by Hendin, KK
The smell of him made me ache.
I sat there, not knowing what to say. Not knowing how to say it.
“Sam told me that she told you about Noie,” he said, sounding hesitant.
I nodded, keeping my gaze firmly planted at the waves.
“You know how you’re just moving along with your life, and you think it’s going to go a certain way? You’re going to go to this college, get this job, live in this place with this person, and that’s just what’s going to happen. And then something smashes into your life like a tornado, and shreds all of that to pieces, and suddenly, you don’t even remember if you know how to breathe anymore.” I heard him swallow.
“That’s what happened with Noie. I wasn’t planning on staying with Diane—not even in the slightest—she knew it and I knew it. And then she came to me, hysterical, telling me she was pregnant. The tornado hit—and I thought it was the biggest thing ever. Because I had woken up that morning as just Gabe Mendez—some kid from North Carolina who wanted to build things, and all of a sudden, I was Gabe Mendez, soon to be husband and father. I thought my whole freakin’ life was over. I was twenty years old, and all of a sudden, I had to worry about supporting other people. I was here on vacation, an end of the summer kind of thing, and Diane wanted to live here. So I found myself a job in construction and started saving money, because damn if my child was going to be born without a roof over its head. I hadn’t told my parents yet, because dios mio, my mom was going to kill me, even though I was marrying that girl.”
His shoulders slumped. “And then when she nearly aborted the baby—that’s when everything came crumbling down. Because that’s when I realized that she didn’t give a shit about the baby—and that I was the only person in the entire world that the baby had. The only person. Which meant that I had to be everything for that kid. And when Diane left—it was kind of a relief, knowing that there was nothing that could get between Noie and I. I changed jobs, and convinced them to let me wear her to work.”
I smiled, heart aching, at the thought of Gabe going to work wearing a little baby Noie. “And then the nightmares started.” His voice cracked. “Do you know what that did to me? Hearing her scream, night after night, panicking and not being able to do anything about it? All the doctors said it was night terrors, and there was nothing I could do. Nothing. When she finally started talking about it? God, Maddie, every time it was a punch in the heart—like I was the shittiest father in the world that I couldn’t even protect my daughter from the demons that plagued her at night. So when she started talking about Devi, I was relieved. Before Devi? She wouldn’t go near my parents. She wouldn’t let me leave her alone.”
His head dropped into his hands and he was silent for a moment. Then he continued, his voice muffled, as if he didn’t want me to hear what he was going to say next. “Sometimes, in the moments when I couldn’t stand up straight because I was so tired? Sometimes I wished that Diane had actually gone through with the abortion.”
He turned to look at me, his eyes haunted. Hunted. “Do you know what that feels like?” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “Knowing that for even a split second, you wished your child was never born?”
I nodded. Because God help me, I did. And I lived to pray the price.
“I feel like I lived fifty years in the past four years,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder how she’s only three. How she’s already three. How much longer she’s going to have to suffer the hell she does when she closes her eyes. Sam was sure that it was a past-life thing, but I couldn’t bring myself to think that. Because if it was true…” he shook his head, trying to clear it. “I can’t, Maddie. I can’t have it true. It would kill me.”
I could feel a tear making its way down my cheek.
“I couldn’t have it true, Maddie,” he repeated, looking at me. “I couldn’t.”
Turning my head away from him, I let the tears run unchecked.
Why didn’t it ever stop hurting? Why did it never stop?
“I don’t know what to do anymore, Maddie,” he said, his voice broken. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” I said, my voice choked.
Reaching over, he laid his hand on top of mine, sending jolts of electric awareness flashing to my soul. “I don’t know, Maddie,” he said, slowly threading his fingers through mine. “But telling you to stay away from Noie was one of the shittiest things I have ever done in my life.”
I nodded. “It was,” I said. “It nearly killed me.”
Turning so we were face to face, he looked at me, his gaze searing. “And with everything I have, I am so sorry for that,” he said. “I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to forgive me.”
I stared at him, knowing the tears were still flowing, and not caring. “I don’t know either.”
Slowly untangling his hand from mine, he sighed. “I have to get back to Noie,” he said.
“Okay.”
“She misses you,” he said, quiet. “She wants to know if you want to come over and visit her.”
I watched his face, trying to read his expression. Trying to figure out how he felt about it all. “I miss her, too.”
“Then you should come over and visit sometime soon,” he said.
I shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because even though you don’t believe that Devi is my daughter, I do. And so does Noie. And I can’t lie to her about that, Gabe. I can’t pretend—not even for you.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he said, the moonlight shining off the dark strands of his hair.
“But it’s going to hurt you,” I said, knowing that it would.
It hurt me—it had even before Sam told me the full story.
“Life hurts sometimes,” he said. “But just because something hurts me doesn’t mean that I should let my daughter keep going without her friend.”
I looked down at my hands, watching them twist into each other. “Tell Noie that I’ll come over tomorrow,” I said, hearing my voice shake a little.
