Noah and Erin stayed out most of the day and into the evening. When they arrived home, I stayed in my room. I heard Erin ask Noah if she could knock on my bedroom door and Noah saying “no, leave her be”.
I soaked in the bath until my skin pruned and then sat on the couch in my sitting area reading a book. Around nine fifteen my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but answered it.
“Hello.”
“Hi, may I speak to Natalie?”
“Speaking,” I responded.
“Natalie, it’s Gregory.”
“Oh, hi, how are you?” How did he get my number?
“I hope you don’t mind I called Noah this morning and asked him if it was okay to call you.”
That explained Noah’s sudden change in moods.
Gregory continued. “I wanted to make sure that there was nothing between you two before I asked you out.”
“And Noah’s response?” I had to hear this.
“He said there was nothing between the two of you. I wasn’t sure because seeing you together last night told a different story.” He cleared his throat. “Is there something between you?”
“No. There is nothing.” I lied out of anger. “Noah gave you my number?”
“He did. I hope you don’t mind me calling.”
“No, not at all.” What I minded was how Noah dismissed me. He gave Gregory an open invitation to date me moments after we woke up in each other’s arms and after he pleaded for me to stay away from Gregory. This man was infuriating!
Gregory and I continued talking and right as the conversation came to a lull he asked me out on a date. I agreed to go out with him since I felt I couldn’t wait for Noah. What if Noah never changed, and I waited for him only to be disappointed and feel hurt? I decided I could date as long as I led no one on.
“Gregory, I don’t want to mislead you. I would be nice to go out, but I’m not looking for a relationship right now.”
“I understand, but we can still have fun and share a meal.”
“Definitely.” It felt good to be upfront and honest with Gregory.
We decided on Wednesday night. This coming Wednesday Erin would still be with us because her mother was going on vacation, so we had her for two weeks in a row. I told Gregory that he could pick me up at nine, which was right after Erin went to bed.
Wednesday night came fast, and I was not excited about my date.
Gregory was a good -looking man, and he seemed sweet, but there was no spark when I was with him. When he swirled me around the dance floor, I searched for that feeling but didn’t find it until Noah wrapped me in his arms.
Though I had felt nothing with Gregory, I was determined to give him a chance. I needed to live a normal life of a thirty-two-year-old woman.
I told Erin and Noah that I was going out with a friend- Erin was excited, Noah not so much. However, I needed to make sure he would be home for Erin, so I had to tell him.
I showered while Erin waited on my bed. She insisted on helping me pick out an outfit. The first outfit I showed her was the winner. It was that easy. I dressed in the closet then came out to model for her.
She jumped up and down on my bed. “You look beautiful. He will say so.”
“Who?”
“Your date.” Erin plopped down on her bottom.
“Who told you I have a date?” I knew I never used those words to describe tonight.
“Daddy told me. I think he’s mad.”
“Why do you think that?” How could a nine-year-old be so perceptive?
“Because I can see it on his face. I think he loves you.” She flopped back on my pillows. “Do you love my daddy? My friends at the Gala thought you and daddy were married. I would like that. Could you and daddy marry?”
I sat down next to her. “Erin, can I tell you a secret. But you have to promise not to tell Daddy.”
“I promise.” She crossed her heart and pinky swore.
“Erin, I love your daddy very much, but he’s not ready to accept that. So we’ll just have to wait until he is.”
“Why not? Doesn’t everyone want to be loved?”
“I think so. I’ll tell you what, when he decides the time is right you’ll be the first person I tell.”
“And while you are waiting, you are going out with a boy?”
“Yes, just as a friend,” I assured her.
“But what if you like him more than Daddy? Daddy will be sad, and you might leave us.”
“I’m not going anywhere. That’s something you don’t have to worry about.”
Erin jumped up onto her knees and gave me the biggest hug.
The doorbell rang, and Erin jumped off my bed and ran downstairs. I followed behind her at a much slower pace. At the bottom of the stairs Noah, Erin, and Gregory were standing together in the living room. I thought for sure Noah would avoid seeing me leave on my date but Erin kept him on his best behavior.
Gregory’s back was to me when I walked in the room, but Noah had a perfect view. I wore tight-fitted black satin pants, a somewhat sheer white blouse, and black stilettos. I left my long hair down but curled it. I knew I looked good but seeing Noah’s face solidified the fact.
