Part 3: Rosemary
Prom night arrived faster than either of us expected.
I was halfway down the staircase when the doorbell rang.
Mom opened the door.
Noah stood on the porch wearing his navy suit and the famous bow tie.
It was perfectly straight.
In one hand, he held a small corsage.
The second I saw him, I smiled.
Then I noticed Mom.
Her expression had changed.
She looked at Noah as though she were seeing him differently for the first time.
I came down another step.
“What’s the flower?”
Noah lifted the corsage proudly.
“Rosemary.”
I laughed.
“That’s not exactly a traditional prom flower.”
“I know.”
“So why rosemary?”
He smiled.
“The florist said rosemary means remembering.”
He paused for dramatic effect.
“And I remember promises.”
Behind me, Mom made a strange, broken little sound.
I turned.
Her eyes were shining.
“Mom?”
She quickly wiped beneath one eye.
“Christina, come upstairs with me.”
I frowned.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“But Noah’s here.”
“I know.”
Noah looked between us.
“I can wait.”
I gave Mom a confused look but followed her upstairs.
The second we entered my bedroom, she closed the door.
Then she locked it.
My irritation immediately turned to worry.
“Mom, you’re freaking me out.”
“You’re going with Noah.”
“You already said that.”
“I need one promise from you first.”
That made me defensive.
“If this is about him having Down syndrome—”
“It isn’t.”
“Then what is it?”
Mom sat on the edge of my bed.
For several seconds, she simply looked down at her hands.
Then she asked,
“Do you remember what you were like after your father left?”
I stared at her.
“What does Dad have to do with prom?”
“You were twelve.”
“I know.”
“You barely spoke. You weren’t sleeping well.”
She looked at me.
“And you stopped eating lunch.”
I went still.
“How do you know that?”
Her answer came quietly.
“Noah told me.”
I stared at her.
“Noah?”
Mom nodded.
Then she told me something I had never known.
During one of the hardest weeks after the divorce, she had parked outside my school one afternoon and cried in her car.
She thought she was alone.
She wasn’t.
Noah saw her.
“He came over to the car,” Mom said. “He knocked on the window and asked if I was okay.”
I sat beside her.
“What did you say?”
“I lied and told him I was fine.”
Despite everything, I smiled faintly.
“He probably didn’t believe you.”
“He didn’t.”
Mom took my hand.
“Then he asked whether you were broken.”
The word hit me strangely.
“Broken?”
“He’d noticed you weren’t eating. He’d noticed you weren’t laughing. He knew you had started sitting by yourself.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him you weren’t broken.”
Mom’s eyes filled again.
“And then he said something I’ve remembered ever since.”
“What?”
Her voice trembled.
“He said, ‘Good. Because I don’t know how to fix people. I only know how to stay.’”
I couldn’t say anything.
Suddenly, those lunches came back to me in detail.
Noah dropping into the seat beside me.
Noah talking about baseball when I didn’t feel like talking.
Noah quietly eating when I didn’t want conversation at all.
I had always remembered those moments as friendship.
I had never realized he had made a conscious decision to stay near me because he could see I was hurting.
Mom squeezed my fingers.
“That day, I asked him for something I probably never should have asked a twelve year old for.”
I turned toward her.
“What?”
“I asked Noah to look after you.”
I stared at her.
“You did?”
She nodded, ashamed.
“I was falling apart, Christina. Your father was gone. You barely talked to me. I didn’t know how to reach you.”
Her voice broke.
“But Noah could still make you smile.”
I imagined twelve year old Noah standing beside my mother’s car.
“What did he say?”
Mom gave a small, teary laugh.
“Just ‘Okay.’”
Of course he did.
Then her expression changed.
“That wasn’t the mistake, though.”
“What was?”
“For years afterward, I watched your friendship through the wrong lens.”
I waited.
“Whenever you changed plans because Noah wasn’t invited somewhere, I worried.”
My shoulders stiffened.
“When you defended him, I worried. When you chose to spend time with him instead of other people, I wondered whether you felt responsible for him.”
I pulled my hand away.
“He’s my best friend.”
“I know.”
“You thought I was taking care of him?”
“Yes.”
Her honesty stung.
She looked toward the floor.
“I kept noticing what I imagined Noah might need from you.”
Then she looked at me again.
“And somehow I failed to see what he was giving you.”
I said nothing.
She continued softly.
“The lunches after your dad left.”
“The ice cream after you failed your driving test.”
“The ridiculous dinosaur taped in his locker.”
“The night of your first heartbreak when he sat with you on the porch until almost midnight.”
I felt tears burning behind my eyes.
Mom whispered,
“Noah was never some responsibility you were carrying.”
She shook her head.
“You were carrying each other.”
And suddenly I understood why she had looked at him that way when he arrived.
Not with worry.
With recognition.
“So what’s your condition?” I asked.
Mom smiled through her tears.
“Don’t walk downstairs and go to prom with Noah because a six year old girl made a promise.”
She took both my hands.
“Go because eighteen year old Christina still chooses him.”
For several seconds, I simply stared at her.
Then I laughed softly.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“That was already why I was going.”
Her face crumpled.
“I know that now.”
