Noah sat on the very edge of the bed in just his shorts. He had been sitting there for at least 30 minutes, hands by his sides, clenching and unclenching his fists, staring at nothing in particular.
"Noah, I don't know how to tell you this…"
He could hear Luke and the kids laughing and playing at the other side of the house.
Seven hours.
"Kevin was granted parole…"
In just seven hours Kevin Howard would arrive to take back his daughter… their daughter.
Small and painful puffs of air kept escaping his lips as the fissures he had tried so hard to close broke open further still. He was finding it more and more difficult to hold them off.
"I know it's sooner than we expected…"
It didn't help that Luke kept pushing him to talk. He couldn't talk, didn't Luke understand that? Josh's death had started this in him, but it had become about so much more…
Tension gripped him as he squeezed the bridge of his nose between his hands. His head throbbed.
"She was never going to live with us forever. We always knew that."
A framed photograph of them on their wedding day caught his eye. Luke had recently placed a number of these prints in various locations around the house. This one sat in a silver frame beside their bed. In it, Nicholas and Mia smiled broadly in their arms; eyes sparkling.
The perfect family.
An intense feeling of anger gripped him then and he swung his hand at the photo frame. It hurtled across the room, landing silently on the carpet.
A loud moan threatened to escape his lips but he breathed rapidly to soften it. He couldn't risk Luke hearing him. If Luke came into the bedroom now, Noah would break. He knew that for certain.
Feeling the need to quickly retreat he rushed for the bathroom, locking the door, and turning on the shower until it was steaming hot.
Removing his shorts he stepped inside and stood directly under the spray, pressing both his hands to the wall and ducking down his head. He used the sound of the water to muffle his cries as the water hit the nape of his neck and poured down his back and hunched shoulders.
"It doesn't matter where Mia goes," Luke had said, "As long as she's happy and taken care of."
Noah fought. He used ever technique he'd ever gleaned to please his father. He never thought he would ever go back to using them. But he had to find a way to stay focused.
"We both know the best place for her is with her father."
It was only when his skin began to ripple that he turned off the tap.
As he stepped out the shower his feet became entangled in Luke's wet towel and he almost tripped over. As usual the blonde had simply left it lying on the floor instead of placing it in the hamper.
Noah began to notice other things. How Luke had left the cap off the tube of toothpaste; how bottles of hair products were left on the sink; how strands of Luke's hair clogged the drain.
All these things were normal. But today they grated on Noah in a way he could barely understand.
The bedroom was no better.
Luke's notes lay in crumpled balls all over the floor by the bed, where he'd thrown them the night before during a brainstorming session.
Clothing Luke decided not to wear had been tossed carelessly onto the unmade bed and left there.
Noah flung open the closet and quickly picked out an outfit. Dressed he stormed into the sitting room to confront Luke.
But before he could do so he promptly tripped over one of Nicholas's roller-skates just as he stepped into the living room.
Luke and the kids were using the coffee table to create cards with glitter glue, spilling the sticky substance everywhere.
They all looked up as Noah stumbled, just managing to keep himself from toppling over by grabbing the top of an armchair.
"You okay?" a light-hearted Luke asked from his position on the couch.
But Noah ignored him, too focused on noticing every detail of how disorganised the house was.
Toys and coloured pencils littered the floor and surfaces.
Used cups and plates were left on the dining table and Noah was sure they'd been there for days.
"Honestly Luke." He seethed. "I know things have been hard lately but do we have to live in a dump?"
"What?" Luke asked, confused by Noah's sudden and unexpected anger.
"What?" Noah mimicked. "There is shit EVERYWHRE, Luke! Are you blind? I can barely fucking move around here!"
"Noah…"
Luke slowly began to get up, worry etched on his brow.
Noah never swore around the children but at that moment he didn't even care.
Ignoring Luke, Noah began to clear the dirty dishes from the table, storming into the kitchen and slamming them into the sink, paying no heed to how they smashed into broken shards as he did so.
"Noah, take it easy." Luke was by his side in seconds; trying to grab hold of him.
"It's really simple, Luke!" Noah yelled, shaking himself loose from Luke's hold, bearing him over by the sheer unexpectedness and ferocity of movement. "All you have to do it pick it up and put it in the sink!"
As a stunned Luke quickly hopped back to his feet, Noah completed another trip to the kitchen, making sure to create as much noise as possible.
Mia began to cry; scared by Noah's strange behaviour. Nicholas took off to stand outside on the decking, staring back at them with wide eyes and with hands covering his ears.
"Noah, you need to stop…"
"Don't fucking tell me what I need, Luke! What I need, what would be great, is for some fucking help around here!"
