He turned around. His father’s expression was the same slack-jawed one he’d been wearing when Noam first came in.
“Brennan asked about you,” Noam said. Surely that deserved a blink, at least.
Nothing.
“I killed him.”
Nothing then either.
Noam spun toward the saucepan again, grabbing a fork and stabbing at the noodles, which slipped through the prongs like so many slimy worms. His gut surged up into his throat, and Noam closed his eyes, free hand gripping the edge of the nearest bookshelf.
“You could at least pretend to give a shit,” he said to the blackness on the other side of his eyelids. The pounding in his head was back. “I’m sad about Mom, too, you know.”
His next breath shuddered all the way down into his chest—painful, like inhaling frost.
His father used to sing show tunes while he did the dinner dishes. Used to check the classifieds every morning for job offers even though having no papers meant he’d never get the good ones—he still never gave up. Never ever.
And Noam...Noam had to remember who his fatherreallywas, even if that version of him belonged to another life, ephemeral as footprints in the snow. Even if it felt like he’d lost both parents the day his mother died.
Noam switched off the heat and spooned the noodles into two bowls. No sauce, so he drizzled canola oil on top and carried one of the bowls over to his father. Noam edged his way between the chair and the window, crouching down in that narrow space. He spun spaghetti around the fork. “Open up.”
Usually, the prospect of food managed to garner a reaction. Not this time.
Nausea crawled up and down Noam’s breastbone. Or maybe it was regret. “I’m sorry,” he said after a beat and tried for a self-deprecating grin. “I was...it’s been a long day. I was a dick. I’m sorry, Dad.”
His father didn’t speak and didn’t move his mouth.
Noam set the pasta bowl on the floor and wrapped his other hand around his father’s bony wrist. “Please,” Noam said. “Just a few bites. I know it’s not Mom’s cooking, but...for me. Okay?”
Noam’s mother had made the most amazing food. Noam tried to live up to her standard, but he never could. He’d given up on cooking anything edible, on keeping a kosher kitchen, on speaking Spanish. On making his father smile.
Noam rubbed his thumb against his father’s forearm.
The skin there was paper thin and far, far too hot.
“Dad?”
His father’s eyes stared past Noam, unseeing and glassy, reflecting the lamplight outside. That wasn’t what made Noam lurch back and collide with the window, its latch jabbing his spine.
A drop of blood welled in the corner of his father’s eye and—after a single quivering moment—cut down his cheek like a tear.
“Mrs. Brown!”
Noam shoved the chair back from the window, half stumbling across the narrow room to the curtain separating their space from their neighbor’s. He banged a fist against the nearest bookshelf.
“Mrs. Brown, are you in there? I—I’m coming in.”
He ripped the curtain to one side. Mrs. Brown was there but not in her usual spot. She was curled on the bed instead, shoulders jutting against the ratty blanket like bony wings.
Noam hesitated. Was she...no. Was she dead?
She moved then, a pale hand creeping out to wave vaguely in the air.
“Mrs. Brown, I need help,” Noam said. “It’s my dad—he’s sick. He’s...he’s really sick, and I think...”
The hand dropped back onto the blanket and went still.
No. No, no—this wasn’t right. This wasn’t happening. He should go downstairs and get another neighbor. He should—no, he should check on his dad. He couldn’t. He...
