He walked through the clinic on wooden legs, his eyes straight forward. It was the day Cora died all over again. He had the same sense of being outside of himself, of watching his life unfold from a two-way mirror. He crossed the parking lot and unlocked the Subaru without remembering a single step. He buckled Gia into her seat the way he’d done the day her mother left them. Mer had run to the store and purchased one, so he didn’t have to drive home without Gia buckled in. Gia’s other car seat had still been upside down in the creek in Emigration Canyon.
Gia’s seat faced forward now, and her legs were longer. He’d buckled her in hundreds of times since that day. He’d kissed her cheeks a thousand more times than that. He kissed her now, an automatic response to her tears, and she grabbed his beard, curling tiny fingers into his face to keep him close.
“Dee-uh sad,” she cried. Gia’s sad.
“I know, Bug. I’m sad too,” he choked. And suddenly he was. Terribly, terribly sad. Distraught. Dismayed. Devastated. The grief blew through his disbelief and seared the fog in his head, in his heart, and in his limbs. He clenched his teeth at the sudden, ferocious return of sensation.
“Daddy sad?” Gia asked, still clutching his face.
“Yeah. Daddy’s sad.”
“Daddy cwy?”
His face was wet. His eyes were streaming. The flames continued to grow, and the heat continued to gather, and it was all he could do to extricate himself from Gia’s little hands so he wouldn’t scorch her too.
He hurried to the driver-side door and climbed in, shaking and sick, afraid to drive, afraid to sit still. He thought of calling Mercedes. She would make him feel better. She would look after Gia while he burned. But he couldn’t run to Mer every time life got hard. He was Gia’s father, and she was his responsibility, not Mer’s.
“I’m Gia’s father,” he choked, and realized he’d spoken out loud. Was he?
He couldn’t call Mercedes. Then he would have to tell her what had happened. He would have to explain. He would have to face a terrible possibility.
“Daddy go?” Gia asked from the backseat, her shots clearly forgotten. She didn’t understand why they sat in a cold car. She didn’t understand why he cried. She didn’t know his world was on fire.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah, Bug?” he whispered.
“Dee-Uh hungy.”
He turned and looked at her, sitting so patiently in her car seat, the tears still drying on her cheeks.
“Gia’s hungry?” he asked.
She nodded and then smiled, showing him her small white teeth.
Feed, clothe, comfort. He could do that. He would do that. He pulled his seatbelt on and turned the key.
* * *
“Noah?” Mercedes called, shutting the door behind her.
His house was silent and thankfully tidy, but no one answered her when she called. Noah’s Subaru was in the garage. His wallet, his phone, and his keys were still in the middle of the kitchen table beside the container of soup she’d left him yesterday. The soup hadn’t been touched.
She climbed the stairs and cracked his bedroom door. He was sprawled across his bed, shirtless, wearing the same sweats he’d been wearing when she’d checked on him the day before.
Heather had called her at work Saturday morning, Gia babbling in the background. “Mercedes? Noah just brought Gia over. She had a doctor’s appointment yesterday. Had her shots, poor baby. But she seems fine . . . not even sore. Something’s wrong with Noah, though. He looked bad, Mercedes. He said he’d called in sick to work, but he still wanted me to watch Gia. I told him I would keep her tomorrow too, and he agreed. He never does that! I asked him if something else was wrong, and he said he’s just tired, but I don’t believe him. The anniversary’s coming up.” Her voice broke. “Do you think it’s that?”
Mercedes had promised Heather she would check in on him, and slipped over on her lunch hour Saturday afternoon. Noah was in bed asleep, and she didn’t bother him. She left a note and a quart of chicken soup from the deli down the street. He hadn’t called back, but she hadn’t been too worried. Until now. Now she was back again, twenty-four hours later, and he didn’t appear to have left his room.
“Noah?”
He pulled a pillow over his head but he didn’t greet her.
“Good. You’re awake. Are you okay?”
“No.” The sound was muffled, but she heard it.
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Are you . . . sad?”
He didn’t answer, and she walked around to his window and opened the blinds, letting the weak afternoon light into the room. She cracked the window and breathed deeply, sensing rain in the air. The room was stuffy and smelled of musky man and fabric softener, an odd combination, indicating Noah’s face-plant was sudden and not a slow decline.
“You haven’t left this room in two days. You’ve been asleep since yesterday morning. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” she asked, turning back toward the bed.
Noah pulled the pillow off his face and stared at her mulishly. His hair was messy, his eyes bloodshot, and if he’d actually slept, he hadn’t slept well. Dark circles rimmed his eyes.
“I don’t want company right now, Mer.”
“Why?”
“I’m tired.”
“Why?”
