Don't Let Go (4 page)

He swallowed back whatever thought was there, and I didn’t let myself analyze it. Not all these years later when I couldn’t even say I knew him anymore. I just nodded.

“Welcome home, Noah.”

I was so proud of myself for forming words.

He just blinked and let himself be pulled back into the chaos as his dad stepped between us and turned his back to me, slapping him on the back as Noah’s fiancée slipped a hand into the crook of his arm.

“Everyone!” Johnny Mack hollered out to the entire diner. His face was transformed from grouch to grin. “My son is here!” At the murmurs and curious looks from people who didn’t know why that was holler-worthy, he waved his hands impatiently. “From Italy! Noah’s home from the Navy. He’s finally home!”

At the smattering of claps and amused expressions and
welcome home’s
from the clientele, Noah smiled stiffly and visibly reddened. He still wasn’t one for the spotlight, I noticed, as he backed up a step and put a hand on the back of the brunette’s neck, eyeing the room. I felt the discomfort with him, backing slowly toward the door so my exit wouldn’t be analyzed by any town gossips. As much as I wanted to bolt, I couldn’t quit looking at him. It had been such a long time. Most of the people in there were too young to remember the juicy story or the boy who’d left Copper Falls to be a career Navy man. The few old-timers sitting around the lunch counter got up and shook his hand, as they remembered him and knew what he’d been—what he was. They’d kept up with Johnny Mack’s stories of Noah’s adventures over the years, when he joined Special Forces and when he made master chief.

“You here for a visit, Noah, or home for good?” Spinach teeth asked him.

Noah took his hand in both of his and smiled. “I’m home, Mr. Morrison. I’m getting too old to keep moving around. I’m home.”

I pushed the door open with my back and slipped out, welcoming the brisk breeze on my flushed skin.

“He’s—he’s home,” I whispered, echoing the words. I leaned against the scratchy door for a moment, letting the crispness of the air cool me down. I blew out a slow breath, and ignored an odd look from a passing couple. “It’s okay,” I said to them, smiling, squeezing my own fingers to stem the shaking. “It’s okay,” I repeated, softer, to myself. “Quit being a child.”

I pushed off the door when I heard group laughter inside and started the twenty whole feet to my own door. Ruthie was laughing in her singsongy way as I pulled the door open and the little bell jingled overhead. Mrs. Chatalain was on her way out, a little gold sales bag held against her pukey pink outfit.

“Have a good day,” I managed, holding the door open for her. “Enjoy your book.”

“What kind of sale you going to have for the Winter—” she began, nodding back toward the inside.

“No idea,” I said briskly. “What would you like?”

“Buy one, get one free would be nice,” she said, squinting up at me.

“Yeah, it probably won’t be that,” I answered.

“Figures,” she muttered, holding her bag against her as if it would block the wind. “Your mother would have done that for an hour or so,” she said. “With hot chocolate or something.”

“Good to know,” I managed, what my mother would have done or not done being the least of my concerns.

A couple was at the counter finishing up a large purchase of self-help books when I went in, and the guy was flirting shamelessly with Ruthie as the woman laughed a little uncomfortably. I smiled as they left, swiped a sprinkled cupcake from a platter Ruthie had brought out, and landed in a nearby chair, suddenly spent.

“Anyone in here?” I asked, resting my head against the back with my eyes closed.

“Not now,” she said. “That was a fast lunch. Becca already headed back?”

I lifted my head and focused on the cupcake, trying to unpeel the paper with fingers that had forgotten how to function.

“No,” I said, the word coming out raspy. I cleared my throat and tried to push his face from my vision.

“Jules? Is everything okay,” I heard Ruthie say.

I set the cupcake down and closed my eyes, shaking my head just slightly. The air felt thick and quiet around me, the ticking of a nearby clock being the only sound. He was back.

“Jules?” she asked again, her voice coming closer as the curiosity beckoned her.

With my eyes shut and my other senses heightened, I heard the wariness and concern in her words. I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead, blowing out a breath slowly. A tiny laugh bubbled up my throat that had nothing to do with anything being funny.

