opening.
“Forget the support group idea,” Noelle corrected herself. “It’s not for you. You’re outgoing, but not open.” She’d said that to me once before and I was bothered by the description.
“I was open with Sam,” I said defensively.
“Yes,” she said. “It was easy to be open with Sam.” She looked out the window into the darkness as if she was lost in thought and I remembered the eulogy she’d given at Sam’s memorial service. Sam was a champion listener, she’d said.
Oh, yes.
“I miss talking to him.” I looked at the stack of papers on the floor. The battery-operated stapler on his desk. His checkbook. Four pads of Post-it notes. I shrugged. “I just miss him,” I said.
Noelle nodded. “You and Sam. I hesitate to use the term soul mates because it’s trite and I don’t think I believe in it. But you had an exceptional marriage. He was devoted to you.”
I touched his computer keyboard. The E and D keys were worn and shiny, the letters faint. I ran my fingertips over the smooth plastic.
“You can still talk to Sam, you know,” Noelle said.
“Pardon?” I laughed.
“Don’t tell me you don’t. When you’re alone, I bet you do. It would be so natural to say, ‘Damn it, Sam! Why did you have to leave me?’”
I looked at the keyboard again, afraid of the floodgates. “I honestly don’t,” I lied.
“You could, though. You could tell him what you’re feeling.”
“Why?” I felt annoyed. Noelle loved to push her agenda. “What possible purpose could it serve?”
“Well, you never know if he can get your communication on some level.”
“Actually, I do know that he can’t.” I folded my arms across my chest and swiveled the chair in her direction. “Scientifically, he can’t.”
“Science is making new discoveries all the time.”
I couldn’t tell her how, when I ate breakfast or drove to school, I’d sometimes hear his voice as clearly as if he were sitting next to me and wonder if he was trying to contact me. I’d have long, out-loud conversations with him when no one else was around. I loved the feeling of him being nearby. I didn’t believe people could reach out from the other side, but what if they could and he was trying and I ignored him? Yet I felt crazy when I talked to him, and I was so afraid of feeling crazy.
“You’ve always been afraid of having psychiatric problems like your mother,” Noelle said, as if she’d read my mind. She could spook me that way. “I think it’s your biggest fear, but you’re one of the sanest people I know.” She got to her feet, taking in a deep breath as she stretched her arms high over her head. “Your mother had a chemical thing,” she said, letting her long, slender arms fall to her sides again. “You don’t. You won’t, ever.”
“The floodgates …” I looked up at her from the desk chair. I didn’t want her to leave. “I’m afraid of opening them.”
“You won’t drown,” she said. “Drowning isn’t part of your makeup.” She bent low to hug me. “I love you,” she said, “and I’m a phone call away.”
I’d polished the granite countertop until the ceiling lights glowed on its surface. Then I dared to look at the photograph of Sam, Grace and me on the refrigerator again. Noelle had helped me sort through so much on that hot, miserable July night, yet one emotion still remained unchecked inside me: fear that I was failing my daughter.
Grace stood between Sam and me in the picture, smiling, and only someone very observant might notice how she leaned toward Sam and away from me. He’d left me alone with a child I didn’t know how to mother. A child I longed to know, but who wouldn’t let me in. A child who blamed me for everything.
He left me alone with the stranger upstairs.
3
Emerson
Noelle’s junker of a car sat in her driveway and I pulled in behind it. The light was fading, but I could still read all of her bumper stickers: Coexist, No Wetlands=No Seafood, Cape Fear River Watch, Got Tofu?, Bring Back My Mid-wives! Noelle’s passions—and she had plenty—were spelled out across the dented rear of her car for all the world to see. Good ol’ boys would pull up next to her at stoplights and pretend to shoot her with their cocked fingers, and she’d give them her one-fingered salute in return. That was Noelle for you.
She’d given up midwifery a year or so ago when she decided to focus on the babies program, even though it meant she’d have to live on her savings. At the same time, the ob-gyn offices in the area were making noise about letting their midwives go, so Noelle figured it was time to get out, though it must have felt like she was hacking off her right arm. Noelle needed ten lives to do all the things she wanted to do. She would never be able to fix the world to her liking with just one.
Ted and I had stopped charging her rent for the house even though between the teetering economy and the start-up costs of Hot! we weren’t exactly ready to put a kid through college. Ted had bought the dilapidated 1940s Craftsman bungalow shortly before we were married. I’d thought it was a lamebrain idea, even though the seller was practically giving it away. It looked like no one had taken care of the place since 1940, except to fill the front yard with a broken grill, a couple of bicycle tires, a toilet and a few other odds and ends. Ted was a Realtor, though, and his crystal ball told him that Sunset Park was on the brink of a renaissance. The ball had been right … eventually. The area was finally turning around, although Noelle’s bungalow was still a pretty sorry sight. The grill and toilet were gone, but the shrubs were near death’s door. We’d have to do a major overhaul on the place if she ever moved out, but we’d make a good profit at that point, so letting her live there for the cost of her utilities wasn’t that much of a hardship.
Ted wasn’t thrilled about the “no-rent for Noelle” idea in the beginning. He was feeding money into my café at the time and we were both biting our nails over that. I’d wanted to open a café for years. I fantasized about people lining up for my cooking and baking the way some women fantasized about finding Matthew McConaughey in their beds. The good news was that Hot! was already holding its own. I had a following among the locals downtown and even had to hire extra help during the tourist season. So Ted had come around, both about the café and Noelle’s rent-free existence on our property.
From Noelle’s weedy driveway, I could see the left-hand corner of the backyard where she’d planted her garden. She wasn’t much for fixing up the house and the rest of the landscaping was in ruins, but years ago she’d surprised us by planting a small masterpiece of a garden in that one corner. It became one of her many obsessions. She researched the plants so that something was blooming nearly year-round. A sculptor friend of hers made the birdbath that stood in the center of the garden and it was like something out of a museum. It was your typical stone birdbath, but next to it, a little barefoot girl in bronze stood on her tiptoes to reach over the lip and touch the water. Her dress and hair fanned out behind her as if she’d been caught in a breeze. People knew about the birdbath. A couple of reporters wanted to take pictures of it and write articles about the sculptor, but Noelle never let them. She was afraid someone would try to steal it. Noelle would give away everything she owned
