Page 82 of Never Alone
"He's building me a room."
"A room?"
"In the new house. On Ashford Street. He's fixing it up. He says we'll move in when it's done. The room is going to be on the second floor. He let me pick which one."
I had to put my hand against the wall.
I hadn't known.
I'd known about the house. I'd walked through it once, the first time Cole had brought us by. After that, he'd been taking Noah there from time to time on the afternoons he picked him up from school—to teach him a thing or two with the tools, to show him the work as it went. Noah had told me about all of it.
He hadn't told me he was building Noah a room.
Cole had been building Noah a room and not telling me.
"...your mom and Cole. How are they together?"
I made myself listen.
A longer pause this time. Noah was thinking.
"Cole is very kind to my mom. He's careful with her."
"Careful how?"
"Like he doesn't want to scare her by accident. He's quiet around her. He doesn't move fast."
I was holding my breath. I made myself let it out. Slowly. Through the nose.
"And does your mom seem happy?"
A beat.
"I think my mom loves Cole. She doesn't say it. She doesn't even smile at him very much when I'm in the room. But I can tell."
I couldn't move.
"How can you tell, sweetheart?"
"She's not scared anymore."
I closed my eyes.
I opened them.
"And Cole?"
"Yeah?"
"Does Cole love your mom?"
"Yeah."
"How can you tell?"
"He looks at her when she's not looking."
I don't know how long I stood in the hall after that. Long enough for one of them to say something else I didn't register. Long enough that I had to make myself unstick my feet from the floor and walk back to the bedroom on legs that didn't feel like mine.
