Not even a lie springs to mind quick enough.
I search the space, not really focused on anything as my brows draw together. I can feel their eyes on me, but all I can do is swallow and look down at my hands. I don’t go back there ... to my past. To my memories. All I have of myself is now, but I can’t say that.
“Dad,” Goldie rushes out, shaking her head, silently admonishing him. “Too sensitive. You know his mom—”
I kiss the top of her hand, cutting her off. “It’s okay. Seriously.”
Stephen frowns. “I’m sorry, Noah. That was inconsiderate of me. It’s just I read once that people who lose someone never get the opportunity to speak about them because others always assume they don’t want to, and I was trying—”
I shake my head, stopping him as Camilla puts her hand on his shoulder. The way they’re both looking at me, I don’t know how to describe it ... I think I just wish my mom were here to see it.
“No. No, it’s okay. Thank you. It’s kind of you to ask,” I say, genuinely meaning it. “There’s this part of me who wishes I could talk about her all the time. I loved her.”
I pause, saying all the rest in my head.
But if I do, everything around me dies like flowers without the sun. I don’t get to be Noah anymore, and I’ve worked too hard to go back to a roomful of locks.
“Grief is such a bastard,” Camilla offers, and I nod. “Someone once wrote that it takes more than just the people we love. Sometimes our memories become so painful we lose the time we lived with them as well.”
I blink, feeling the truth of that statement almost viscerally. “Who wrote that?”
“My daughter.” Camilla nods to Goldie.
I look down at my girl, feeling way too fucking seen. She really has a way of doing that to me.
“What was your mom’s name?” Goldie says sweetly. “You’ve never told me.”
For a second, I almost speak it like I haven’t forgotten how. But then I blink, and the moment’s gone.
“Mary ... her name was Mary.”
Goldie smiles, and it was worth the lie. I turn my attention over to her father.
“My mom loved holidays, but she was a complicated woman, so we didn’t have much in the way of tradition. A lot of love, just not a lot of festivity. Although, there was one thing we did. Tonight ... on New Year’s Eve, right at the stroke of midnight, we’d yell a word to try and be the first person to say it in that year. It was silly, but for a kid it was special. I’d spend hours trying to think of the one word nobody else would say.”
“I love that,” Camilla breathes out, clapping her hands together once. “May we do that?”
I swallow hard, my throat thick as I nod and smile. “Yeah, of course.”
“Then it’s settled. For Mary,” she adds, lifting her glass as everyone follows.
Goldie lays her head on my chest, laughing as her sister immediately begins arguing about which word she’s claiming. But I’m lost in my thoughts.
It’s really fucking hard to process getting everything you ever wanted. And that’s what this is ... everything I’ve ever wanted. I close my eyes for a fleeting second, and the memory is just as long, but the feeling doesn’t leave even after I open them.
Mom would’ve loved this.
“Noah, no. What are you doing?”
My chubby little fingers stay working, trying to unlock the next lock on the door as I press higher on my tiptoes on the chair. But my mom wraps her arm around my waist and plucks me off.
“What have I told you? You can never unlock the doors. They keep us safe.”
I blink up at her, tears starting to brim my six-year-old eyes as she grips my arm.
“But . . . but . . .”
“No ‘buts’ and no exceptions.” She looks so mad. My lip quivers.
