They both laughed. Their bond was still fragile, and the threat of it breaking kept them in check.
“Nothing much else has happened.”
“What about this argument I’ve heard from your friend Brad?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She’d ignored his calls, and she hadn’t bothered to tell her she was going to see her parents. She missed Brad. He was like a constant presence in her life, and not being around him upset her. She wanted to make sure he was coping okay with her absence.
“Men?”
Noelle blushed as she thought about Isaac. No matter what she tried to do she couldn’t get him out of her head.
“I met someone, but he wasn’t who he said he was.”
“Then he’s no good for you.”
She smiled and stared at her dad. He took her hand and smiled back at her. Licking her lips, she knew she had to say the words she’d been feeling for some time.
“I blamed you.” She blurted out. He gasped, and the hand holding hers tightened. Instead of stopping, she continued. “Since the accident which gave me this,” she moved her hand over her face, “I’ve hated you for it. I felt that if it wasn’t for your selfishness, I wouldn’t be scarred, and none of this would have happened.”
He went to speak, and she held her hand up to stop him.
“Please, let me finish. This has been ten years in the making, and I think I need to get it off my chest. I promise I didn’t come here to start a fight or to make you feel bad.”
He nodded his head and continued to hold her hand.
“I never wanted to see you again and laid the blame at your feet for this whole thing. Over the past few months I’ve come to see that it was really no one’s fault. What happened, happened, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being bitter for something that I can’t change. I love you, dad, and I forgive you.”
He held her close, and the bond between them began to mend. Noelle closed her eyes as she thought about everything she had missed. She wasn’t just thinking about the last two years but what she’d missed since the accident. Time truly could heal old wounds.
With that thought in mind, she wondered if she could forgive Isaac. In the moments of being in her father’s arms she knew she could forgive him.
****
Noelle spent the next couple of days with her family. Her cousins were visiting from up north, and the family were having several trips down memory lane. She didn’t see her father drink once during their time together. He took her out to the local diner, and they ate together mending the barrier that had been erected between them. She knew she had to go back home but had promised to return for Christmas.
On the day before her last, she was clearing away the dishes when the door bell rang. Her mother went to answer it as her dad and cousins were getting ready to watch a movie. Noelle put some condiments away in the cupboard.
“Noelle, a gentleman is here to see you.” Her family charged toward the porch to see the man who’d come to call on her. Shaking her head and smiling at the same time she went to see who had decided to visit. She stopped when she saw Brad at the door. He looked pale and terrified. Staring at him, she knew something was wrong. His whole demeanour was off. When he saw her, she saw the relief flash across his face.
“Everyone, I’d like you to meet Bradley Welch. He’s my friend who I shared an apartment with in the city.”
They all offered him thanks.
“Let’s leave Noelle with her friend. He looks like he wants to speak to her alone,” her father said.
She watched her family leave. When she thought about seeing Brad, she imagined it would have been in privacy. Taking his hand, she noted how clammy he felt to the touch, and took him to the dining room.
****
Brad took a deep breath as her family left. The people were making him nervous. Since leaving Ben at the cemetery he’d been lost. He’d spent the last few days trying to find the only rock he had in his life.
Her touch made him nervous. Could she feel the change inside him?
She dropped his hand and began clearing away the table. He followed her around, unsure of how to ask for her help.
“I need to talk to you, Noelle,” Brad said. His hands were shaking. He was so close to falling off the wagon. He needed his tower of strength, the one woman who’d stood by him through thick and thin. Isaac was a mess from her loss, and he knew the only thing to keep him from going under was Noelle.
“I don’t want to talk to you. You interfered in my life, Brad. That kind of shit you don’t forgive. Why did you come out here?” She slammed around the room putting away jars of pickles. The rest of her family sat in the sitting room. They’d given her privacy while he visited.