I counter, and he rolls his eyes before disappearing into the living room.
“Is that a no?” I call after him.