“Noah’s home.”

Chapter 3

Noah Ryan was my first love. He was my first everything. He was my first boyfriend, daring me to climb to the top of the monkey bars in the second grade and then kissing me square on the mouth when I did. He brought me special rocks he picked out and held my hand in the lunch line.

In later years, Noah would give me my first beer, first cigarette, and first real kiss during Truth or Dare. He was the first one to break my heart, then steal it again. He was the first boy to ever tell me he loved me, the first one I ever loved back, and the one I gave my first time to. We both did. Fumbling and awkward and passionate in the pouring rain one late April night, driven by young love and raging hormones, we learned what making love was.

And what making life was.

He wanted to marry me. In all his teenaged wisdom, he was ready to give up his lifelong dream of being a soldier and just stay there and be a family. My mother said no. My parents were devastated and mortified, of course. All the things you would rightly feel upon finding out your pure-as-the-driven-snow angel has given up the goods and gotten herself knocked up. They had loved Noah up until that point, but all that went out the window. My dad went lunatic crazy, his Cajun blood sending him to angry places he didn’t need to go, but the thought of his baby being violated sent him past reason. It didn’t matter how many times I used the words “consensual” and “in love”—I never got further than that. As soon as he’d hear the L word, he’d go off wanting to kill the boy that ruined his daughter.

That child would have been twenty-one years old when my dad died, and another year older when my mother followed him. In all those years they never spoke of it to me—the grandchild they passed up, arranging for the adoption to happen the second it was born, with the records sealed. Not even nine years later when Hayden and I finally had Becca. It was easier for them that way, I supposed, pretending it never happened. I couldn’t pretend that well. I had the memory of a son I’d never hold, and never know. And the image of Noah’s tortured expression as he let go of my hand to see his son and they wouldn’t let him. The sound of his pleading and the tears soaking his face.

I lost it for a while as well, but it was too late. The baby was gone. And then so was Noah.

And now here he was. Back in a town that had mostly forgotten. At a time I’d never forget. Stirring everything up again.

That was unfair, I thought, to think that. He wasn’t to blame for what his presence stirred up in me. And I wasn’t my parents. I did think about my baby boy on every holiday, every Mother’s Day, and every time I’d see a young man resembling Noah. Every first that Becca had, I’d wonder about his. I wondered about his life, if he was nearby or far away, and if he loved dark chocolate like I did or licorice like Becca. If he had an artist’s hand or a sniper’s eye. But I especially devoted January 29 to him in my heart. His birthday.

Why would Noah pick now to make his grand entrance? Was he even aware of it? Was summertime not good enough? Or any of the other eleven months?

I sat in the dark after Ruthie left for the evening, soaking up the quiet and thinking way too damn much. I knew I needed to go home, but even though it had been mine and Becca’s home for four years since I inherited it, today nothing felt like mine. Like I was going back to my mother’s house to be judged again. The logical part of me knew that was silly, but logic wasn’t playing a big part in my process.

The bookstore had been hers, too, but it was a business. The house just never felt like ours. I never felt it settle into our skin the way a home should. Growing up there, it had been structured and perfect and run with strict guidelines. Nana Mae always said her neck went stiff every time she walked in that house, and while she said it to be funny I knew what she meant.

The bookstore was the opposite, and maybe that was my mother’s way of releasing all her pent-up creativity. It was magical there. Free and flowing and musical. She always had delicious smelling candles burning, something baking in the back kitchen to put out for customers, and happy music playing. She’d leave the counter to go read a storybook to a child if they looked interested in one. She talked to customers and within minutes knew exactly the book they would like or needed. She was Miss Mary Dee to the world of Copper Falls. The store breathed through her, and I used to love to watch her work. My friends were always envious of me for having such an amazing mom. But they didn’t understand.

Miss Mary Dee was left at the store each night, and the mother I knew at home was someone else entirely. It was like she exhausted all her creativeness during the day and only had the rules of life left in her once she got home.

