Chuckling, I did just that. Smiling with a mouth full, I said, “Yu’s, mu’m.”
“Here.” A heap of bacon clunked onto my plate.
That’s when I noticed a bruise on her arm. “What did you do there?”
She appeared puzzled while observing it. “No idea. I may need some iron supplements.” Accusingly, she squinted at me. “Your sinner ways are sucking the life out of me.”
“Wow.” I faked hurt feelings. “I thought you said being a sinner wasn’t actually a bad thing.”
A piece of toast flew at my head.
Chapter 6
Powerful Storms
Illusion or imagination…?
The last day of being an eighth grader was bittersweet. I had fun, but I was soon going to have to fight my way back to the top as a high schooler. Either way, I had the whole summer before that challenge had to be faced. The first week of freedom was drama-free. Noma was busy doing her online job. However, in the second week, we stumbled onto a very sensitive subject…
To no surprise, Noma was tending to her plants when I headed down the stairs from my loft bedroom. “For real, it’s starting to look like a forest in here.”
Mid-pour, Noma smiled up at me. “He used to say that, too.”
Suspecting I was going to like where this conversation was headed, I stopped my descent. “What?”
She went back to her plants in front of the living room windows. “Your dad. Whenever he wanted me to hear him, he always said ‘for real’.”
My chest tightened. Damn, how I loved hearing anything about him. And for me to be doing it also? Made my heart soar.
Making my way down again, I sat on the second-to-last step, then attempted to sound extremely casual. “By, uh, any chance is the, uh, librarian available?”
She peered over her shoulder with inquisitive yet accusing eyes and a smirk that gave me hope. “Hmm… for certain genres of books, possibly.”
I’ll take what I can get. “How old was Dad when you met him?”
When she stood up straight, her water pail hanging at her side, I realized it hurt for her to think of him. “He was nine.”
Treading carefully, so that Noma wouldn’t close the library, but also to spare her much pain, I softly asked, “When did he become more than some kid to you?”
I watched her throat bob as she took a seat on the small couch, where we watched movies together. Placing the water canister on the old floors, her voice sounded strained. “It didn’t take long to really care. Then we became quite close over the years.” She didn’t offer more but stared at me, almost giving permission for more questions.
Hating to see an inch of pain on her face, I pressed on because my desperation for knowledge about the man was overpowering at times. “Were you happy when he became my mother’s—” I suddenly realized I had no idea what he was to her. A one-night stand? A husband?
Noma continued to stare at me, not willing to say more than she had to. That kind of pissed me off. Was it wrong of me to want to know about my parents?
I never asked many questions before Dad died, yes, because I didn’t want Noma to hurt, but also because I was young and thought every kid had a life similar to mine. Didn’t every kid have leathered uncles and live with their grandma? Apparently not.
Trying to disguise my growing frustration, I asked, “What was he to her?”
I was expecting a simple answer, not one that would punch me in the gut.
Deadpan, and not moving, she told me, “The love of her life. Her biggest mistake. A blessing that will live on within my soul, always.”
My jaw dropped into my lap. I was too young to understand the true depth of the strongest words ever spoken, but I was wise enough to understand they carried a weight that I would feel for the rest of my life. They would affect me. Guide me, for all future decisions. These words sounded like a storm… A curse with the power of the divine.
Whether or not my parents had been married no longer concerned me. No piece of paper or vow could ever contain such a nature of fates.
I guess I had been sitting there on the stairs, silent in thought for some time, because Noma finally nodded while exhaling. “Yes, the two of them were that intense.” She stared off to a memory she was about to share. “Yet, I thought it was best to separate them.”
