Delicate

by K. L. Cottrell

  She mentions how disgusted but supportive he was when carrying Theo had her begging for the strangest food combinations. She also recalls the time he accidentally broke one of the sets of window blinds in their duplex on the very day they moved in; he was determined to kill a red wasp that had spooked her, and his vehement attack on it also attacked the blinds it was flying near.

  I remember that day myself. Can’t summon up everything he shouted, but, “You little demon son of a bitch!” definitely carried out the open door to where I was hauling a box off their moving truck.

  It gets a good laugh out of me and Noelle now—not that we repeat those words for Theo’s young ears, of course.

  She also wants to hear more about when he and I were young. Theo is especially entertained by stories of the shenanigans we got up to, like the time we went on a school field trip and found a small lizard on the bus and managed to secretly keep him with us the rest of the day. We had very cleverly named him Trip, in honor of how we found him, but he escaped after school as Cliff was transferring him to my hand from his backpack. Noelle, Theo, and I get a big kick out of imagining how the two of us must’ve looked peering into the grass by the sidewalk, frantically calling out, ‘Trip! Where are you? Trip, get back here!’ while our classmates looked on and wondered what in the world we were doing. To this day, I have no idea how we managed not to lose or smush him before that….

  Early in the afternoon, Theo joins us on the couch. We’d been sitting up under a blanket, halfway snuggling each other while holding hands, but she wants to wiggle her way between us, so we make room.

  ‘We still have each other,’ I remember her echoing me.

  I know she’s still little, but she’s also forever impressing me with how loving she is, how much she intuits, how quickly she learns.

  It’s not long before I’m thinking about how it felt the first time I got to hold her when she was a baby.

  I had spent long months being excited for her to be born so I could meet her and be the best honorary uncle a kid could have, but seeing her for the first time was both the sweetest and scariest thing. She was so new in the world—just an hour and a half old. Could I really hold such a precious thing without doing some kind of damage on accident?

  Cliff wasn’t anywhere close to nervous about laying her in my arms, though.

  It quickly restored the unprecedented faith I’d had in myself up to then. Even after so many years of working to unshoulder the baggage that was my family, and even knowing that nothing in my or Cliff’s or Noelle’s life would be the same with a kid around, I felt solid as I looked down at a drowsy, pink-clad, newly born Theodora. I remembered my job as an uncle and once again felt confident that I could handle it.

  Confident and honored.

  So fucking honored.

  Currently, she’s tucking herself into the embrace of Noelle’s arm but pulling my hand to her so she can hold it.

  Over the top of her head, Noelle and I exchange a soft smile, an even softer look.

  Theo flops my hand around. “Will you tell some more funny stories, Uncle Beck?”

  I glance down at her. With my other hand, I give her hair a gentle stroke since it’s out of its bun now. She nudges up into it like a kitten being happy about getting petted. It makes me chuckle.

  Then I reach farther over and tuck Noelle’s hair behind one ear, let my knuckles linger at her jawline, love how she closes her eyes in her own show of liking.

  I answer Theo, “I sure will.”

  After a beat, I find myself grinning.

  “Did you know that the first time your daddy and I met your mama, we were in a restaurant and she spilled a whole glass of water on herself?”

  That has Theo bursting into cackles and Noelle looking at me with memories in her eyes.

  Her affection for me doesn’t waver a single bit, though.

  In that very first minute, it hadn’t crossed my mind that she could ever be more gorgeous than she was with those pink cheeks and bright gazes and easy smiles.

  Yet here we are.

  —

  One would think that if I were to have a nightmare after the anniversary of Cliff’s death, it would be about him.

  But no.

  I try not to breathe too heavily as I get my shirt flung off me and into the darkness of the bedroom. My scars are burning or prickling or something, and I can’t stand the feeling of fabric against the ones on my shoulder and near the middle of my back.

  I don’t even know why they’re bothering me. The dream wasn’t about how I got any of my scars.

  With my head in my hands, I work on inhaling through my nose and exhaling through my mouth.

  It was just a dream, and it wasn’t about something that really happened.

  Breathe.

  But it’s not easy to breathe around the distressing images still playing in my head: my mom and dad backing their car out of a parking space in front of my apartment, Theodora and Noelle screaming and crying for me in the backseat because my parents had snatched them up and told me I’d never see them again, me bellowing and banging on the car because I can’t get the motherfucking doors open, can’t break any glass, can’t get my girls away from those monsters.

  It’s making me shake—the fear, the fury.

  I need to go check on Theo, the former insists. I need to make sure she’s still safe in her bed.

  Logically, I know there’s no way she isn’t still safe in her bed. We’re not at my apartment, and my dad isn’t alive, and Noelle is shifting next to me, definitely not in danger. Still, I’m out of the bedroom in short moments, the light of my phone guiding me down the dark hall.

  I also know there’s no reason for my heart to be pounding with dread as I turn into the next doorway and aim the white glow through it, but pound with dread it does.

  Then my eyes focus and find the little angel right where she should be, sleeping soundly, even snoring a bit.