Gregory turned around and dropped his jaw towards his chest. “Natalie, you look stunning.”
“Thank you.” I avoided eye contact with Noah. “Shall we go?”
As Gregory looked over his shoulder to reverse out of the driveway, I stared at Noah watching us from the front window. My heart sank. I wished it were Noah taking me out on a date tonight.
I arrived home around one thirty. Gregory wanted to walk me to the door, but I felt more comfortable saying goodnight in his car. It was a nice date. He was interesting, but there was no spark for me. I unlocked the door, twisted the doorknob and quietly pushed open the door so not to wake Erin or Noah. When I entered the house, I jumped when I saw Noah sitting in a chair in the dark.
“What are you doing up?” I whispered.
“Waiting for you?” His voice was louder than a whisper. “Did you have a good time?”
“It was nice. He’s very nice.”
“Will you go out again?” His voice got louder.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to discuss this right now.” I still whispered.
“Don’t see him again.” His voice grew louder as he spoke.
“Noah, lower your voice, Erin is asleep.”
He stood up. “Follow me downstairs.”
I did as he said even though all I wanted to do was sleep. Down in the wine cellar, Noah paced the floor agitated. He raked his hands through his hair. I stood still watching him until I could not take it anymore.
“Noah, What is wrong with you?” The intensity of my voice shocked me. “You gave Gregory my number. Why would you do that? You asked me not to run into another man’s arms, and then you give him my phone number.”
“He told me he asked you out the night of the Gala and you said yes. So I gave him your number as a test.”
His words jolted me. He was testing me. Gregory never asked me out at the Gala. I no longer knew what the truth was. But I knew that Noah was expecting me to hurt him and he was always helping the cause. He pushes to see how much I can take. Waiting for me to leave him so he can say another woman fucked him over.
“Why are you still here?” His voice bellowed throughout the wine cellar.
“I don’t know anymore.” I remained calm. “I think that its time for me to leave here, to leave you.”
Noah looked at me like that was the last thing he expected to hear. “Leave?”
“Yes, Noah, I can’t do this anymore. It’s time for me to leave. I should have left a long time ago.”
“You’d leave me? You’d leave Erin?”
“Trust me, it would be painful, but I can’t do this anymore with you.” I motioned to space between him and me.
Noah looked panicked, but when he didn’t respond, I moved past him to go to my room. Before I made it to the first step, Noah grabbed my arm. “Why did you stay?” His voice was eerily calm. “I expected you to leave after the first weekend. Why did you stay and take all my abuse for all these months?”
I was tired of his anger, tired of his cruelty. I screamed. “What the hell is wrong with you? How could you be so stupid? It’s YOU!” I lowered my voice. “I stayed because I am in love with you and I love your daughter. I’ve told you over and over I’m in love with you. Why can’t you say it back? Why can’t you allow yourself to feel love, to be loved?”
He dropped his chin to his chest. “I don’t know. I’m fucked up, and I fucked us up.”
“Yeah, you did, but I’m still here! I can’t do this anymore with you. I no longer feel the difference between your kindness and your cruelty because one always follows the other. Why do you want to hurt me? You need to stop. You need to let me be.” Without waiting for a response, I walked away.
When I got to the top of the stairs, Noah called up to me. “Natalie, wait! Please don’t leave me.”
I swung around. He was at the bottom of the stairs looking up at me. He looked desperate. “That’s what you don’t get, Noah. I don’t leave you. Every other week when Erin is not here, you leave me! You take all the joy I experience throughout the week with you and Erin, and you shit on it come Sunday night when she leaves.”
“Natalie, marry me.” His hands scrubbed his face muffling his words.
“What did you just say?” I heard the exhaustion and disgust in my voice.
He dropped his hands to his side and looked up at me. “Marry me.”
I wanted to say yes, but I knew better. “No, Noah. I will not marry you. I will stay here and take care of Erin because I love her like she is my own but I won’t marry you. And I will look for my own place, so on the weeks Erin is not with us, I’ll stay there.”
“But you said you love me.”
“I do. And that’s why I won’t marry you and why I need to get a place of my own.” I walked away and left him standing there at the bottom of the stairs.
I made it up to the top of the second-floor staircase when Noah came up abruptly behind me. Now whispering he begged me to come into his room to talk. I begged him to let me be, but instead, he grabbed my arm and dragged me into his room.
