Don't Let Go(9)

I pushed to my feet from the reading sofa in the corner, shelving a book someone had left out. The store still wove its spell on me every time I entered, but I didn’t have her touch. I tried to keep customers happy, but I couldn’t read them the way she did. There was still an oven in the back, but fresh cookies and cupcakes and other goodies were only made when Ruthie would find the time or make them at home and bring them in. And while Ruthie would light candles, I’d end up following behind her and blowing them out for fear we’d forget one and the whole place would burn to the ground.
And music? I snorted just thinking about it. Johnny Mack made sure we didn’t have that. I didn’t remember him banging on the wall when she played her soft jazz tunes back then, but he definitely didn’t like it now.
I made another round through the back office area, snatched my jacket and bag from behind the mammoth old wooden checkout counter that I’d added a granite top to, and let myself out, locking the door behind me.
I had to pass the diner on the way to my car, but before I headed there, I couldn’t help a sideways glance inside. It was dark behind the little white stringed lights Linny had painstakingly trimmed out the window with. There was no one in there. I breathed a tiny sigh of relief, mixed with the dread I felt as I let my eyes drift toward the big gazebo that was located catty-corner from the diner. In a couple of weeks the gazebo and the whole park behind it would be blinged out in all manner of white and red, smelling of fried carnival food and all kinds of chili. But for now it was still green and serene. In general, I didn’t have much reason to hang out down there anymore. The river was nice, and I’d bring Becca down there to feed the ducks when she was little, but it was tied to a moment that clamped down on my heart. I had a version of it on canvas in my living room, and that was all I needed. I only went in person once a year, and it wasn’t that day yet.
Taking a deep breath, I wrapped my jacket around me and crossed the street. The dusky dark had the streetlights flickering on, and the ice cream shop down the block was still lit up brightly, serving hot chocolate and spiced tea.
I felt conspicuous as I passed the gazebo and reached the path that would lead to the river, as if everyone in town were watching me. As if no one had anything better to do than wait all year for me to go to the park.
The river wound into view among big beautiful cypress trees, and as I moved toward the bench I always inhabited, I stopped short, my steps faltering. There, sitting in the dim light, lit only by the low security lights along the water, was Noah. Sitting alone, looking down at something in his hands, he didn’t see me.
He remembered.
Every centimeter of skin on my body tingled as the emotion welled up in my throat and burned behind my eyes. It was the last place where our baby had still been ours.
I closed my eyes and could smell the cold rain of that late afternoon, hear the music filtering over from the carnival rides. Noah and I sat on that bench and didn’t care that the sky was leaking on us. We’d made that life in a storm, and then we were arguing about whether to keep it in the middle of another one.

“Please, Jules,” he said, leaning over to lay his face on my stomach. I could feel the heat of his skin through my shirt. “Give us a chance. Don’t let your parents do this.”
“Look at us,” I said, lifting his head and raking his rain-soaked hair from his face. “We’re a mess, Noah. We live at home, we have maybe forty dollars between us, and we have to ride to school with your sister. We can’t even pass algebra. What kind of parents can we be?”
“Ones that love each other,” he said back, heat in his voice and his eyes. “That’ll go to hell and back to be a family. I promised you I’d take care of us and I will, Jules. Fuck algebra.”
“How?” I said.
“I’ll make it happen.”
I shook my head. “How are we going to pay for—”
“That’s your mother talking,” Noah said, jumping to his feet and pacing. “That’s that place they sent you to. It’s not you.” He dropped to his knees again in front of me. “Where are you, Jules?”
I blinked against the rain in my eyes and instinctively palmed my belly as the baby did a somersault. “I’m right here,” I whispered.
He shook his head and took my hands in his. “No, you aren’t. You haven’t been for a while. She’s got your head so filled with—”
“With things that make sense,” I shot back. “You didn’t see that place, Noah. The girls my age that looked thirty, just trying to get through the day.”
“They’re alone, you’re not,” he said. “You’ve got me.”
“I want this too, Noah,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’d give anything. I live with it every day, feel it every day. This baby is depending on me right now and I’m scared to death. All I have to do is eat to make it happy, and still I’m scared to death.” I placed his hands on the squirming movement of my belly. “Feel that?”
His eyes filled with liquid that had nothing to do with the rain. “Yes,” he choked.
“How do we take care of that?”
He reversed our hands so that mine were back underneath. “Feel that?” he said, fat tears falling from his eyes. I couldn’t breathe. “How do we walk away from that?”

I opened my eyes to realize there were hot tears rolling down my face. That was the last time our baby had been ours. Two minutes later, my water broke, and I went into labor, setting off a comedy of errors to get to the hospital. And said good-bye to everything.