Noah hadn’t thought about making love to Cora for a long time. When he’d returned from Afghanistan, she was still recovering from delivering Gia. And after that, even when her doctor gave the all clear, she was tired and self-conscious, and she didn’t seem to want him to touch her. The few times they came together had them scurrying apart when they were done, turning away to hide their despair and their disappointment in each other.
Moses’s words were a reminder that it hadn’t always been that way.
Somehow, Noah found his voice. “Those were some of her favorite things. She walked down the aisle on our wedding day to a Harry Connick song. And yeah. I’d grown out of my uniform. She always laughed about that and said it was just like me to try and make it work. And her umbrella collection was out of control.” Noah’s voice broke, and he stroked his beard again, trying to soothe himself, trying to rein in the emotion threatening to break free. He’d lost control of the session—if he was honest, he’d never had control—and he needed to end it now before Moses reduced him to a quivering mess in the corner.
“If you know all that—about Dr. Andelin’s wife—then I want you to tell me about Molly,” Tag said, straightening in his chair and swinging his gaze from Moses back to Noah.
Noah rose to his feet.
“Tag, I promise we’ll revisit this. But not now. Not tonight.” And with a nod to the orderlies, who seemed as shaken as he was, Noah ushered everyone out of the room.
* * *
“You aren’t as calm and gentle as you want us all to believe, are you, Dr. Noah? You know how to handle yourself,” Moses said when Noah pulled out a chair and sat down beside him. Noah hadn’t seen Moses since Tuesday night. It was Thursday now. He’d had some time to recover.
“I spent some time in the military.” Noah shrugged.
“That makes sense. You didn’t mind wading in with Chaz.”
“I like Chaz, and he was outnumbered.”
“I like him too. I wouldn’t hurt Chaz.”
“I know. But sometimes people get hurt, even when we don’t mean it.”
“Those for me?” Moses’s eyes were on the stacks of drawing paper and the Styrofoam cup of grease pencils.
“Yes.”
“Can I have ‘em now?”
“You can.” Noah pushed the supplies toward him.
“You lost your wife.”
“I did.” Noah wondered who was helping who. “But you said she was okay.”
“She is.”
“That is a great comfort to me.”
Moses shrugged. “It’s true.”
Noah nodded, acknowledging, even if he wasn’t completely sure he believed. And he changed the subject.
“Who have you lost, Moses?”
“Nobody,” Moses said, derisive.
The word hung between them, painting the air with false disdain. Noah didn’t correct Moses or tell him he knew different. He just handed him a pencil and sat back.
“I lost GiGi,” Moses whispered, almost remorseful. “GiGi wasn’t nobody.” He said the name with hard g’s—gee gee—and Noah waited for him to explain her significance. Noah knew who she was. He’d read the file. But he waited. Moses’s knee started to bounce, and his shoulders twitched. His hand started moving across the page, and a woman with a thousand lines and flyaway hair was brought to life.
“Is that GiGi?”
“Yes,” Moses grunted.
“She looks a little like Abuela,” Noah commented. Moses looked up, surprised.
“You don’t look Hispanic, but . . . I guess how we look doesn’t tell the whole story, does it?”
“No. Not even close. It doesn’t tell the best parts,” Noah murmured. “But I don’t think I’m Hispanic. I guess I could be. I don’t know who my dad was.”
Moses hesitated, his hand pausing over the paper. “You don’t?”
“No. I don’t even know his name.”
“Me neither,” Moses muttered. “But to be fair, I’m guessin’ he never knew I existed.”
Noah didn’t respond. He just watched Moses move onto another piece of paper, setting the picture of his grandmother aside.
“So who’s Abuela?” Moses asked, his eyes on the paper. Noah was surprised at his interest.
“My friend’s grandmother. She made me feel loved. She was good to me,” Noah said.
“She gone?”
“She is. She died when I was serving in Afghanistan two years ago. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I miss her.”
“I didn’t get to say goodbye to GiGi either.”
“You can’t see her?” Noah asked.
“No. I don’t ever see the dead I want to see.”
“What about right now? Are you seeing anyone you don’t want to see?
“Besides you, Doc?” Moses shot back, a smile in his voice.
“Besides me.”
“Nah. Right now the dead are quiet. It’s nice.”
Noah nodded. “That’s good. I could use a little quiet myself. Will you let me sit here while you draw?”
“As long as you don’t stare at me and write a bunch of notes in my file that I can’t read.”
“I’ll show you everything I write if you show me everything you draw.”
“I don’t really want to know what you think about me, Doc.”
Noah laughed. “I understand that. Sometimes it’s better that way. But you might be surprised what I think.”
“You sure you’re a doctor? You aren’t very old.”