The room remained dark except for the moonlight casting a soft bluish light throughout the large space. He asked me to sit on his bed while he stood in front of me. “Please, Natalie look at me.” He took both my hands in his and with his head slumped over staring down he spoke.
“Natalie, my mother was an alcoholic. She spent every waking hour sitting in a chair in front of the television with a vodka bottle and a carton of cigarettes next to her. She never interacted with me unless I was making too much noise. The slightest noise from me set her off. Daily, she pounded the shit out of me to shut me up. She was my mother, and I loved her, so I never told my father.”
Noah sucked in a deep breath. His jaw twitched, and he gripped my hands tighter still not making eye contact with me. Pulling on his hands, I guided him down to sit next to me on the bed.
“One afternoon while she was watching one of her daytime television shows, I ran through the house wearing my cape and brandishing my sword while yelling out. She stood up, and the evilness in her eyes froze over me. She grabbed my plastic sword and whipped me with it. The contact of the hard plastic on my skin felt like fire. I always tried to run from her, or crawl up in a fetal position to protect myself, but she always seemed to trap me into a corner and unload her fury on me. That particular beating ended with a few kicks to my ribs and one last hard crack across my face. She dropped the hard plastic sword and walked out of the room. I stayed in the corner until my father came home. He was shocked to find me beaten. Bruises and welts covered me, and she broke ribs. He begged me to tell him everything. My mother disappeared that afternoon and never came back. Two years later we got word that she died from an aneurysm in her stomach. The report stated that she bled out all over.”
“Noah, I’m so sorry.” I pulled my hands from his grip and wrapped my arms around him. His body fell heavy into mine, and he sobbed. Through his sobs, he continued talking.
“Natalie, even after everything that woman did to me I still loved her. I wanted to be near her. I wanted her to come home. She beat the living shit out of me on a daily basis and I still wanted her. Every day after school I stared out the window hoping and waiting for her to come home.”
I cried for Noah, not only for the Noah before me now, but also, the small boy that loved his mother even when she unloaded unspeakable cruelty on him.
We spoke of nothing more. We laid back and fell asleep in each other’s arms until sunlight woke us the next morning. I opened my eyes and watched Noah. His eyes remained closed, and his breathing was steady, but he was awake.
“Natalie?”
“Yes, Noah.”
“I do love you. I always have, and I’m sorry I lied and told you I didn’t. I knew how much I hurt you when I spoke those words.”
“Noah, I know you love me, even when you said otherwise, I knew it. I need you to trust me. I need you to allow yourself to let me love you. I’m not going anywhere. I need you not to go anywhere, anymore. I mean physically and emotionally I need you to stay and work this out with me.”
The bedroom door flung open, and Erin stood in the threshold. Noah and I wore our clothes from the night before. I was more uncomfortable than Noah or Erin. Erin jumped on the bed and squirmed her way between Noah and me. Then she looked at Noah than to me and asked, “Did you tell her.”
I looked at Noah, and he looked at me. “You told your daughter that you loved me before you told me?”
“As soon as I figured it out, I had to tell someone.” He admitted.
“Does this mean you’re getting married?” Erin asked.
Noah and I looked at each other. For me, every fight was a breakthrough, but I knew better. "Erin, honey, your daddy and I love each other, but we need to take things slow.”
Erin directed her question at her father. “Daddy, you do want to marry Natalie, right?”
“Yes, honey I do, but first I have a lot of work to do.” He wrapped his arm across Erin and rested his hand on my stomach.
“Okay, but you’ll tell me when it’s time. Right?”
Noah and I answered in unison. “Yes.”
The following weeks Noah made significant changes. During the day, he worked but texted me throughout his day. At night we’d have dinner together where we talked about so many things. He even planned date nights for us when we didn’t have Erin. I learned so much more about him, and I realized that Noah yearned for a normal married life with children, but his relationship with his abusive mother as a young boy warped his thinking.
Noah didn’t believe it was possible for him to be loved and his decision to fuck escorts rather than pursuing a healthy relationship was all about redemption and retribution. Redemption because somewhere in his childhood he learned to believe that he deserved no better, so he paid for sex. Showing them no respect was his retribution for the pain his mother inflicted on him.
His biggest hurdle would be trusting in me. I never gave him a reason not to, but Noah’s insecurities lived deep in his soul. My responsibility in our relationship was to show him love. Love was what I offered, and all I had to give.