The Smallest Part

by Amy Harmon

  His eyes were bright, and he swallowed like the words in his throat were too big to say. He hugged her fiercely, lifting her off her feet once more, the way he always had, the way she hoped he always would. “You are so wise. How did you get to be so wise?” he whispered.

  “I’m an idiot,” she whispered back. “And a coward. I have been so afraid to lose you that I almost let you go. Again.”

  “You are the smartest woman I know. The very best woman I know. And I do love you because you’re strong and you’re steady. But those aren’t the only reasons. Those were never the only reasons.”

  He brushed his lips over hers, convincing and caressing, and her eyes fluttered closed.

  “Mer?”

  “Yeah?” She didn’t want to talk anymore. She wanted to kiss him.

  “I didn’t have a date. I lied. I was trying to make you jealous.”

  “What?” she gasped, but his mouth returned, kissing her with all the frantic devotion she was feeling, and she forgave him immediately.

  “Do you love me, Noah?” she panted.

  “You know I do,” he murmured against her mouth.

  Frustrated laughter bubbled up from her chest, and she pinched him, pulling back slightly so she could clarify.

  “Are you in love with me, Noah?”

  “I’m in love with you, Mer. Madly. Deeply. Head over heels in love with you.”

  “I’m in love with you too,” she whispered, freed. Ebullient. “I always have been. I always will be.”

  ***

  Epilogue

  Loving Mercedes wasn’t like falling off a cliff. It wasn’t even the heart-clench of a missed step. It wasn’t a jerk or a jostle. It wasn’t tripping or tumbling at all. It was the slow climb of a lifetime of moments, the line upon line, day after day kind of love. And it was deeper and more durable for it. You would think with a love like that there wouldn’t be passion, there wouldn’t be heat, but there was. It sizzled and crackled between them like a sparkler in July, constantly surprising him.

  Once Mercedes was in, she was all in, just like he knew she would be. One weekend, toward the end of August, they left Gia with Heather for a few days and boarded a plane. They didn’t tell anyone where they were going or what they had planned. No invitations or announcements were sent out. They were married on a beach in Mexico—a place neither of them had ever been, despite Mercedes’s heritage. It was just the two of them, barefoot and hand in hand, making promises to each other and looking to the future. He’d teased Mercedes about being a barefoot angel, and she’d started singing “A la Puerta del Cielo” and dancing in the surf, kicking up the water in her white dress, her dark hair streaming behind her.

  Alma had been shocked when they told her. Hurt. She had wanted to see her only child get married. She’d wanted their ceremony to be in a church with a priest. She’d wanted to give them a huge celebration.

  “You deserve it, Mercedes! Why start your marriage this way, running off like you are ashamed? Like you need to hide? Gia should have been there, at the very least.”

  Mercedes had put her arms around her mother and, in a language Noah didn’t speak, told her the love story of two old friends who needed a chance to look ahead without the distractions of the past

  “We needed it to be about Noah and Mercedes, Mami. Not the three amigos,” Mercedes explained. “Entiendes?”

  Alma shook her head. “No. No entiendo,” she whispered.

  “We needed it to be about the future. Not the past. Our lives have always revolved around everyone else. And that’s okay. But I wanted our wedding day to be about us. I didn’t want to think about Cora, or Shelly, or Abuela or even Papi—though I felt their presence. I didn’t want my wedding day to be a reminder of what had come before. For once, I needed it to be about the two of us—me and Noah—and nothing else.”

  Mercedes and Alma had cried, and Noah had cried too. He didn’t understand the language but he knew the reasons, and he’d felt every word.

  Mercedes and Alma moved into the townhome with him and Gia, but he’d immediately put it up for sale. They needed a house where they could start fresh, a home big enough for Alma and Cuddy and Heather too when she wanted to visit. A home with room to grow.

  Noah found empty office space not far from Montlake with a 5000 square foot loft situated above it, and he took Mercedes with him to look it over. He suggested they purchase the office space and turn it into a salon and day spa—MeLo—and live in the loft.