"God, Noah. Would you just stop?"
"Stop what exactly?"
"Stop pretending that what's happening to you now has anything to do with how clean the fucking house is."
They glared at each other for what seemed like ages.
"Josh died, Noah."
"I know that. What's that got to do with it?"
"Everything."
"Look, Luke… Would you stop bringing this up? I don't know what you want from me…"
"What I want is to see you collapsed into a snivelling ball on the floor."
Luke's callous words hit Noah deeply.
"What I want," Luke continued, "is to see you cry like a human being, God dammit!"
What followed was a scream of suppressed emotion that hurtled from Noah's body and found its release in one sweep of his arm along the tabletop. With no thought, he let the momentum of his anger carry him. Mugs, plates and cutlery smashed to the floor.
He heard his own voice roaring outrage, cringed at it, but couldn't stop.
A terrified Mia screamed even louder, intensifying the extreme stress that coursed through his veins.
Noah reached for a chair, swung it high in the air and brought it down with savage force upon the table. He lifted the shattered remains to repeat the action when…
"NOAH!"
At Holden's authoritative voice Noah staggered, retching, drawing in an audible breath of air. He dropped the chair and fell backward into the wall, using it to prop himself up.
For a long moment the room hung, suspended in shocked silence except for Mia's whimpering.
Noah didn't move and he couldn't prevent the sounds that escaped his lips after that.
He had no idea what was happening to him. He felt completely out of control, stripped of his usual self-possession.
"Noah?" Tears seeped from Luke's startled eyes.
"Luke, take the kids outside." Holden had just arrived back from a trip to the store and was standing in the front doorway.
"But Dad, I…"
"Luke." Holden's voice was firm as he repeated, "Take the kids outside."
Luke looked between Noah and his father and relented. He lifted the crying Mia into his arms, gathering her to him, rocking her back and forth and softly muttering her name as he left to join Nicholas on the decking outside.
Luke turned and his frightened eyes caught Noah's gaze and dug at Noah's remorseful heart. Eventually Luke slid the sliding door closed and took the kids to the end of the yard.
"I can't… I can't…" Noah muttered, shaking his head as he fought the sudden weakness that invaded his muscles; turning them to water. A blanket of shame fell over him.
How could he allow Holden to witness him act in such an appalling way.
"What's going on, Son?" As he spoke Holden closed the front door and approached his wrecked son-in-law.
Noah immediately straightened, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, fighting to collect himself.
"I'm sick of living like this!" Noah exclaimed, desperately trying to shelve those feelings back where they belonged; deny them; hide them. "He never cleans up after himself. I constantly have to run around behind him…"
Holden shook his head at Noah.
"Why don't you tell me what's really going on?"
Noah's breath shuddered. "That is what's going on."
"No it's not."
"It is!"
"Come on, Kid. Luke is outside and anything you're afraid might hurt him can't hurt me, okay?"
Noah's legs shook and Holden leapt to his side, one hand squeezing his shoulder and guiding him over so they could sit on the couch together.
"Aren't you tired?" The older man asked, "Don't you feel the need to talk?"
"I found him in the bedroom, you know?" Just like that Noah did speak, surprising himself.
"I know. Luke told me."
"He looked like he was sleeping."
Holden nodded.
"I tried to protect Luke from having to see him that way but you know how Luke…"
Suddenly Noah couldn't stop talking, nor could he stop crying
He went on and on, about Josh, about Luke, about himself, expressing a deep sense of loss and failure.
He wondered how Holden was so calm. How he was able to simply sit there and tolerate such a disgusting display of pure weakness.
But Noah was totally powerless to stop, even though he knew he was behaving like a complete madman.
"When he get's an idea in his head nobody can stop him." He told Holden. "Not even me! And he ploughs into danger… it's almost like he looks for it on purpose."
Noah got up off the couch, feeling a cold chill on his shoulder where Holden's comforting hand had just been.
But he had to get up. He had to move.
"I love him. You know I do. Most days I'm ecstatically happy. But then the rest of the time he makes me so… so…"
Noah paced back and forth; throwing up his arms and sprouting words into the air, spraying spit and tears everywhere.
"…I'm terrified of him…"
Then he returned to the couch, arms wrapped around his knees while still more words and more tears flooded out.
"…I can't lose them…"
Then up and down again, over and over, walking a path into the carpet and indenting the couch; his senses in chaos.
The past came up too. His father, his mother, Luke injured, Luke leaving him and loving another; a cold and lonely year spent in L.A. without anything but his own troubled mind.
"Do you have any idea what last year was like?" he stressed through tears.
And back to Josh.; that beautiful kid lost to them forever.
