“How do you know? Can you feel what he feels?”
“I know my son. Or does a father have no intuition?”
Methuselah snorted. “Of course you have intuition. But it is obviously stilted by your desire to justify lying to the boy his entire life.”
“I’ve not lied to him.”
“Noah is hurting because you told him he can’t know his mother. You and I both know that’s not true.”
“How could I tell him and watch the pain bleed from him as it did me?”
Methuselah’s eyes flashed and lifted with sudden understanding. “I see. You kept the truth from him, not for his sake, but for your own. Because you can’t bear to speak of it.”
“How could I let him feel what I felt when Mother was taken from us? Better that he forget her.”
“He cannot forget. Who does he have besides you and a woman and girl who aren’t his blood? You’ve already taken the world from him. All he wants is to be given the opportunity to name what’s missing.”
Lamech ran his hands over his face and looked at the cracks lining his knuckles stained with dirt. The world was filled with toil. How could Noah ever be free from the struggle? The endless scrape of knuckles against earth? When would they ever find rest?
“You forget,” Methuselah said, “that such a desire is rooted in our bones. Noah can no more part with thoughts of his mother than forget his own name. A child should have parents. But when you deny him the remnants of his mother, you push him to deny you, as well.”
Lamech thrust his fist into his palm. “What choice do I have? Nothing will ever satisfy him! ‘I am sorry, Noah. I let your mother die.’ How could that make him love me?”
Methuselah lowered his voice and tapped his temple as if he knew the remedy to Lamech’s problems. “Do you remember when your mother died, how I tried telling you she was only sleeping, that she would wake eventually?”
“How could I forget?”
“How did you feel when you realized your father would lie to you?”
Lamech met Methuselah’s gaze.
“I regret a lot in my life,” Methuselah said, “but that moment, when I saw your eyes strip me of pretense . . . I regret that moment more than most.”
“It seems your lot in life is to tell me to not be like you,” Lamech said.
“So be it. You’d be wise to listen.”
“What if he doesn’t understand the reasons I’ve kept him from knowing about her?”
“You can’t control anyone, least of all one so fiery in spirit. If you have good reasons, he will understand, eventually. If you don’t, take responsibility for your mistakes. After all, you are his father. You can’t be a father and not make mistakes.”
“What if he refuses to forgive me?”
“If you say nothing, you guarantee his hatred. Your only hope is to hold to the truth.”
Lamech held his throbbing head between his palms. “I can’t do it.”
Methuselah sighed and rubbed his eyes. “What evil could come from him knowing about his mother?”
“Pain.”
“Pain is not evil. Evil resides in the hearts and attitudes of man, not the forces of nature. And pain is like the heat of the sun, or the cold of the night. No father can keep his child from it. And we are never asked to. Your duty is to help him overcome it.”
Lamech chewed on his fingernails and thought back to the endless years alone in the mountains, of the gnawing ache of his mother’s absence that still throbbed in the dead of night when his soul was split by the gleam of stars. “How can I help him overcome what I never could? I still mourn the loss of her. I don’t know how to get past it any more than he does.”
“If pain is truly what you fear, remember that loneliness is the greatest of pains, and the only remedy for loneliness is love. Be there for him. Listen to him and tell him of your pain. He is not just a boy. Noah is a man in the making, and, like you, every bit as deserving of respect.”
Lamech took a deep breath and, after running his fingers through his beard, said, “You must have thought a lot in that dungeon.”
Tears fell from Methuselah’s eyes as his cheeks swelled with a smile. “In such darkness, I could hardly think. Now, I finally feel alive again. Breathing all the breaths and thinking all the thoughts I would have thought in all those many years.” He reached and hugged Lamech fiercely. “It was the memory of your face that got me through it. The sense of my love for you. And how I failed you. I am sorry.”
Lamech wept on his father’s shoulder, hugged him, and said, “It’s okay. I’m sorry too. I see now how difficult being a father is.”
Chapter 38
Noah wept until his emotions seemed puddled at his feet. He stared at the wet dirt, a dull sense of loss replacing the fire and pain. He sniffed, and a twig cracked; he spun to see Father standing not fifteen paces off.
Lamech nodded in greeting.
Noah averted his eyes and wiped his hands on his rough tunic. Lamech approached and crouched beside him, but Noah couldn’t look at him without feeling bile rise to the back of his throat.
Several long breaths passed between them. Bodily rhythms offset, tenuous. Father sighed and said, “Your mother . . . you are just like her.”
Noah’s throat tightened anew. Now that he’d heard Father speak, he wasn’t sure if he wanted him to continue. What if his mother wasn’t as he’d hoped? What if, as he so often feared, she had left him because she’d never loved him at all?
“She was headstrong, fiery, and intelligent,” Lamech said, and Noah felt his breath seize. “You have her eyes, and her hair and hands. The shape of your shoulders is perhaps a mix of hers and mine. Her name . . . her name was Adah.” Lamech paused, wiped his face, and sniffed.
The thought of Father crying angered him, because he knew it was only motivated by selfishness. Lamech was only telling Noah what he deserved to be told years ago because Noah had told his father for the first time in his life that he hated him.