  “It’s so much money . . . and we’d have to totally remodel it, top to bottom. Right now it’s just open space,” Mercedes had sputtered.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” he answered calmly. “It will be perfect.”

  “We can’t—I can’t afford that Noah, even if we could get the financing,” Mercedes said, but her eyes were wide with the possibility.

  “We can.”

  “What? How?”

  “Cora’s life insurance policy paid out. There’s a suicide clause, but their findings were inconclusive.” Noah took a deep breath and held her gaze. “Bottom line, none of us will ever know what really happened that day. The insurance company closed the inquiry, and a few days ago . . . they sent me a check.” He reached into his pocket, pulled it out, and handed it to Mercedes.

  Mercedes began to shake her head, resisting. He kept his hand extended until she took it. Noah knew exactly how she felt, and he’d been struggling with it since he’d received the news. Then he’d thought about Mer, and how she’d happily emptied her bank account to keep Gia safe and to protect him, and he knew what to do.

  “You’ve been walking around with this in your pocket?” Mercedes gasped, her eyes widening at the amount.

  “I’ll tuck some away for Gia, for college and a rainy day. But if Cora were here, she’d tell you to take it, Mer. She was there when the dream began, and I think she’d like to see it come true.”

  It had taken them eight months to make the loft a home and turn the space below into a spa, but they’d moved in the day after Mercedes’s thirty-first birthday, and MeLo had its grand opening three weeks later.

  They’d worked hard, but that was nothing new, and Mercedes was tireless. Cuddy had turned out to be quite handy, and he’d framed up all the walls, hung the drywall, and did all the painting. When Noah told him one of the rooms was his, he’d cried. He cried a lot. He still cried when Mer cut his hair, and when Noah slipped and called him dad, he’d wept for an hour. Noah had been calling him Dad ever since, and Cuddy had adjusted. He promised Noah the flood would eventually end, but Noah had simply hugged him and told him not to worry; everywhere he looked there were rainbows.

  They had a great deal in common. The difference between Cuddy and Noah was that Noah had had people who loved him. Cuddy hadn’t. But now he did.

  They celebrated the Fourth of July at their new home. Since finishing the interior, Cuddy had moved his efforts to the roof. It was endless and flat with a three foot wall around the sides, making it ideal for a green space. Cuddy had performed wonders in three months, hanging lanterns and building raised planter boxes. There were vegetables in some and flowers in the others, and they were overflowing and blooming in riotous color. He’d asked if he could make a rock garden too, and he and Gia had spent hours making fairy houses to place among the stones.

  Noah bought a canopied table and some deck chairs, and they grilled burgers and listened to eighties songs on the boombox for old times’ sake. Alma and Mercedes made paper stars with long streamers while they waited for the fireworks to start. The view of the sky above the stadium was almost as good as the view from the hill behind The Three Amigos.

  “You fold the paper this way, back and forth, back and forth,” Mercedes told Gia, helping her turn the paper, pressing and folding and folding again. They’d left the stars to Alma and were using perforated computer paper to make a chain of dolls long enough to include the whole family.

  When they were done folding the paper, Mercedes began to snip
and cut, wielding the scissors like the professional she was. Gia sat at her feet, the white paper clippings fluttering around her strawberry locks like snowflakes on Christmas morning. She laughed and closed her eyes, squealing for more.

  She called Mer Mami now. No one had coached her. One day Meh became Meh-Meh. Meh-Meh became Mama, and Mama morphed into Mami. No one said a word. Not even Heather, who had taken it all in stride, even going so far as to say it was “meant to be.”

  Heather was Grammy, Alma was Abuela, and Cuddy was Papa. Of course Cuddy had cried with joy the first time Gia had laid that nickname on him. Three years old, and she had a mind of her own. He was Papa, and no one argued with her.

  Mercedes finished snipping and carefully unfolded the paper chain.

  “There’s Daddy.” Gia pointed to the first figure.

  “Okay,” Mercedes said, nodding.

  “Daddy, Mami, Gia”—she said her name perfectly now—“Papa, Abuela, and Grammy. And one more.”