  Relief sighs through me, cools the discomfort in my scars, calms the shakiness in the rest of my body.

  She’s okay. She and her mama both are.

  So am I.

  No one I love is at the mercy of my old tormenters, and even if they were, I wouldn’t be helpless to save them. I wouldn’t be helpless to save them from any monsters’ torment—I’ll destroy anyone who dares to try to harm them.

  My breaths come more easily as I lower my phone light.

  Briefly, the fear speaks up again to say I should check the locks on the windows and doors even though I know they’re already secure. It tells me I should find some kind of weapon to keep near me just in case. It even wonders if I should look up my dad’s obituary and remind myself that he’s really gone.

  But the more steadied breaths I take, the more I know none of that is necessary.

  My girls are okay, and so am I.

  I turn and head back to bed.

  Upon getting there, I find Noelle sitting up, rubbing at her eyes with one hand, resting the other where I was lying before.

  Ah, man.

  “Hey,” I murmur. “Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

  Everything goes dark again when I turn off my light. I set the phone down on the nightstand and crawl back into bed, and Noelle’s hand grasps at my arm, my back. We both suck in soft breaths; I forgot I took my shirt off, and she seems to only now notice it’s gone.

  While we lie back down, her scratchy voice drifts through the darkness: “When I first woke up, I thought you were really gone and I was alone. It scared me.”

  My heart sinks fast and hard.

  I worried her? She was scared I was gone for good?

  I get her wrapped in my arms. “Oh, God, no. Ellie….”

  “It didn’t last long.” She settles into me, inhales against my chest, drifts a gentle hand down my side. “The sheets were warm. Then I could just make out you standing down the hall with your light.”

  Once more, I’m relieved.

  I slant a pressing kiss down to the top of her hea
d. “I got up to check on Theo. Not ‘cause I heard a noise or anything, just….”

  With her soothing fingertips on my bare skin and my arms secure around her, I tell her about my nightmare and my scars and my fear.

  “But we’re okay,” I assure her afterward. “We’re safe.”

  The light touch of her lips to my chest has my skin burning in an entirely different way from earlier. As another kiss comes, a new tremble sets into me, too, and a third has me feeling short on breath again.

  “Of course we are,” she says back quietly, calmly. “We’re always safe with you, and you’re safe now too. It was just a bad dream.”

  I nod and let one of my hands get lost in her hair. “Yeah.”

  “But I’m so sorry you dreamt that at all. It kills me that they were so awful and mean to you—it hurts and also makes me so angry. Makes me feel like screaming, or throwing punches, or setting your mom’s house on fire, or going to wherever your dad is buried and laying into him so big that all of hell hears me, not just him.”

  She’s so damn good to me.

  I soak up her words for many moments.

  Her new ones, too, as they graze my skin.

  “It also makes me so proud of you. Instead of getting dragged down by them, you trusted Cliff, and then me, and then you built yourself a good life. You’re such a thoughtful, trustworthy, inspiring person. Radiant and amazing. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, Beck.”

  It takes me another few moments to find my voice amidst everything I feel right now.

  Still, I can only whisper, “I feel the same way about you, Noelle Bright. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met too. There were times when you weren’t bright at all, but you never gave up.”

  Her breathing is suddenly unsteady. “I almost did.”

  “Yeah, but to me, ‘almost’ doesn’t count. Ultimately, you chose to trust me, too, when I went to pull you out of all that darkness. I know it was so hard—the hardest thing you ever had to do, baby, I know—but you still did it, and you never stopped. You found ways to rebuild even when rebuilding seemed impossible.”

  She shifts and twists in my embrace. Then her hands feel out my face and take hold. I want to meet her in the kiss she’s pulling me into, but since it’s dark, I go by feeling too; only when her shaky breaths start greeting mine do I rush to fit my mouth to hers.

  She warms me in waves.

  Warms me with the heartfelt push and pull of her lips and hands and body with mine, and the slip of her fingers through my hair, and the way our kiss ends with my name on her sigh.

  I draw her more tightly to me, one of my arms slipping her shirt up a little. My other hand marvels at the soft small of her back. Our lips linger together, barely moving apart even when mine end up under the downward brush of one of her thumbs.

  “I don’t know when I fell in love with you,” comes her whisper.

  And this wave isn’t warm, it’s sweltering.

  It crashes over me and leaves uncontrollable chill bumps in its wake—the most glorious and welcome fever.

  My heart is wild in my ribcage as I whisper back, “I don’t know when it happened to me either. When loving you the way I used to stopped being enough.”

  The words seem to grow between us, even in this tiny space between her lips and mine.

  We hold each other. Breathe together. Feel.

  Then her thumb sweeps back up to my cheek, and she pulls herself away from me.

  Without her touch, I’m suddenly cold.

  And dim gold light is suddenly chasing away the darkness.

  My eyes adjust after a few slow, hard blinks—and that cold feeling is the next to dissipate, because Noelle is coming close to me again with pink cheeks and glistening eyes.

  Her gaze grips me, once again so openly loving that it takes my breath away…

  …and she brushes her fingertips over the scar on my shoulder…

  …and she smiles softly at me.

