Shadows Amongst Light (The Spy Who Loves Me) (26 page)

             
The moment that I saw my son’s pain, I forgot about my own. Ben was devastated that his father was leaving.

             
That night was a quiet night for all of us around the dinner table. Noah and I said little to each other. Ben just wanted to be close to his father. Even after dinner before Ben’s bedtime all he wanted to do was sit in Noah’s lap.

             
I saw regret in every single glance from Noah along with the plea for me to understand, but I couldn’t. I didn’t understand why he was leaving us only that I believed in my heart this was what Noah wanted.

             
Noah put Ben to bed that night even though he wanted to let me do it. Ben clung to his father and refused to allow me to tuck him in.

             
After more than an hour Noah finally got Ben to sleep but not before my son cried so many tears in front of his father, begging him not to leave.

             
That night, after Ben went to bed there was only silence between Noah and myself. There were so many things that I wanted to say to him, but I just couldn’t seem to find the words. Instead like that night long ago in Washington we said our goodbyes loving each other.

             
After Noah fell asleep beside me, it was a long time before I could find comfort there. I lay close to the only man I’d ever loved and cried so many wasted tears for us. For the ending of our sad little love affair. And when I, at last slept, it was deeply troubled sleep. I tossed and turned and cried even through my sleep.

             
When I awoke the following morning it was late. The sun was already high in the sky, when it hit me that I was alone in bed. Even before I found the strength to get out of our bed and walk down the stairs to the kitchen, I knew Noah was gone. Even before I found the note he’d left for me next to the coffee he’d made before leaving, I knew.

             
“You told me you didn’t know when you were leaving,” I said to the empty room as I tucked his note inside the pocket of my jean. I couldn’t read it. Not now. I wasn’t strong enough to see those words.

             
“Momma, why are you crying? Where’s daddy?”

             
Behind me, my son stood rubbing sleep from his eyes, searching the room for his father.

             
I scrubbed the tears from my own eyes and went to him. I wasn’t sure how to explain that his father was gone.

             
“Honey, daddy explained that he had to leave for a little while, remember?”

             
“He left without saying goodbye to me momma.” Ben started to sob and I lifted him in my arms and held my son like I had so many times in the past when he’d been hurt or frightened.

             
“Shh, baby I know it hurts. It hurts me too, but he’ll be back. You have to believe that.” I wasn’t sure if I were trying to convince myself or Ben the most. I needed us both to believe that Noah hadn’t done what in my heart I believed he had. I needed to believe he would come back to us ever bit as much as Ben.

             
“Honey, you want to stay home with me today?” I asked when at last Ben’s tears subsided. He nodded, but still looked sullen and ready to cry again at any moment.

             
“Okay, then, why don’t I make you some pancakes just the way you like them? How does that sound?”

             
I turned back to the sink where I’d found the note and saw something else there. I picked up the watch that had once belonged to Noah’s grandfather and clutched it in my hand. I knew immediately, without even reading the note that Noah wanted Ben to have it.

             
“Look honey, you’re daddy left you his watch. I think he wants you to hold onto it for him until he returns.”

             
Ben took the watched and looked at it before looking at me. “He’s coming back then, isn’t he momma? He wouldn’t leave his watch. Daddy’s coming back soon. I’m going to put this in our special place so that only daddy and me will know where it is.”

             
Ben ran from the room, happy for the moment and I clinched my hands and tried not to hate Noah. My son believed the watch meant Noah was coming back but I knew the truth. Someday I’d be forced to tell Ben.

             
I busied myself with making breakfast while trying to decide what I was going to tell all of our friends about Noah’s sudden absence from our life. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth and I knew no one was going to believe that someone who pretty much could work from home would have the need suddenly to travel.

             
“Honey, why don’t you and I and Bo, do some hiking later on? You know we haven’t done that in a while. It might be fun.

             
“Okay, momma,” Ben said before taking a bit of pancake. “But what if daddy calls?”

             
I forced a smile on my face and tried to think of some answer that Ben would buy when his father didn’t call.

             
“Well, honey the job he’s going to be working on will take up a lot of his time. I don’t think he’ll have time to call for a while.”

             
“But he will, won’t he momma? He will want to know what were doing?” It was then that another thought occurred to him. Noah had been promising Ben for months now that he could play tee ball this year. Noah had also volunteered to help coach.

             
“Momma, what about my games? Will daddy be back before my games start?

             
“Oh, baby I don’t know. I know he wants to be, and I’m sure he’ll try his best. But he may not be able to make it back in time.”        

             
For the rest of the day I tried to keep Ben as occupied as possible and his mind off Noah, but it was hard because I missed him so much.

             
We spent the day hiking through the woods on our property and picnicking. It was late before he started back home.

             
Surprisingly, Ben went to bed without a fuss. I knew he was exhausted, and I was grateful for once when he didn’t have much to say about Noah.