  “Yep, one more,” Mercedes agreed. “We have a big family.”

  “Cora,” Gia supplied, touching the final figure.

  “That’s right. We can’t forget her.”

  Gia smiled, wrinkling her little nose, and picking up the paper dolls, skipped off to involve them in some secret game only she was privy to. They streamed behind her like a lacy kite, and Noah and Mercedes watched her go.

  Want more?

  Turn the pages to read an excerpt from

  The Law of Moses by Amy Harmon

  ***

  Acknowledgements

  Suicide affects everyone. My own son attempted suicide twice in his teen years. His second attempt resulted in a long hospitalization, and it is a subject I take seriously, and an experience you never fully recover from. Every year, I donate a portion of my profits in the month of May to the AFSP.org through the Keith Milano Memorial Fund, a fund started by a book blogger, Denise Milano Sprung, after the death of her brother. You can contribute to Denise’s efforts at http://www.keithmilano.org/

  Veterans are some of the most frequently affected by suicide, and The Smallest Part gives you a glimpse into this tragedy. Whether you are a vet or simply someone who needs a listening ear, you can call 1-800-273-8255.

  If you are a mom struggling with postpartum depression, there are resources out there for you too. If you need more information, please visit https://theemilyeffect.org/—a great website put together by a local family after they lost their mother to postpartum depression and anxiety. You are not alone.

  * * *

  This book was in my head for a long time. Ever since I wrote The Law of Moses, Dr. Noah Andelin’s story has been in my head. It took me three years, but I finally wrote it down. I hope you love Mercedes and Noah as much as I do.

  The Song of David is David “Tag” Taggert’s story, a companion novel to The Law of Moses, and it is now available at your favorite online vendor as well.

  Big thanks go to my assistant and dear friend, Tamara Debbaut. Without her, I couldn’t function. Thank you, Tamara. My gratitude on this project extends to Nicole Karlson, whose enthusiasm for my books makes writing a pleasure. Thanks to Cristina Bon and Ashley Ruiz for reading The Smallest Part early and making sure I correctly represented the Hispanic culture.

  To my agent, Jane Dystel and her team, including Lauren Abramo and many others, thank you for taking such good care of me.

  Continued thanks to Karey White and Courtney Cole for editing and advising on this novel. A good editor is something to cherish. Thank you Hang Le for the beautiful cover and for capturing the spirit of the book. To Julie Titus of JT Formatting for always making time for me and for doing such beautiful work on the interior files for my books.

  To all the bloggers who read and review for the love of it, thank you too. Authors can’t do it without you. I’m thankful for every single one of you.

  And finally, I’m so grateful for my readers. I know how fickle the market is, I know how fandoms come and go, and I know that there are always a million books to choose from. Thank you for reading mine.

  ***

  The following is an excerpt from THE LAW OF MOSES,

  available at your favorite ebook vendor!

  THEY FOUND MOSES in a laundry basket at the Quick Wash, wrapped in a towel, a few hours old and close to death. A woman heard him cry and picked him up, putting him against her skin and wrapping them both in her coat until she could get help. She didn’t know who his mother was or if she was coming back, she only knew that he wasn’t wanted, that he was dying, and that if she didn’t get him to a hospital soon, it would be too late.

  They called him a crack baby. My mom told me crack babies are what they call babies who are born addicted to cocaine because their mothers do drugs while they are pregnant. Crack babies are usually smaller than other babies because most of them are born too early to unhealthy moms. The cocaine alters their brain chemistry and they suffer from things like ADHD and impulse control. Sometimes they suffer from seizures and mental disorders. Sometimes they suffer from hallucinations and hyper sensitivity. It was believed that Moses would suffer from some of these things, maybe all of these things.

