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That’s different.
“So, can you do that?” Austin asks Noah. “Will you help your mom out more without her having to ask?”
“Yeah. I can do that.”
I hear what sounds like a high five, and then a moment later, they reappear on their way to the steps. Mom covers her mouth with her fingers, emotional at the sight, and I can’t deny that it affects me just as much. Noah’s excitement. Austin’s gentleness. The easy connection between the two of them.
Once they’re out of sight, Mom whispers, “Millie, that man is amazing.”
“I know.”
“He’s different than I expected.”
“I know.”
“Even though you told me all those stories about how he treats you and what he’s done… I can’t imagine him being mean or rude to anyone.”
“I showed you the videos of him telling journalists to—”
She puts up her palm, cutting me off before I can repeat his common phrase of fuck off. “Yes, but he’s so sweet. I don’t believe he has some other terrible side to him.”
I glance to the stairs, indecipherable noises coming from Noah’s bedroom, then tell Mom, “I don’t believe he has some other terrible side to him either, but the facts are he hates everything. That’s what he said yesterday. He hates everything except for me. That sometimes it feels like I’m the only good thing in his life.”
And that makes me so sad for him.
I’m not sure what made him the way he is, so isolated and mercurial, but I’m determined to show him a better, sunnier side of life. Help him move past whatever it is that made him curl up in a ball on his living room floor all those days ago.
“Do you know what happened between him and his brother?” Mom asks, and I shake my head.
“He doesn’t talk about it.”
“Makes me more curious.”
I lean my elbows on the table, putting my chin in my hand. “He doesn’t trust anyone.”
“He trusts you.”
“To feed his bird and cook him terrible spaghetti, apparently.”
Mom bites back a smile, imitating him in a low voice. “It was perfect.”
We both giggle, but hers turns into a hacking cough that has her reaching for her water as Noah and Austin clomp back downstairs. My son has a mitt and a ball in his hands. “We’re going to play catch outside.”
“I could use some air,” Mom says, and I grab her jacket from the closet to bundle her in it before she walks to the back with Noah.
Austin tells Noah he’ll be right out after he retrieves his mitt from his car, but as soon as they’re out of earshot, he asks, “Is your mom okay?”
“Yeah.”
“She can sit outside? She won’t get sick?”
“She is sick.”
“Yeah, but….” He glances in the direction of the backyard then back at me. “You know what I mean.”
I do. He’s worried about her. She’s frail, and with the oxygen tank and the way she sounds, it can be…jarring to people. “It’s stage four, treatable but incurable at this point, and she likes to sit outside. Says she doesn’t know how many more days and nights she has to enjoy. So what else can I say to her?”
His eyes dip down as he shakes his head. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
