Chapter 86 - The Name Noah Crossed Out
Noah had crossed his brother’s name off the form.
Not lightly.
The pencil had pressed hard enough to leave a groove in the paper.
I found it on the kitchen table beneath a leaflet for a summer camp. Two places had been provisionally reserved. Lena and I had assumed the boys would attend together.
Under preferred cabin companion, Noah had first written Nico.
Then crossed him out.
Nico stood beside the table when I picked it up.
“He doesn’t want me.”
I put the paper down.
“Has he said that?”
“It’s right there.”
He pointed so sharply that the page moved.
I understood the temptation to treat something written as a complete account of what had happened.
I had done considerable damage that way.
“Where’s Noah?”
“Upstairs.”
“Let’s ask him.”
“No.”
Nico stepped backward.
“If you make him put my name back, it won’t mean anything.”
That stopped me.
“All right,” I said. “I won’t make him.”
He looked at me with angry, wet eyes.
Then he went into the garden.
I found Noah sitting on the floor beside his bed, sorting a collection of stones.
His shoulders rose when he saw the form.
“Did Nico read it?”
“Yes.”
Noah closed his hand around a smooth gray pebble.
“I was going to tell him.”
“What were you going to say?”
“That I want to go without him.”
“Why?”
He stared at the stone.
“Because everybody already knows us as both.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
“At camp, they wouldn’t.”
“They would if we went together.”
I waited.
He set the stone down.
“I want to find out what I do when he isn’t there.”
The answer was so different from the one I had prepared myself to hear that I needed a moment.
“Do you think he would stop you?”
“No.”
“Then what changes?”
Noah looked toward the door.
“I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out.”
Downstairs, Lena had come home.
I heard her ask Nico whether he wanted company.
He said no.
She stayed in the kitchen.
I looked at the form again.
At the place where one boy had tried to make room for himself and another had found evidence that he was unwanted.
“We should have asked you separately before reserving places,” I said.
Noah nodded.
Then his face tightened.
“Is he really upset?”
“Yes.”
“Am I being bad?”
“No. But you still need to talk to him.”
May you like
He looked at the door again.
For once, going downstairs seemed harder than going away.
