Noel glanced over Cavin’s right shoulder at the sound of Mrs.Madelyn’s chipper voice, but Cavin didn’t turn; he kept his eyes locked on Noel’s as if no one else existed.
“Alright then,” Noel responded to both Mrs.Madelyn and Cavin at the same time, and then she suddenly felt the lump in her throat drop to the pit of her stomach upon the realization of what she just agreed to on a whim.
Noel watched the edges of Cavin’s lips lift as hers pursed together fought something between a smile and a grimace.The mixture of emotions playing out within her mind and body outlined her face.
“Noel will need about an hour to get ready,” Mrs.Madelyn informed Cavin as if Noel were her daughter and going on her very first date.However, she just wanted to do everything in her power to keep this ball rolling in the right direction.Cavin may not end up being Noel’s knight in shining armor, but this was another first her friend needed to experience, and if nothing else, time alone with another adult and no children around should be therapeutic.“I will take care of closing the store and making sure the children have everything they need,” she insisted.
Cavin positioned his body so that he could look back and forth between Noel and Mrs.Madelyn.“That works perfectly for me since I am still wearing the clothes I played golf in,” he acknowledged as he looked down at his outfit thankful that no sweat showed through the carefully selected material.“I never made it back inside the house to take a shower because your brother was there pumping up my tires when I arrived,” Cavin explained.“By the way, thank you for sending him.”
“You’re welcome,” Noel replied sheepishly.
Mrs.Madelyn stepped fully into the kitchen and grabbed both of them by an arm like a kindergarten teacher.“You two can talk about all of this at dinner,” she encouraged.“Right now, you both need showers and new outfits, and I need to tend to these patient customers,” she added, eyeing the half dozen people remaining in the store, mostly near the checkout counter where Levi and Laney seemed to be doing a fine job of entertaining them.
Noel felt a trance-like state come over her as her feet climbed the steps one at a time as her right hand slid along the aged handrail.The jingling door didn’t even register after Cavin said his goodbyes to Laney and Levi.Noel sighed.Leaving Mrs.Madelyn and the kids downstairs to tend to the store while she did something for herself seemed wrong for some reason.
When Noel closed the door at the top of the stairs, she let her back collapse against it, and her body slowly oozed downward like tree sap inching toward the ground until her backside met the wooden floorboards.She wrapped her arms around her knees, plucked the Santa hat from her head, and dropped her face into her hands.All of a sudden, she felt completely alone and overwhelmed.
“What am I doing?”she whispered into thin air.Scratch that, thick air.
Noel let that thought linger for a moment as a fresh batch of tears rolled from her eyes.With her lips pressed tightly together, she smeared the moisture on her face with the backs of her hands.
“Fletcher,” she called out.“What should I do?”The idea of spending time alone with another man seemed inappropriate.“I love you.I committed my life to you.”
Suddenly theuntil death do us partline in the vows she recited at their wedding ceremony slid across her mind.“No, Fletcher; no, God; whichever of you put that thought there,” she hedged.“Death wasn’t supposed to do us part,” she cried.“We were supposed to live a long and happy life together.I need you.I need to go out to dinner with you tonight—not some man I don’t know.That doesn’t seem fair to you or to me.”
With tears streaming down her cheeks making miniature puddles on the floor, Noel sat with her thoughts.She wasn’t sure how much time went by, but eventually she remembered she only had an hour to get ready.Several times she considered cancelling the plans she made or rather the plans Mrs.Madelyn made for her.She knew what her friend was trying to do, and while she appreciated it, she didn’t feel ready.
We’ll never be ready.We just have to be brave.
“No, Fletcher, no,” she murmured authoritatively as the words he spoke to her just before Levi came into this world fluttered through her mind like an injured bird.
The two of them were speeding toward the hospital, Fletcher holding her hand firmly as they breathed in unison like they learned in Lamaze class.They had so much fun prepping and planning for little Levi’s arrival beginning with all the times they made love—Fletcher teasingly called itpractice—followed by Noel usually punching him in the arm then either ripping his clothes off or snuggling into his naked body depending on whether he said it before or after the act.She cherished every moment including choosing names, assembling the crib, and babyproofing their home.However, Noel never quite felt ready to be a mother, and as the contractions grew closer and so did the hospital, she screamed, “I’m not ready for this.”
We.Fletcher always approached every challenge in their lives with awe.With Fletcher she never felt alone.But now, she did.Noel wasn’t sure how she made it through the past year and however many months she had been anI.
“I’ll do it, Fletcher,” she muttered.“I’ll be brave,” she cried.“God and Fletcher, you two better be with me.”
Somehow Noel picked herself up off the floor and made it to the bathroom where she stepped into the shower and turned the nozzle to cold.
“If you want to feel sorry for yourself, take a hot shower,” Fletcher used to say.“If you want to rejuvenate yourself, take the path less traveled and turn the nozzle in the opposite direction.”
How he took cold showers, Noel never quite understood.Fletcher was a man of the sea though.He would drop anchor in the middle of the ocean, sound, river, or lake in the middle of summer, winter, spring, or fall, and jump right in with all the fish.Shirtless he would tread water and call up to her on the boat, “Join me, babe.The water feels so refreshing today.”
If the water was above seventy degrees, she would hop in, and the two of them would swim like dolphins.When they were miles away from other human beings in the vast and mysterious Atlantic Ocean, playfulness often turned into intimacy.Through trial and error, they learned how to make love while treading water which proved to be one of the most intense full-body exercises either ever experienced.The profound pleasure made the extreme challenge exciting beyond explanation.
Wrapped in one another’s naked bodies, they danced together like synchronized swimmers.Sometimes their lips came together above the surface, and other times they let their bodies sink below until they had to come up for air.Sex in the sea was different, and the resistance of the water forced them to slow down, providing a tantric-like quality every time.
As thousands of freezing droplets traveled down through the maze of goose bumps on Noel’s skin, she reveled in these memories of Fletcher.With her eyes closed, she breathed heavily as the water circled in the drain near her feet.She never imagined having sex with another man.She was one of the rare women who could say she lost her virginity to her husband, and although that happened before they married, she took pride in knowing they only experienced such an intimate and bonding act together.
Starting over with someone new seemed impossible, especially as a mother.How could she hold another man’s hand?Kiss his lips?Tell him her secrets?Maybe time would allow it, but the idea seemed too complex.It would take so much effort, and she just didn’t know if she had the time or the energy for any of it.
Noel toweled off realizing no one had knocked on or opened the unlocked bathroom door.With kids in the house around the clock, that only happened if she showered after their bedtime or in the early morning hours.A surprising sense of relaxation settled into her shoulders during an otherwise tense time.She wrapped the towel around her body and ventured to her bedroom where she slipped on a pair of jeans and a white sweater with navy blue pinstripes.
Noel spent the next twenty minutes blow-drying her hair and applying a thin coat of makeup.Then she climbed into a pair of light brown boots and grabbed her gray parka jacket.
“Mom, you look beautiful,” Levi claimed with enthusiasm when Noel walked downstairs.
“You sure do, Aunt Noel.”
