“Then he asked whether you were broken.”
The word hit me strangely.
“Broken?”
“He’d noticed you weren’t eating. He’d noticed you weren’t laughing. He knew you had started sitting by yourself.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him you weren’t broken.”
Mom’s eyes filled again.
“And then he said something I’ve remembered ever since.”
“What?”
Her voice trembled.
“He said, ‘Good. Because I don’t know how to fix people. I only know how to stay.’”
I couldn’t say anything.
Suddenly, those lunches came back to me in detail.
Noah dropping into the seat beside me.
Noah talking about baseball when I didn’t feel like talking.
Noah quietly eating when I didn’t want conversation at all.
I had always remembered those moments as friendship.
I had never realized he had made a conscious decision to stay near me because he could see I was hurting.
Mom squeezed my fingers.
“That day, I asked him for something I probably never should have asked a twelve-year-old for.”
I turned toward her.
“What?”
“I asked Noah to look after you.”
I stared at her.
“You did?”
She nodded, ashamed.
“I was falling apart, Christina. Your father was gone. You barely talked to me. I didn’t know how to reach you.”
Her voice broke.
“But Noah could still make you smile.”
I imagined twelve-year-old Noah standing beside my mother’s car.
“What did he say?”
Mom gave a small, teary laugh.
“Just ‘Okay.’”
Of course he did.