             
“Momma if daddy calls, will you wake me?”

             
“Oh course I will baby? But you need to get some sleep. Daddy wouldn’t like it if I let you do anything you want in his absence.”

             
After Ben was at last sleeping, I tried to do the same. But that night was the hardest night I’d ever tried to get through. It was the first night that Noah and I had been apart in over five years. I didn’t know how to go on from here. I didn’t want to try, but I knew that someday soon I would have to pick up the pieces of my heart and move forward, alone. For Ben’s sake.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

              For two weeks after Noah left, the second Ben got up each morning and the moment I picked him up from school the first question out of his mouth was had his father called.

             
It was the hardest thing in the world to do--lying to my son, but I did just the same.

             
I told Ben that Noah had called and wanted him to know how much he missed him. That he would see us soon, even though in my heart I believed I was the one who would have to tell my son the truth and face his heartbreak. But for the moment, I still held out hope that Noah would come home.

             
During those days, it was almost impossible for me to face our friends and try to answer all their questions without breaking down. But I believe they knew the truth, even though they kept up the front for Ben as well as for me. It was there in the sympathy in their eyes whenever they asked about Noah.

             
I hated that Ben and I had become the subject of the town’s gossip network for the moment, but there was nothing that I could do about it. I simply tried to shield Ben from most of the bad stuff, although it was obvious that a few of his little friends from school had repeated what their parents were saying about us.

             
One day after I picked him up and we were on our way to tee ball practice, Ben told me what someone had said about Noah.

             
“Momma, what’s divorce?”

             
I was shocked by his question and caught completely off guard, even though instinctively I knew why he was asking it. Still I only wanted to protect my son.

             
“Why do you ask, honey?”

             
“Because Billy says that you and daddy are getting a divorce. But he didn’t know what it was either.”

             
I parked the car close to the field and turned to Ben. “Honey, your daddy and I are not getting divorced.”

             
“But what is divorce, Momma.”

             
I tried to think of the best way to explain to my son without scaring him any further. Ben was already starting to ask less often about Noah, and I’d noticed over the last couple of days that Ben was becoming more and more solemn, keeping his feelings to himself.

             
“Well, honey, divorce is when two people who are married can’t get along and decide that its best for everyone involved if they no longer live together.”

             
I watched as the meaning of my words registered in his sad little eyes and my son started to cry.

             
“Is that why daddy left us?”

             
“No, no baby. No...Daddy didn’t leave us. He has a job to do, and he just had to go away for a little while. But he’ll be back. I promise, he’s coming back, Ben. Don’t ever doubt that.”

             
“But Billy says that daddy didn’t have to leave for his job. He just left because he was tired of us.”

             
“Oh, honey, that’s not true.” I said trying not to cry as well. I gathered my son close and just for a moment my little man let me. “Your father loves you very much, Ben. He would never leave you. He’ll be back. We just have to be patient in the mean time, okay?”

             
“What about you, momma? Did daddy leave you?” Those innocent words had the power to bring a lump to my throat and I found myself looking out the window away from the intensity in my son’s eyes that reminded me so many times of Noah’s.

             
I couldn’t tell Ben that I wasn’t so sure Noah hadn’t left me. After all, he’d done so once before. And I wasn’t the woman he’d married. I’d become just the opposite in fact. Maybe Noah was bored to tears with me. When I couldn’t bring myself to lie to my son again, I skirted around the subject and tried to find a way to answer Ben’s question that would reassure him that I wasn’t the reason his father wasn’t coming back.

             
“Baby, your father will be back. As soon as his work is done, he will come back. Don’t you worry, okay?”

             
Ben searched my expression and finally smiled. I don’t know if he actually understood me or if he was just desperate enough to believe those words.

             
“Okay, momma. Look--there’s Coach Reynolds.”

             
I was grateful that my son’s attention was focused elsewhere giving me the chance to recover from my own tears.

             
“Come on, momma. Since we’re the first ones here, maybe the coach will give you some tips before the others arrive.”

             
I sat in the bleachers with the rest of the mothers, talking about our kids while fending off curious questions about my husband, until by the end of the practice I was ready to cry all over again.

             
No one believed my little story about Noah. But then I decided the only person I really cared about keeping the truth from was Ben.

             
After practice was over, I’d promised Ben to take him to the local pizza joint.

             
In spite of the fact that it was just about the best eating place in town, the restaurant was pretty much empty tonight not that I minded much. I was exhausted from answering all those probing questions from the other tee ball moms. All I wanted to do was sit here quietly and be with my son.

             
I watched Ben quietly play his favorite video game which was interrupted occasionally when he would run back to our table to grab a bit of pizza and a drink. I wondered ideally to myself what the folks of this quiet little town would think if they knew what I’d walked away from just five years ago.

             
What would it do to their sense of safety to know the danger that was always close to them? How would they react to the fact that my own past was filled with dangers that could come looking for me at any time?