  It all hits me squarely in the chest.

  “When did you get so damn perfect?” I go on whispering.

  The sweetest crease touches her brow and her eyes threaten to overflow, as if I can possibly stand her expression growing any lovelier.

  “Probably around the time you got perfect to me.” Her voice wobbles slightly. “You know, since I rebuilt into something that just so happened to match you.”

  “God. Ellie….”

  I know the lamp can’t stay on for long; we don’t want to risk waking Theo, and we need to get back to sleep soon. For now, though—for these moments of the deep joy only Noelle has ever brought me—I take advantage of the chance to see those eyes before I kiss her again.

  They show me the joy I’ve brought to her in return.

  - 24 -

  N O E L L E

  now

  Late on Friday afternoon, a storm rages outside.

  The rain has been a steady and loud cascade since I picked Theo up from preschool a little while ago; I couldn’t find my umbrella anywhere, so neither of us managed to stay dry on the way to the car and then to the front door here at home. Thunder rumbles often, so heavily at times that it rattles the windows and thrums in the floor.

  Inside, though—inside me—there is peace.

  Standing in my bedroom, I gently brush the pad of my thumb over the familiar diamond on my ring. Back and forth…and again.

  Then I stop, take gentle hold of the band, and start easing it off my finger.

  It was no surprise to me that the thought of this drifted into my mind more often than ever over the last few days, nor was it a surprise that I felt calmer and calmer every time.

  Last night as I was falling asleep, in crept the inkling that it was almost time to cross this bridge.

  Then I woke up today and…knew.

  This would be the day I did it.

  It almost happened right that minute, with Beckett coiling me into fresh snuggles instead of getting out of bed like his alarm told him to moments before. He still hasn’t gone back to sleeping at his place. Our anxiety about his mom has shifted into us simply not wanting to stop greeting every new day at each other’s side. And on this day, after I’d already awoken with serenity of a different kind in my chest…I can’t even describe how his presence made me feel.

  But something else I knew was that I needed to give myself the option of not having to rush through what had to be done, and mornings around here aren’t a great time for taking things slowly.

  So I didn’t take my ring off. I waited. I got Beckett to quit being so comfy by tickling his side, then got a series of laugh-laced kisses from him, his body the warmest and most wonderful cage around mine.

  Then, breathless, I murmured, “I love you,” to him…

  …and his, “I love you back, Noelle,” was a sigh over all of me…

  …and then I got asked out on a date.

  Our first real date.

  “In a way, it seems overdue,” he had said, “but in another way, it seems like the timing is just right, you know?”

  Deeply delighted, I smiled and nodded my way into kissing him again.

  He had no idea how right he was about the timing because I hadn’t told him about being ready for closure. Even now, he doesn’t know; I’ve still kept my plan to myself.

  We agreed that I could ask my mom when it would be convenient for her and Dad to watch little Miss Theo.

  Then he got in the shower and I got her up, got some food ready, got her and myself dressed. And soon after, following goodbye kisses from Beckett, I got Theo to the church and got started on my day.

  Work was busy in no time, but I was in a soaring mood.

  In my first free minute, I texted my mom, who eagerly offered to let Theo stay the night tonight. Then, finally feeling ready, I asked what it was that made her and my dad suspect my and Beckett’s feelings for each other.

  I read her answering message so many times, it stuck with me: ‘It wasn’t anything specific. Love is layered, and
you had both been through so much that those layers formed haphazardly. We just felt its warmth here and there, slowly over time, until there was no denying that it was everywhere. Even in the places that were dark and painful before.’

  That, along with her open support of me and Beckett, had me tearful where I stood behind the glass display case of The Chocolate Shop.

  Her words weren’t earth-shaking. They simply rang true.

  And yes, they echoed in my mind all the way up to me getting Theo from the church later. She was thrilled to learn she’d be spending surprise time with her Grammie and Papaw. As soon as we got home, she rushed off to gather the things she wants to take with her.

  So here I am, alone in my room.

  For the last couple minutes, it’s been just me and this step forward. I’ve been face-to-face with it, breathing it in.

  I look down into my hand, where my engagement ring from Cliff now rests on my palm.

  It’s such a simple yet lovely thing—so much like how our relationship was. We swept each other up in happiness that was easy and sunny and true; we were a summer season that, by some miracle, lasted for years.

  Tracing the white-gold loop, I think about the glow of our time together. It warms me in a different way—a gentler way—than it used to, but that fact doesn’t hurt or upset me anymore. I just feel so grateful to have gotten the chance to experience the glow at all.

  It was a blessing, and it changed my life in the best way.

  I go over and open the top of my jewelry armoire, then tuck the ring safely among my few other fine pieces. I’m not sure yet what will become of it; Theo may want it when she’s older.

  Thank you for her, I think to Cliff.

  After one last brush of my thumb over the ring, I close the armoire back up.

  Thank you so much for everything.

  I lace my fingers together in front of me and smile softly at my memories.

  I listen to Theo calling out, “Mommy, hurry! We have to have a really fast tea party before I go to Grammie and Papaw’s!”