Still, to hear his mother’s name. Adah. His mind passed over the syllables like a hand over smooth river stones.
“Do you want to know what happened to her?” Lamech spoke the words as if wishing he could take them back.
Noah clenched his teeth, rubbed his burning eyes, and said, “Yes.”
Lamech took a deep, stuttering breath, and began, “I found her in the mountains . . .” And he explained how he had nursed her to health after she had been held captive and beaten. How her family had been destroyed by the Others, and how she had fled to find safety. Then how Lamech and Adah married, and Noah had grown in her belly. They planned their future, soaking up each moment together as onyx soaks the heat of the sun.
Noah listened to every detail and had to remind himself to breathe. Even what little Father shared seemed to peel back Noah’s ribs and slice through his soul. The pain was unbearable, but for once he felt she was with him, and he would endure anything to sense her nearness.
“But,” Lamech said, and his smile crumbled, “days before we expected you to be born, the Others found us in the mountains, beat Adah, and burned our home. I killed them, and she succeeded in bringing you into this world, but doing so spent her, and she died from the wounds she had received from the Others.” Lamech wiped his eyes and rocked. “I buried her, took you into the village, and found Elina, who agreed to feed and care for you as I could not. We traveled for months, and nearly perished, for the Others followed us. So we kept moving until you grew older and we realized that the only way we could keep you safe was to live apart from the rest of the world.” Another long pause. Lamech wiped more tears. “Son, I . . .” He did not finish.
Noah stood, body trembling, chest smoldering. “What did her voice sound like?”
Lamech stared at Noah, then stood and gazed through the trees as if conjuring the memory of her. “Low and warm. At times, I thought it silk washed in the colors of sunset.”
Another stab of pain, followed by a flood of warmth. “Did she like turnips?”
/> “I never knew.”
“Did she sing?”
A nod. “She could be unpredictable, like you.”
Powerful emotions clutched his throat. His breathing sped, and he felt a sudden rush of excitement. “Was she good at making things?”
“I’m not sure where you got that talent from. Certainly not from her.”
Noah frowned. “Was she good at anything?”
“She was a good mother. And wife. And a valiant friend.”
“That doesn’t sound very impressive.”
“Most of what’s valuable in life doesn’t sound impressive.”
“Was she kind?”
“Of course. And beautiful. Astoundingly beautiful.”
Noah closed his eyes and let a slow breath escape. “Describe her.”
“Small, rounded cheeks. A gentle chin and nose. Eyes as large and bright as a deer’s. Hair shoulder-length and thick. Neck slender and long. Dark brows. Full lips that spread into a smile that could steal a stranger’s breath.”
“Did she smile often?”
“No. But that only made the gift of it more meaningful.”
“I like that.”
“What?”
“I like her.” Now the tears overwhelmed him, and he sunk to his knees and wiped his face once. Twice. The pain flowed unstoppable, and he held his face in his hands. With each sob came a ration of satisfaction, like the closing of a bitter circle. He whispered her name, “Adah,” his mind focused on the picture Father’s words had painted. He loved her as he hadn’t loved anyone or anything. And he missed her and wished that he could be with her.
But no longer did he feel a shame for his past, but a glorious pride, and a fury at those who had stolen her away. For now he knew that she had never abandoned him. That instead he had been robbed of what might have been.
Father bent and scooped him up, and he clung to Father’s shoulder and screamed because he could do nothing else. The fibers of Father’s tunic scraped his wet, swollen eyelids. The trees seemed to spin and whisper words of comfort as they bent over him, their knotted faces filled with compassion until the clouded sky replaced them and he closed his eyes and felt bedding against his back.
The pain waned, and in its wake crept a sense of purpose. For years he had wondered what destiny awaited him. Now, he thought maybe he knew.
He would find the men who killed his mother, so he could cull the longing that burned just beneath the skin of his chest. He imagined that if he pressed his ribs hard enough, he might snuff the flames, but each year had seared further, until he feared that by the time he reached adulthood, naught would be left but a blackened soul.
Chapter 39
Lamech left his son in their small home, walked to the stream, and waded thigh-deep to let the chill water cool his bones. The tears bled dry, forming a salty residue that stiffened his cheeks, and Methuselah approached again.
“I fear for him,” Lamech said to Methuselah. “A darkness haunts him, and I’m reminded of my dreams. Long ago, you said that sorrow was coming. I only fear it might grow greater and shatter what family we have left. The world is changing. Those devils have swept the nations, and the few men left are bent on evil. What hope remains? What future might Noah lay hold of?”
“Instead, you should ask yourself what hope isolation offers.”
“Survival.”
“Better that he die struggling to heal than to live hollow and afraid.”
Lamech turned and examined his father.
“He doesn’t belong here,” Methuselah said. “You tried to keep him safe, but that boy is wounded. If you keep him isolated, you will only delve deeper scars.”
“You’ve not seen what I’ve seen, Father.”
“Refuse!” Methuselah’s face reddened, and his beard shook. “I’ve lived three centuries, ten years of which I spent in the dungeons of the demons you fear. I have seen the devastation they wrought to our kin, hardly recognizable under the tyranny of fear. More, I have seen you grown into a man. If a darkness hunts Noah, who are you to stop it? Do you command the sun and moon, that you would make them shine on him alone?”
