As the wedding drew closer, Noah began asking more practical questions.<\/p>\n
What should he wear?<\/p>\n
Would there be food he liked?<\/p>\n
Would he know anyone there?<\/p>\n
I answered what I could.<\/p>\n
For the rest, I told him we would find out.<\/p>\n
We went shopping for a shirt on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Noah tried on two and chose the one that felt comfortable around his neck.<\/p>\n
He didn't care much about the color.<\/p>\n
He wanted to know whether he could wear his usual shoes.<\/p>\n
I told him he could.<\/p>\n
On the way home, he carried the shopping bag on his lap.<\/p>\n
"Do you think Dad will like it?"<\/p>\n
"I think he'll be happy to see you."<\/p>\n
Noah looked out the window.<\/p>\n
"That's not exactly what I asked."<\/p>\n
I smiled a little.<\/p>\n
"No. It isn't."<\/p>\n
He waited.<\/p>\n
"I think he'll like your shirt," I said. "But I don't think you need to dress a certain way to make your dad love you."<\/p>\n
Noah looked down at the bag.<\/p>\n
"Okay."<\/p>\n
We drove the rest of the way home without talking about the wedding.<\/p>\n
I thought we had settled it for the day.<\/p>\n
Then, while I was making lunch, Noah asked whether Ethan would remember the things they used to do together.<\/p>\n
I turned from the counter.<\/p>\n
"Of course he will."<\/p>\n
"Even if he has a new family?"<\/p>\n
I put the knife down.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
Noah was standing beside the refrigerator, holding a glass of water.<\/p>\n
He looked smaller than he had a few months earlier.<\/p>\n
Or perhaps I was finally noticing how much he had been trying to manage without telling me.<\/p>\n
"What makes you think he'd forget?" I asked.<\/p>\n
He shrugged.<\/p>\n
"I don't know. He has a lot to do now."<\/p>\n
I wiped my hands on a towel.<\/p>\n
"Your dad can get married and still remember you. Those things aren't opposites."<\/p>\n
"But what if he gets busy?"<\/p>\n
"He might get busy. That doesn't mean you stop mattering."<\/p>\n
Noah took a drink of water.<\/p>\n
"How do you know?"<\/p>\n
I had no perfect answer.<\/p>\n
I couldn't promise that Ethan would never disappoint him.<\/p>\n
I couldn't promise that every phone call would be returned or every plan would work out.<\/p>\n
I could promise that Noah deserved more than occasional attention when it was convenient.<\/p>\n
"I know because you're his son," I said. "And because you deserve to have a father who makes time for you."<\/p>\n
He looked at me for a long moment.<\/p>\n
Then he set the glass down.<\/p>\n
"Can I ask him something?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
He picked up his phone.<\/p>\n
I didn't follow him this time.<\/p>\n
I stayed in the kitchen and continued preparing lunch.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, Noah came back.<\/p>\n
"He's going to call me tomorrow."<\/p>\n
"Good."<\/p>\n
"He said he has something to show me."<\/p>\n
I stopped cutting the vegetables.<\/p>\n
"What is it?"<\/p>\n
"He didn't say."<\/p>\n
Noah looked excited, but there was uncertainty underneath it.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to spoil the moment by imagining reasons Ethan might have for keeping it secret.<\/p>\n
Maybe he had a practical detail to discuss.<\/p>\n
Maybe he had found something Noah would enjoy.<\/p>\n
Maybe he simply wanted to spend time talking with his son.<\/p>\n
I let the possibilities remain open.<\/p>\n
The next evening, Ethan called as promised.<\/p>\n
Noah took the phone into the living room.<\/p>\n
I heard their voices, but I couldn't make out the conversation.<\/p>\n
At one point, Noah laughed.<\/p>\n
It was a real laugh, sudden and bright.<\/p>\n
I stood at the sink and smiled.<\/p>\n
I hadn't realized how much I missed hearing it when Ethan was involved.<\/p>\n
After the call, Noah came into the kitchen.<\/p>\n
"Dad found an old picture of us."<\/p>\n
"Which one?"<\/p>\n
"The one from the park. When he lifted me up and I was scared of the ducks."<\/p>\n
I remembered it.<\/p>\n
Noah had been very small, and Ethan had held him above the ground while a group of ducks crowded around their feet.<\/p>\n
Noah had been laughing in the photograph, though he had spent most of the afternoon asking to be carried.<\/p>\n
