“And then he said something I’ve remembered ever since.”
“What?”
Her voice trembled.
“He said, ‘Good. Because I don’t know how to fix people. I only know how to stay.’”
I couldn’t say anything.
Suddenly, those lunches came back to me in detail.
Noah dropping into the seat beside me.
Noah talking about baseball when I didn’t feel like talking.
Noah quietly eating when I didn’t want conversation at all.
I had always remembered those moments as friendship.
I had never realized he had made a conscious decision to stay near me because he could see I was hurting.
Mom squeezed my fingers.
“That day, I asked him for something I probably never should have asked a twelve-year-old for.”
I turned toward her.
“What?”
“I asked Noah to look after you.”
I stared at her.
“You did?”
She nodded, ashamed.
“I was falling apart, Christina. Your father was gone. You barely talked to me. I didn’t know how to reach you.”
Her voice broke.
“But Noah could still make you smile.”
I imagined twelve-year-old Noah standing beside my mother’s car.
“What did he say?”
Mom gave a small, teary laugh.
“Just ‘Okay.’”
Of course he did.
Then her expression changed.
“That wasn’t the mistake, though.”
“What was?”
“For years afterward, I watched your friendship through the wrong lens.”
I waited.
“Whenever you changed plans because Noah wasn’t invited somewhere, I worried.”
My shoulders stiffened.
“When you defended him, I worried. When you chose to spend time with him instead of other people, I wondered whether you felt responsible for him.”
I pulled my hand away.
“He’s my best friend.”
“I know.”
“You thought I was taking care of him?”
“Yes.”
Her honesty stung.
She looked toward the floor.
“I kept noticing what I imagined Noah might need from you.”
Then she looked at me again.
“And somehow I failed to see what he was giving you.”
I said nothing.
She continued softly.
“The lunches after your dad left.”
“The ice cream after you failed your driving test.”
“The ridiculous dinosaur taped in his locker.”
“The night of your first heartbreak when he sat with you on the porch until almost midnight.”
I felt tears burning behind my eyes.
Mom whispered,
“Noah was never some responsibility you were carrying.”
She shook her head.
“You were carrying each other.”
And suddenly I understood why she had looked at him that way when he arrived.