The smile that split across his face dazzled and terrified me. “I’ll let her know,” he said.
Reaching over quickly, he squeezed my hand. “Thank you,” he whispered.
I watched silently as he walked away from the beach, and wondered if Gabe was the only one I had to give a second chance to.
Chapter · Twenty-Four
“Maddie!” I wrapped my arms around her and held Noie, breathing her in. “You came!”
“I did,” I agreed, smiling down at her, my eyes watery.
God, I had missed her so much.
“Daddy said you were coming to play with me!” she said, clinging to me and beaming, delighted.
Gabe was standing a bit away from the door. “Hi, Gabe,” I said, hearing the stiffness in my voice.
“Hey, Maddie.” His expression was unreadable.
“Can we go to the beach, Maddie?” Noie asked, bouncing in my arms.
The apartment felt like all the air had been sucked out of it. It wasn’t just the North Carolina summer—there was a profound feeling of discomfort that was bouncing off the walls, off of us, and off of the giant white elephant in the room.
“If your Daddy says we can,” I said, shifting my hold on her.
“The beach is fine, but only for a little bit,” he said. “It’s going to be supper time soon.”
I looked at the piles of work he had laid out on the table. “I can take her myself if you want,” I said, hoping that he wasn’t still working on Jen’s stupid fantasy beach house.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said, sounding overly formal.
“Really, it’s okay. I can do it,” I said, sounding equally as formal.
How did we not know how to talk to each other again?
The beach was loud and noisy—summer had really started, and there were people everywhere. “Go to the sand mountains,” Noie said, tuggin
g my hand toward the sand dunes.
I let her drag me over to the sand dunes, away from the beach crowds.
Settling into my usual spot, I watched Noie plunk herself down and start digging a hole in the sand.
“Where are you digging a hole to, Noie?” I asked, watching her lift handful after handful of sand and putting it into the growing pile next to her.
“Daddy says if I dig deep enough, I’ll get to the water,” she said, taking another handful of sand and patting it down next to her.
“Do you want help?”
“No, wanna do it myself,” she said stubbornly.
“Okay.” I leaned back to watch her.
My thoughts raced as I watched her dig, one little handful at a time.
Should I try to ask her about her nightmares? I shouldn’t. There was no reason to bring back the memories, especially ones that painful. Painful for her, and painful for me.
“No, Devi, you can’t help,” Noie said, her eyebrows pulling together in a scowl. “Doing it by myself.”
Hi, baby girl, I thought to the rustling in the wind. Mommy loves you, darling.
“Devi says hi,” Noie said, not looking up from her piles of sand.
A wide smile split across my face. The sun was shining, and I was on the beach with my two favorite girls.
“When did Devi start coming to visit you?” I asked.
“When I was still a baby,” Noie replied. “So long ago.”
She’s three, Maddie. She wouldn’t know.
“She taught me the song that scares away bad dreams,” she continued matter-of-factly. “Sunshine song. It keeps all the bad dreams away, ’cuz I didn’t have a catcher.”
“A what?” I asked, confused.
“It’s by my bed,” Noie said, taking another pile of sand and patting it down next to her.
I thought for a minute. The dreamcatcher.
“I used to have one in my other house,” she said conversationally, as though she hadn’t just dropped a relative bomb.
She had never lived anywhere else.
“What did your other house look like, honey?” I asked hesitantly. Don’t push this! I yelled at myself. What are you doing?
“It was a little room all by myself,” she said. “There were pretty blankets on the walls.” Looking down at her little hole, she scowled. “Where’s the water, Maddie?”
“Very far down,” I replied, trying to make sense of what she had just told me. Was I only jumping into conclusions because of what Sam said? Was it a coincidence that Devi’s bedroom had saris decorating the walls, and there was a dreamcatcher hanging over her bed? Was I trying to make this all into something that it couldn’t possibly be?
My breath caught, and suddenly I understood the terror Gabe had in believing in Devi.
If we were right about Devi, then maybe Sam’s story was right too.
Reaching over, I gathered Noie into my arms and held her, rocking her. Poor, poor baby. My poor baby.
“Why are you crying, Maddie?” Noie asked, touching a tear with a finger. “Are you sad?”
I nodded, holding her tighter.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” I said, cradling her little body in the safety of my arms. Something I hadn’t been able to do with Devi when she took her last breaths on Earth. “I’m sorry…”
Noie rested her head on my shoulder as I rocked her back and forth, trying somehow to apologize for what happened. “It’s okay, Mama,” she said. “It’s okay.”
Burying my face in her curls, I cried for my girls—the one I had lost and the one I had found.
I don’t know how long I sat there by the ocean, watching the waves with Noie curled up into my arms. I didn’t know what to do anymore. Nothing and everything made sense.
Noie patted my arm gently. “No more crying, right?”
“Noie,” I leaned back and looked at her carefully. “Before you lived with Daddy… where were you?”
“Somewhere else.”