I pushed to my feet from the reading sofa in the corner, shelving a book someone had left out. The store still wove its spell on me every time I entered, but I didn’t have her touch. I tried to keep customers happy, but I couldn’t read them the way she did. There was still an oven in the back, but fresh cookies and cupcakes and other goodies were only made when Ruthie would find the time or make them at home and bring them in. And while Ruthie would light candles, I’d end up following behind her and blowing them out for fear we’d forget one and the whole place would burn to the ground.

And music? I snorted just thinking about it. Johnny Mack made sure we didn’t have that. I didn’t remember him banging on the wall when
she
played her soft jazz tunes back then, but he definitely didn’t like it now.

I made another round through the back office area, snatched my jacket and bag from behind the mammoth old wooden checkout counter that I’d added a granite top to, and let myself out, locking the door behind me.

I had to pass the diner on the way to my car, but before I headed there, I couldn’t help a sideways glance inside. It was dark behind the little white stringed lights Linny had painstakingly trimmed out the window with. There was no one in there. I breathed a tiny sigh of relief, mixed with the dread I felt as I let my eyes drift toward the big gazebo that was located catty-corner from the diner. In a couple of weeks the gazebo and the whole park behind it would be blinged out in all manner of white and red, smelling of fried carnival food and all kinds of chili. But for now it was still green and serene. In general, I didn’t have much reason to hang out down there anymore. The river was nice, and I’d bring Becca down there to feed the ducks when she was little, but it was tied to a moment that clamped down on my heart. I had a version of it on canvas in my living room, and that was all I needed. I only went in person once a year, and it wasn’t that day yet.

Taking a deep breath, I wrapped my jacket around me and crossed the street. The dusky dark had the streetlights flickering on, and the ice cream shop down the block was still lit up brightly, serving hot chocolate and spiced tea.

I felt conspicuous as I passed the gazebo and reached the path that would lead to the river, as if everyone in town were watching me. As if no one had anything better to do than wait all year for me to go to the park.

The river wound into view among big beautiful cypress trees, and as I moved toward the bench I always inhabited, I stopped short, my steps faltering. There, sitting in the dim light, lit only by the low security lights along the water, was Noah. Sitting alone, looking down at something in his hands, he didn’t see me.

He remembered.

Every centimeter of skin on my body tingled as the emotion welled up in my throat and burned behind my eyes. It was the last place where our baby had still been ours.

I closed my eyes and could smell the cold rain of that late afternoon, hear the music filtering over from the carnival rides. Noah and I sat on that bench and didn’t care that the sky was leaking on us. We’d made that life in a storm, and then we were arguing about whether to keep it in the middle of another one.

“Please, Jules,” he said, leaning over to lay his face on my stomach. I could feel the heat of his skin through my shirt. “Give us a chance. Don’t let your parents do this.”

“Look at us,” I said, lifting his head and raking his rain-soaked hair from his face. “We’re a mess, Noah. We live at home, we have maybe forty dollars between us, and we have to ride to school with your sister. We can’t even pass algebra. What kind of parents can we be?”

“Ones that love each other,” he said back, heat in his voice and his eyes. “That’ll go to hell and back to be a family. I promised you I’d take care of us and I will, Jules. Fuck algebra.”

“How?” I said.

“I’ll make it happen.”

I shook my head. “How are we going to pay for—”

“That’s your mother talking,” Noah said, jumping to his feet and pacing. “That’s that place they sent you to. It’s not you.” He dropped to his knees again in front of me. “Where are you, Jules?”

I blinked against the rain in my eyes and instinctively palmed my belly as the baby did a somersault. “I’m right here,” I whispered.

He shook his head and took my hands in his. “No, you aren’t. You haven’t been for a while. She’s got your head so filled with—”

“With things that make sense,” I shot back. “You didn’t see that place, Noah. The girls my age that looked thirty, just trying to get through the day.”

“They’re alone, you’re not,” he said. “You’ve got me.”

“I want this too, Noah,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’d give anything. I live with it every day, feel it every day. This baby is depending on me right now and I’m scared to death. All I have to do is eat to make it happy, and still I’m scared to death.” I placed his hands on the squirming movement of my belly. “Feel that?”