He groaned, clearly annoyed by her questions, but a moment later he tried to explain. “What did Abuela used to say . . . about the three things? The three things that matter?”
“Only three things matter. Who He is. Who you are. And who your friends are,” Mercedes parroted.
“Yeah. Well, I don’t know the answer to any of those things right now.”
“Um, hello?” Mercedes said, incredulous. She stomped over to the bed and sat down beside him, making the mattress bounce. “I’m right here. Say that to my face.”
“I don’t know who Cora was, Mer. I thought I did. I was sure I did. But I didn’t know her.”
“What happened, Noah?” she asked, trepidation churning in her belly.
“She told me once that nobody is safe. Is that true, Mer? Is nobody safe? I tried so hard to make her feel safe.”
Grief swelled and swam in Mercedes’s eyes, but Noah simply shut his and shook his head, as if he didn’t know the answers anymore. For a moment they were quiet, both lost in their own thoughts.
“It’ll be a year on the fifth,” he whispered.
“Yeah. It will.” Mercedes felt a sliver of relief. Maybe Noah was still coming to terms with the way Cora died. Maybe that was all this was.
“I’m just going to sleep a little longer. Okay?” Noah rolled away from her, and for a minute Mercedes considered letting him have his way.
“No. You need to get up now,” she said softly.
“I’m tired.”
“No, you aren’t. But you do stink. You need a shower, and you need food, and you need to go get your daughter from Heather’s. She’s worried about you, and I want to see Gia.”
“You go get her. I’ll sleep,” he mumbled.
Mercedes threw the blanket from his legs and wrapped her arms around him, trying to hoist him up. He was all warm skin and stale breath and shuttered eyes that made her heart quake and her stomach clench.
“Damnit, Mer.”
“How long has it been since you had something to eat?” she asked. “I’m not leaving until you’re washed and fed.”
He didn’t reply, but he relented and stood, letting her herd him into the bathroom. She put toothpaste on his brush and wetted it beneath the faucet, talking to him like he was five years old, and she was his mother.
“Brush,” she demanded. He obeyed, scrubbing listlessly at his teeth.
“Get your tongue too,” she bossed.
He just shook his head and bumped her out of the way so he could spit and repeat. She filled up a capful of mouthwash and held it out to him as he finished.
“Gargle. And then get in the shower.”
“Get out, Mer,” he whispered.
“No,” she snapped.
He gargled loudly, swishing the minty antiseptic—guaranteed to make a dog’s breath smell fresh—around his teeth before spitting it into the sink and shoving Mercedes toward the door.
“Go,” he rasped.
“I don’t trust you. You’ll lock me out and stay in here until I leave.”
“I need to take a piss.”
“Go right ahead. I’ll turn my back and plug my nose, so I don’t have to smell your urine.”
“Mer, I’m not a child,” he sighed. “Go.”
“I know you’re not a child. So grow up and do your business. I’m not leaving.” She folded her arms and stared him down. Or up. Even in her four-inch heels, she only came to his chin. His hair, bristled and standing on end from sleep and neglect, made him even taller.
“I can’t pee with you listening,” he argued.
Mercedes stepped around him and turned on the water in the shower, adjusting the knobs so it would warm up.
“I can’t hear you now. It’s all just water flowing. Pee,” she insisted.
He moved away from the sink, and she heard the toilet seat clank against the porcelain back. She kept her back turned as promised. She didn’t want to humiliate him. She really didn’t. But she knew him too well, and there was something in his face that reminded her of Cora’s dad the day before he shot himself. It was the look her mother had in her eyes after Papi’s funeral. It was the quiet, awful realization that life would never be the same and the growing temptation to leave it all behind.
He was scaring her. She could endure many things. She had endured many things, but life without Noah wasn’t one of them. His despondence made her frantic. Her heart was pounding and her palms were hot, her fingers numb. She curled her hands into fists, willing them to cooperate, willing Noah to cooperate.
“I’ll wait right here while you wash,” she demanded, but her voice wobbled, and she winced and cleared her throat. But she didn’t step down. “Then I’m going to make sure you get dressed and brush your hair and put on deodorant and maybe scrub your teeth again for good measure. Then I’m going to make you breakfast and hold your damn hand while you walk out the door. Then we’re going to go for a walk. A long walk. And we’re going to sweat and breathe the fresh air, and you are going to stop thinking about how much life sucks.”
“Are you going to watch me undress?” he said, his voice flat.
“If I have to.” She knew she was being completely unreasonable, but the severely depressed were not trustworthy. “You’re already half naked.”
“Not the half that matters.”
The toilet flushed behind her, and she stepped away from the bathtub, moving toward the door, happy to give him space but unwilling to leave. The bathroom was arranged with the sink and the shower facing each other, the toilet tucked back in the corner.