“Neither are you. But look what you can do.” Noah nodded toward the drawings.
Moses smiled. “I feel ancient.”
“Me too,” Noah murmured.
Moses looked down at the page and his hand began to sail again. Noah didn’t ask him for an explanation. He just sat, watching him create, watching a face emerge from the lines.
It was Cora. Her hair whipping around her face, her eyes so alive his heart seized in his chest. Moses had drawn her smiling, as though that was what he saw, and Noah took the portrait from his outstretched hands.
“She’s okay, Doc.”
“I believe you, Moses.”
“Are you okay?”
“Right now, I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time.”
Six
1988
There are places where Christmas should never be spent. McDonalds, the laundromat, a gas station, or stranded on the side of the road, just to name a few. Mercedes was sure there were hundreds of terrible places, but the hospital ranked up there with the very worst.
Oscar had been sick for weeks. Every night his coughing kept her awake. It kept them all awake. Yet morning would come, and Oscar would get up and head out the door; he never missed a day of work. Alma grew quiet, Abuela prayed, but Mercedes assumed that if Papi was okay to go to work he must be okay. But he wasn’t.
He didn’t go to midnight mass on Nochebuena and on Christmas day—his only day off—he didn’t get out of bed. They opened presents sitting around him, trying to coax him to eat some of Abuela’s pazole, but he smiled and shooed them away, apologizing for his fatigue and his lack of spirit. By Christmas night, his fever had spiked, he couldn’t breathe, and when Alma tried to get him out to the car so she could take him to the hospital, he collapsed before he reached the door.
Alma made Mercedes call 911 because she spoke the best English, and when the ambulance came and took Oscar, Alma rode with him, leaving Abuela and Mercedes to watch helplessly as the ambulance sped away, leaving them behind. Mercedes scrambled up the stairs to Noah’s apartment, determined to find them a ride.
“Noah!” Mercedes pounded on his door with both hands. She knew he was home. Cora and her mother had gone south to Heather’s family for Christmas, but Noah and his mother didn’t have anywhere to go, and it wasn’t late enough for Shelly to leave for work.
Noah came to the door, but stepped out into the hallway, pulling it closed behind him.
“What’s wrong, Mer?”
“Papi’s sick. The ambulance came. The lights were flashing and everything, didn’t you see?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Mami went with Papi in the ambulance, but Abuela can’t drive, and we can’t wait here. Can your mother take us? They said they were taking him to U of U. That’s her hospital, right?”
“She can’t take you,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s not working tonight and she’s . . . asleep.”
Mercedes knew what that meant. Shelly was in a chemically induced sleep and wouldn’t be waking any time soon.
“But I can take you,” Noah said firmly.
“No, you can’t!” Mercedes said, trying not to cry. “You’re only fourteen, Noah!”
“I drive all the time, Mer. Don’t worry. Give me a minute to grab the keys.”
He was outside seconds later, wearing his puffy new coat and dangling a set of keys from his fingers, locking the apartment door behind him. That morning, Mercedes had delivered a plate of tamales and cinnamon sugar tortillas that Abuela made and made Noah open his present, a jacket she’d scrimped and saved for. He’d worn the same coat three years in a row, and the sleeves stopped two inches above his wrists and the zipper was broken. Noah had been thrilled with the gift, but the morning’s happiness felt like a lifetime ago.
Noah handled his mother’s rusty blue Impala with the confidence and care of a sixty-year-old man. He drove with both hands on the wheel, traveling at the speed limit, stopping at the lights, signaling when he turned, and eventually pulling into the hospital parking lot like he’d driven the route a hundred times. Maybe he had. Abuela hadn’t questioned Noah when he slid behind the wheel. She’d simply climbed in the backseat and folded her hands across her lap, waiting to be delivered to her destination. Mer sat in the front by Noah, heart in her throat, hands braced against the dashboard, prepared to die, and praying Papi wouldn’t be in heaven when she arrived.
Now they sat in the Emergency Room next to a crooked Christmas tree with cheap gold tinsel and red and green bows, waiting for news. They’d gotten word to Alma that they were in the waiting room, but hadn’t heard anything since arriving an hour before. Noah sat beside Mercedes wearing his new coat, his elbows on his knobby knees, his big feet in his worn, no-brand sneakers tapping a nervous rhythm on the industrial floor.
“I hate it here,” Mercedes whispered, resorting to anger instead of grief.
“I don’t,” Noah said.
“Why?” she gasped. How could anyone like a hospital waiting room?
He shrugged. “It makes me hopeful. If people are here, they’re getting help.”
“But people come here to die. People are sick. And scared.” Mercedes was sick and scared. She stood abruptly, unable to sit still a second longer.