Until eventually he reached the larger of his fears – that one by one the bricks of their incredible new life were crumbling around him and he was incapable of stopping it.
"No matter what I do! First Josh and now Mia?"
Would Nicholas be next?
Until finally it was their relationship, their love for each other to go – destroyed forever?
"How do I stop it?" Noah asked, pleading with his eyes for answers. "It doesn't make sense."
"No." Holden said for the first time since Noah started his tirade. "It doesn't. It most likely never will."
Noah stood there holding Holden's gaze.
"Sometimes life really doesn't make sense, Noah."
Noah slumped. "It's not fair when we've had to fight so hard."
"No, it's not. But that's just how it is. Until you can truly accept that you can't direct how things will turn out… how people will act in any given situation… then you'll never really be settled, Son. Not in the way I know you want to be. You have to learn to let go of the control…"
"How can I even think to risk that? I could lose them if I do… I can't…I need… I need…"
A perplexed and lost Noah looked desperately around the room.
"Sit down." Holden patted the space beside him. "Sit down and I'll tell you what you need."
Noah sat as hope filled him. Did Holden hold all the answers?
"You need a Dad's hug."
Before Noah knew it Holden was pulling him into his arms, holding him there.
"If you continue as you are…" Holden told him, "as you've done for all your life… holding everything in; you'll end up a mental hospital. It isn't normal, Noah. It isn't human to keep it all penned up like you do. No matter what your father taught you."
"Please…" Noah tried to pull out of the embrace, even as he wanted to fall forever into it. "Holden…"
"Don't fight it, son… just let it all go."
Holden continued to grip hold of the squirming Noah.
"Hol-den…"
The lock on that internal iron box clicked and the lid flung open.
Noah snapped.
The emotion escaped; flowing from him in waves; the feelings pushing up to the surface, demanding to be heard.
And heard they were.
Noah released a series of surging wails into Holden's shirt, shoulders shaking as he cried; his stomach muscles knotted.
He didn't see how his cries brought Luke to the other side of the glass door or how Holden hold up a hand to keep Luke back.
"It's okay to cry. It's okay to let it out." Holden squeezed at Noah's upper arm all the while watching his son over the back of Noah's shoulder. "And when you do we'll be here to catch you. That's what family is all about. When will you understand that you don't have to do things all by yourself anymore, Kid? Even if you feel you can't talk to Luke, you have a whole army of people ready to love and to help you. It's not weak to ask for help. We won't think less of you for it."
There was no going back now. There was simply no stopping it. Noah could barely breathe through the sobs and howls that escaped him.
"But you should trust in Luke. You won't hurt him by letting go, okay? I promise you that. In relationships you share the pain and by doing so lessen it."
For minutes Holden held him there until gesturing for an anxious Luke to enter. Somehow, seamlessly, father and son exchanged places.
It was Luke's body, his smell and his warmth that soaked through to Noah's soul now; Luke's fingers that smoothed the back of his head.
"I'm sorry." He gasped, "I'm so sorry."
Luke didn't speak; he didn't try to pacify Noah. He simply held him, letting every last ounce of pent-up pain find its escape from his husband's wracked body.
Nobody ever questioned it, but from that day onward, without prompting, Noah began to refer to Holden as Dad.
...
"Better?"
Noah turned from the bedroom dresser and smiled at how Luke had his head cocked to one side; a beautiful grin settling on his lips.
"I love you, Luke. You're not just my husband, you're my best friend. You know me better than anybody in the world."
"I do." Luke replied, approaching him until he was close enough to rub his hands up and down Noah's arms.
"You proved it these past few weeks. I'm sorry. I was just so scared I'd hurt you."
Luke shook this head and began to speak but Noah interrupted him.
"I let all the fears clog my mind again and… you were so patient."
"I know!" Luke joked, lightening the mood. "I don't know what happened."
They both laughed until the front doorbell rang. The smiles on both their faces faded as they locked eyes.
"You ready?" Luke asked.
"No."
"Noah, she belongs with…"
"Oh I know that Luke! I'm so happy for her. I want this for her. It just… it doesn't make it any easier."
Luke nodded. "Yeah, I know."
"We need to make sure she's not afraid of the change."
"Yes, but that's why Kevin plans to stick around in L.A. We can see her whenever we want."
Holden appeared at the bedroom door. "Luke, Noah, you want me to get that?"
"No Dad, we got it."
They continued to stare at each other for a moment and then left hand in hand to open the front door together.
But to their shock it wasn't Kevin Howard who stood waiting outside on their doorstep.
It was Michelle Harris.
...
I'm not sure I like how this turned out. I'm not sure it gets what I'm aiming for...
Anyway thanks for reading.