  They shared his story on the ten o’clock news. It was a great story, a human interest piece—a little baby left in a basket at a dingy laundromat in a bad neighborhood in West Valley City. My mom says she remembers the story well, the pathetic shots of the baby in the hospital, hanging onto life, a feeding tube in his stomach and a little blue hat on his tiny head. They found the mother three days later, not that anyone wanted to hand the baby over. But they didn’t have to. She was dead. The woman who had abandoned her baby in a laundromat was pronounced dead on arrival from an apparent overdose at the very same hospital where her baby lay struggling for life, several floors above her. Somebody had found her too, though not in a laundromat.

  The roommate, arrested that same evening for prostitution and possession, told the police what she knew about the woman and her abandoned baby in hopes of getting a little leniency. An autopsy of the woman’s body showed she had, indeed, given birth very recently. And later, DNA testing proved that the baby was hers. What a lucky little guy.

  He was “the baby in the basket” in news reports, and the hospital staff dubbed him baby Moses. But baby Moses wasn’t found by the daughter of the Pharaoh like the biblical Moses. He wasn’t raised in a palace. He didn’t have a sister watching from the reeds, making sure his basket was pulled from the Nile. But he did have some family—Mom said the whole town was a buzz when it was discovered that baby Moses’s deceased mother was sort of a local girl, a girl named Jennifer Wright who had spent summers with her grandmother, who lived just down the street from our house. The grandmother was still in the area, Jennifer’s parents lived in a neighboring town, and a couple of her siblings, who had moved away, were still well-known by many as well. So little Moses had some family after all, not that any of them wanted a sick baby who was predicted to have all sorts of problems. Jennifer Wright had broken their hearts and left her family tired and shattered. Mom told me drugs do that. So the fact that she left them with a crack baby didn’t seem especially surprising. My mom said she’d just been a regular girl when she was younger. Pretty, nice, smart, even. But not smart enough to stay away from meth, cocaine, and whatever else she became a slave to. I imagined the crack baby, Moses, having a giant crack that ran down his body, like he’d been broken at birth. I knew that wasn’t what the term meant. But the image stuck in my mind. Maybe the fact that he was broken drew me to him from the start.

  My mom said the whole town followed the story of baby Moses Wright when it happened, watching the reports, pretending like they had the inside scoop, and making up what they didn’t know, just to feel important. But I never knew baby Moses, because baby Moses grew up to be just plain Moses, juggled between Jennifer Wright’s family members, passed around when he became too much to take, transferred to another sibling or parent who then put up with him for a while before
making someone else step in and take their turn. It all happened before I was born, and by the time I met him and my mom told me about him in an effort to help me “understand him and be kind,” the story was old news and nobody wanted anything to do with him. People love babies, even sick babies. Even crack babies. But babies grow up to be kids. Nobody really wants messed up kids.

  And Moses was messed up.

  I knew all about messed up kids by the time I met Moses. My parents were foster parents to lots of messed up kids. They’d been taking in kids all my life. I had two older sisters and an older brother who were out of the house by the time I was six. I’d been kind of an oops, and I ended up being raised with kids who weren’t my siblings and who came in and out of my life in stages and revolving doors. Maybe that was why my parents and Kathleen Wright, Jennifer Wright’s grandma and Moses’s great-grandma, had several conversations about Moses sitting at our kitchen table. I heard a lot of things I probably had no business knowing. Especially that summer.

  The old lady was taking Moses in for good. He would be eighteen in a month and everyone else was ready to wash their hands of him. He’d spent time with her every summer since he was little, and she was confident they would do well together if everyone would just butt out and let her do her thing. She didn’t seem concerned about the fact that the month Moses turned eighteen she would turn eighty.

  I knew who he was and remembered him from summer to summer, though I’d never spent any time with him. It was a small town and kids notice each other. Kathleen Wright would bring him to church for the few Sundays he was in town. He was in my Sunday school class, and we all enjoyed staring at him while the teacher tried to coax him into participating. He never did. He just sat in his little metal folding chair like he’d been heavily bribed to do so, his oddly-colored eyes roving here and there, his hands twisting in his lap. And when it was over he would race for the door and out into the sunshine, heading straight for home without waiting for his great-grandma. I would try to race him, but he always managed to get out of his seat and out the door faster than I could. Even then I was chasing him.