Lamech trudged ashore, his legs splashing the stream. “He is my son, not yours. I told him of his mother. What else would you have me do?”
“I would have you wake to the fact that your methods are flawed.”
“And yours weren’t?” Lamech said. “You kept me in the mountains for years. Never spending a thought for my wounds. Like a bleeding wolf, you cowered and licked your scabs open year after year.”
“And now you follow suit, cloistering your son in an empty copse. There is nothing here save the sounds of growing trees and the sun’s rays beating the dirt. Such irony in your words, for I criticize only your repetition of my mistakes. I never claimed perfection.”
Lamech walked past him and kept going.
“He should be with others,” Methuselah spoke to his back. “He needs friendship and community. You will never be enough for him, and neither will that woman or her daughter.”
Lamech ignored him until he reached the garden, and then the forest, where he found a suitable space in the shadow of a gophar tree, whose massive limbs stretched wide and held leaves the size of a man’s head. He leaned against its trunk and closed his eyes, no longer feeling secure in his beliefs.
From the beginning, he had questioned his intuition to hide Noah, and Methuselah’s appearance only added layers of dissonance. Lamech still feared danger might find them, but now he also feared Noah might run away.
If Noah purposed in his mind to leave, and Lamech could not stop him, how prepared would he be to survive the world he’d find?
Lamech tried to see the sky through the canopy, but it was too thick. He wanted to find the stars, to be offered some sense of dimension and distance so that his perspective might be righted. He felt too isolated, and yet he had forced isolation upon himself, trusting in detachment to provide what he could not.
And now he couldn’t shake the sensation that something was terribly wrong.
He sat for hours, mulling over the same thoughts until he thought he might go mad. Eventually his emotions waned and his exhaustion grew. He closed his eyes and felt himself drift, but instead of finding rest, a dark dream rolled over his mind like a mountain.
He opened his eyes to a black sky filled with foreign stars. A shadow approached and obscured his left shoulder. “It has been long,” the shadow said, “but you must not speak. Not since we last met have you been in such danger. The man who has come to you, whom you call father. You must not listen to him.”
“What do you mean?” Now that deadly chill approached, and with it a rush of anxiety.
“Hush!” the shadow said. “Did I not warn you not to speak?”
Lamech knew somehow that if the approaching chill engulfed him, and those fingers that seemed to materialize from the cold grasped hold of him, he would be torn asunder.
“I have much to tell you, but our enemy has found us. Quick, you must flee. Take Noah and run. They are coming!” The shadow thrust him away, and the dream dissolved, leaving Lamech shaking alone beneath the gophar tree, hoping against hope that what he’d experienced was a lie.
Chapter 40
Noah woke to Jade prodding him, whispering, “Are you sick?”
“Of course not,” Noah said and rolled away, trying to fight the tightness in his throat, the desire for her hand to warm his side.
“Sorry, I thought . . . I thought that when your grandfather came, you wouldn’t want to spend time with me anymore. The thought of it made me angry with you.”
“Are you a fool?”
She bit her lip. “Here,” she said, and held out the burnt mannequin. He took it, felt its crumpled, blackened limbs, and raised himself on one hand.
“Mother saved it after you left,” Jade said, and looked down.
“She should have left it.” Noah dropped it between them.
“I thought you would want it back,” Jade said.
“I don’t want it.”
“Oh,” she said, and played with the fray of her tunic.
Noah felt a mounting desire to leave. Jade was acting strange. No insults. No haughty disposition. No sneer.
She crossed her legs and glanced around before whispering, “I know how you feel.”
“What?”
“I don’t have a father.”
So she hadn’t come merely to apologize for throwing his mannequin in the fire. She wanted to know what happened. “Having a father isn’t so enjoyable,” Noah said.
“At least your father wants you.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
Jade looked away, her cheeks reddening for the first time that he could remember.
“Jade?” Noah said.
She touched the distorted mannequin and said, “Not long ago, I asked Mother where my father was.” Her lips quivered, and Noah waited, not daring to prod her.
Jade took a deep breath. “She told me she had never married. Never loved any man. But her brother had forced her to become pregnant with me.”
Noah felt his stomach drop as he leaned closer, trying to catch Jade’s eyes though she avoided his gaze.
“He told her not to tell anyone. She promised she wouldn’t. Then, after he and the rest of the family were asleep, she killed them. She tried to kill me too.”
“What?” Noah could hardly believe what he was hearing. Elina was always cold and distant, but he couldn’t imagine her doing anything so terrible. She loved Jade.
But Jade hunched into herself, all the sureness and pride she normally held crumbled to a ruined face brimming with tears barely held.
Could it be true? Had Elina really admitted to trying to kill Jade?
“She failed,” Jade said, “and I lived. And she was too cowardly to try again. So, here I am.” She shrugged and wiped her eyes.
Noah’s face felt immobilized. He didn’t know how to respond. He supposed she expected him to be sad for her. And if what she said was true, how could he not? Only it all seemed so unbelievable.
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