Chapter 27 - What Mama Wanted
Lena did not ask Noah why he had done something so naughty.
She sat beside him on the couch and placed the envelope between them.
“I wondered where this went.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
He stared at his knees.
“Daddy said you aren’t moving.”
“I’m not.”
“But you’ll be gone.”
“For part of two evenings. You’ll have dinner with Daddy. Sometimes Aunt Caroline will help if he has a meeting.”
“What about bedtime?”
“Some nights, Daddy will do bedtime.”
Noah’s mouth tightened.
Lena waited.
“What if Isabel needs you?”
“Daddy knows how to help Isabel.”
“What if I need you?”
“Then you can tell Daddy what you need. And I’ll be home afterward.”
He looked at her with the unhappy suspicion of someone hearing an answer that was reasonable but insufficient.
“Why do you have to go?”
Lena took a breath.
I stood near the doorway, suddenly aware that this question could follow her for the rest of her life if we answered it badly.
She could have made the course sound like another sacrifice.
Another thing she was doing for children, families, us.
Instead, she said, “Because I want to learn.”
“You already know things.”
“I do. There are more things I want to understand.”
“Why?”
She smiled a little.
“Have you ever finished a book and wished there was another one?”
He nodded reluctantly.
“It feels a little like that.”
He picked at the envelope.
“Did you want this before you were our mama?”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised him.
It surprised me too, though I knew it should not have.
Lena had existed before our nursery.
Before Margaret.
Before my sons reached for her and gave her a name that changed all our lives.
She had been a young woman with unfinished plans.
“What else did you want?” Noah asked.
“To finish studying. To travel somewhere I’d never been. To have a kitchen with a window over the sink.”
“You got that one.”
“I did.”
He glanced toward me.
“Did you want Daddy?”
Lena laughed softly.
“Not at first.”
I put a hand against my chest.
“An unnecessarily honest household.”
Noah almost smiled.
Then he leaned against her.
“I don’t want you to stop being Mama.”
She wrapped her arm around him.
“I won’t.”
“Even when you get the paper?”
“Even then.”
After he went upstairs, Lena remained on the couch.
I sat beside her.
“You never told me about the kitchen window.”
“You never asked.”
There was no accusation in her voice.
That made me listen more carefully.
“What haven’t I asked?”
She looked toward the dark glass above our sink.
May you like
After a moment, she rested her head against my shoulder.
“We have time,” she said. “Start asking.”