I had to know. “Were you happy there, baby girl?”
She nodded. “So happy.”
Gabe was waiting for us at the apartment door. His gaze flew back and forth from my tear-stained face to Noie’s calm and happy one. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“There’s no water, Daddy,” Noie said. “I digged so far, and there was no waters.”
“Well, next time you can take a bigger shovel,” he said as she bounced off toward her room.
“I’m sorry, Gabe,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” he asked, confused.
“Noie was talking today about her old house,” I said. “And I nearly lost it, just thinking about it. I’m so sorry, Gabe.”
“So am I,” he said, sounding exhausted.
“Are you okay?” I asked, sitting down next to him on the couch.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “How am I supposed to be?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It all feels too coincidental… like, at this point, nobody has a choice about what happens anymore.”
I thought back to the past few years, and the past few months. About how different I was now from who I once was. And if there was anything I had learned since the day a semi-truck crashed into the side of the car, it was that you always had a choice. A choice to give up and let go, to let yourself sink into a pit of misery that was nearly impossible to claw your way out of.
But somewhere hiding in the rubble of what once was, there was always the choice to start over. To take what once was, to take the splintered pieces of who you were and make something new.
Sometimes it wouldn’t work out the way you wanted it to—sometimes crashing and burning was the inevitable end. But even then, there was always that glimmer of possibility hiding. As long as your heart was breathing, there was always a chance. There was always the choice to keep going.
“You always have a choice, Gabe,” I said softly. “Always.”
“How can you be so sure?”
I breathed in, and felt as though the Earth re-tilted itself and was finally spinning on its axis again. “Life wouldn’t be what it is without being able to choose.”
I walked toward the door.
“Leaving? Again?” Gabe was standing by the couch, an expression close to fury on his face. “How many times do I have to watch you walk away?”
I flew to him, wrapping my arms around him. “I’m not leaving, Gabe. I’m not.”
“How do I know that?” he asked, banding his arms around me and pulling me even closer.
“Trust me,” I said, my words muffled into his shoulder. “I need you to trust me.”
“And I don’t need you to trust me?” he asked, still angry.
I tilted my head and looked up at him. Taking a deep breath, I ripped myself open until he could see straight to where my heart was breathing. “I do trust you. Swear, Gabe. I trust you with everything.”
His grip on my arms loosened a little.
“I was going to go back to my apartment and get my photo album,” I said. “I wanted to show you who I was.”
There was silence as he slowly let me go. “I’ll leave the door unlocked,” he said.
My eyes burned. “I’ll be back soon.”
For the first time since that conversation at the beach, I watched his lips turn up at the corners. “I know.”
“This was the first time I went to one of Ravi’s family things,” I said, pointing to a picture of Ravi and I, dressed in traditional Indian garb.
Noie sat on my lap, looking at the picture with fascination. “Look, Daddy!” she exclaimed, pointing to my hands. “Someone colored on Maddie!”
Gabe chuckled. “That was on purpose, Noie. It’s called a henna.”
She glanced at him suspiciously. “But you can only color on papers, Daddy. Even you said so.”
“Sometimes, for special occasions, people decorate their skin,” he said, looking at the picture thoughtfully.
“Like when Auntie Sam colors on her face?”
I burst into laughter. “No, honey, that’s makeup.”
Gabe shrugged. “I’m okay with that as an explanation.” He looked down at the picture. “How old were you here?”
“Fifteen. I had just found out I was pregnant.”
“You look so happy.”
I smiled down at the picture, at that little slice of memory preserved on photo paper. “We were.”
Noie yawned, drooping against my shoulder. “Tired,” she mumbled.
I made a move to get up. “Stay.” Gabe got up to turn off the main light in the room. The room was cloaked in darkness, one very different than what I had gotten used to. This one was a blanket of comfort, draping itself over us.
I closed the photo album and put it on the side table. Leaning back into the couch, I cradled Noie in my arms. “Go to sleep here, baby,” I whispered to her. “You’ll be okay.”
She nodded sleepily and burrowed in. “Story?” she asked.
Gabe slid next to me on the couch. “Only if you want to.”
I looked down at Noie and breathed in the smell of little girl. Sitting here on the couch next to a man who I could trust with my heart, with his daughter on my lap, it was like coming around in a full circle in the oddest of ways. I looked over at Gabe and started to speak. “Once upon a time, there was a girl who lost all the people she loved the best. She tried to live happily ever after without them, but she didn’t do a good job.”
“Why not?” Noie asked.
“Because she forgot something very important.”
“She forgot?”
I nodded. “She forgot that she could still love them even if they weren’t with her. She forgot that she could love other people too.” I could feel Gabe watching me, warm and wonderful and there. “She forgot that if she hid her heart away from other people, she would never live happily ever after.”
“So what did she do?”
I looked at the shadows of the pictures hung up on the walls—the ones Noie drew of Devi. The ones of Gabe and Noie, of Sam and the Mendezes. Of family. Of friends. Of possibility.