"He still has that?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
Noah seemed pleased by the discovery.<\/p>\n
"He said he remembers that day."<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
"That's good."<\/p>\n
"He said we should take another picture at the wedding."<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
"Just the two of you?"<\/p>\n
"I think so."<\/p>\n
There was a pause.<\/p>\n
"That's okay, isn't it?"<\/p>\n
I felt the old reflex to protect myself rise up.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I imagined Ethan and Noah standing together while I waited somewhere out of sight.<\/p>\n
I imagined the photograph being shared with relatives and friends.<\/p>\n
I imagined people looking at it and deciding that Ethan had managed everything well.<\/p>\n
Then I looked at my son.<\/p>\n
He wasn't asking me to approve of his father's choices.<\/p>\n
He was asking whether he was allowed to enjoy a moment with him.<\/p>\n
"Of course it's okay," I said.<\/p>\n
Noah smiled.<\/p>\n
"Good."<\/p>\n
He returned to the living room.<\/p>\n
I stayed in the kitchen, thinking about how easily my own hurt could become another burden for him.<\/p>\n
I had spent months trying not to make Noah choose sides.<\/p>\n
But there were quieter ways to force a choice.<\/p>\n
A sigh at the wrong moment.<\/p>\n
A remark that sounded harmless until a child understood what it meant.<\/p>\n
A silence that made him feel guilty for enjoying something I had lost.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to do that to him.<\/p>\n
That night, I called my sister and told her about the wedding.<\/p>\n
She asked whether I was planning to attend.<\/p>\n
I explained that I would bring Noah and make sure he was settled.<\/p>\n
"And how are you feeling about it?" she asked.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the living room, where the invitation still sat on the table.<\/p>\n
"I'm not sure."<\/p>\n
"That's fair."<\/p>\n
I waited for her to say something else.<\/p>\n
She didn't.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, the people who knew you best understood that you didn't need advice every time you admitted something difficult.<\/p>\n
After we ended the call, I sat alone for a while.<\/p>\n
I thought about the years Ethan and I had spent together.<\/p>\n
I thought about the things I missed and the things I didn't.<\/p>\n
I missed having someone to share small decisions with.<\/p>\n
I didn't miss feeling as though every disagreement proved I had failed to explain myself properly.<\/p>\n
I missed the family photographs.<\/p>\n
I didn't miss the effort it took to make the people in them look happy.<\/p>\n
I could hold both truths without choosing one.<\/p>\n
Perhaps that was what I wanted Noah to learn.<\/p>\n
Not that divorce was painless.<\/p>\n
Not that people always made good choices.<\/p>\n
But that a person could remember what had been good without pretending the painful parts never happened.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Noah came downstairs wearing his new shirt.<\/p>\n
He had put it on over his pajamas.<\/p>\n
"Does it look okay?"<\/p>\n
I laughed.<\/p>\n
"You haven't even taken the tags off."<\/p>\n
He looked down and noticed the small tag near the side.<\/p>\n
"Oh."<\/p>\n
I removed it for him.<\/p>\n
He turned toward the mirror by the hallway.<\/p>\n
"I think Dad will like it."<\/p>\n
"I think so, too."<\/p>\n
He folded the shirt carefully and placed it back in the shopping bag.<\/p>\n
Then he returned to his room.<\/p>\n
I watched him go.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I wasn't thinking about what the wedding might prove to other people.<\/p>\n
I was thinking about what Noah hoped to carry home from it.<\/p>\n
A conversation.<\/p>\n
A photograph.<\/p>\n
A memory that belonged to him and his father, even if the rest of the day felt strange.<\/p>\n
Those were small things.<\/p>\n
They were also enough to matter.<\/p>\n
As the wedding drew closer, Noah began asking more practical questions. What should he wear? Would there be food he liked? Would he know anyone there? I answered what I … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38232,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38212\/revisions\/38232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}