She glanced at Noah then back at me. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Thank you, Josie.”
“Call me if you need me,” she said before pushing through the swinging door that led to her quarters. “Because I have a feeling you might.”
I didn’t respond.
Ariel stalked between us with her tail swishing in the air, her way of reminding us that she had been angelically patient, but she was about to starve to death.
“Bud, can you take care of Ariel’s food while I get started on ours?”
The doctor had told us not to baby him because it was too easy for children to revert to helplessness during recovery. He’d be back to normal quicker if we were matter-of-fact about his injury.
Noah got to work filling Ariel’s bowl and placing it in her nook by the counter, then he walked to the doorway.
“Nina!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Where are you?”
“Hey, bud,” I scolded gently. “What have we told you about using your inside voice?”
I flinched. Nina was part of the “we” in question.
Noah turned to me with wide eyes. “But where is she? I haven’t seen her since we got back from the hospital. She owes me a hug.”
I sighed. It was now or never.
“Noey, why don’t you come over here,” I said as I walked to the window seat. “Let’s talk.”
He looked confused as he climbed up next to me, but I could already see the worry in his eyes.
“Some things have changed,” I began, then stopped abruptly because I hadn’t had the good sense to script out how I was going to break the news.
“Where’s Nina?” he whispered, his bottom lip trembling.
“She had to go home, bud.”
Noah’s body relaxed a little. “Okay. When is she coming back toourhome?”
I decided to rip off the Band-Aid. I reached out to take his good hand in mine.
“Noey, she’s not. We decided that it was better if she didn’t live here anymore.”
He was shaking his head before I finished. “No, that’s not true. You have a driver’s license together. She has to live here. With us. Because remember? We’re going to have a wedding. You promised.”
His voice pitched higher with each word, worry filling every syllable.
“Noey, we didn’t promise that. Remember I said that we needed to make sure that we liked being married?” I cleared my throat to keep from choking on the lie to come. “Well, we discovered that we didn’t like it as much as we thought we would.”
He stared off into space while he tried to make sense of what I was telling him.
“Iliked it,” he said in a trembling little voice that broke my heart.
“I know you did.” I reached out to run my hand over the top of his head and he ducked away, glaring at me with a look of defiance I hadn’t seen in a while.
“But…when is she coming back? For real? Because she’s supposed to be here. She needs to come home.”
His tone was shifting from injured to angry.
“Noah, I told you, she’s not coming back. This isn’t her home anymore. And we’re not her family.”
