Noah is not on the couch. She walks to Mason’s door and listens, but she doesn’t hear Noah’s voice. In the kitchen, she notices his keys are gone from the table by the back door. She steps into the night, the air crisp, and sees a pop of taillights escaping down the street.
She retreats inside. Regret and shame consume her. She takes deep breaths, but emotion soars. Before she can stop herself, she opens her mouth and screams. It has been so long since she’s used her voice in any obvious way, that at first, it startles her. But then, as the sound rips through her chest and throat, she gains momentum, and screams louder. Mason bolts from his room, eyes wild. His aversion to noise is never lost on her, but tonight, she can’t help it.
She screams until he cups his ears and disappears back into the safety of his room and the consumption of his project. She collapses onto the tile, wanting someone to comfort her, to love her, to want her too.
She remembers when it all started, of course, this horrific feeling of being unwanted. That sudden beginning that had been birthed in the span of a single night—her mother’s murder. Then it was her father’s emotional abandonment. Then it was navigating the mean kids in middle and high school, friendless, without a boyfriend, or a parent to rely on. It was staying up nights worrying about the bills. It was coming home in the afternoons to find her father sitting in the bathroom with a knife, threatening to kill himself from his consuming grief. (He never did; he never would.) Lee felt sorry for him, sorry for the both of them.
It was her father finally getting hurt on the job at the auto shop—which caused spinal arachnoiditis—that led to disability. When he had an excuse not to work and still received a paycheck every month, he blew it on pain pills and booze and felt his contribution to their lives was enough.
Lee thought about leaving him so many times. Leaving the house, leaving him in it, leaving Nashville, but the fear of showing up and finding him dead kept her rooted to the spot. She cleaned, she made dinners, and she worked her way through cosmetology school right after high school to hopefully give them both a better life. His checks weren’t enough; there would always be supplementation. It was only when she met Shirley that her life completely cracked apart.
Lee sighs and peels herself off the floor. She doesn’t want to think about her past. She wipes away her tears, blows her nose, and knocks on Mason’s door, her apology already working itself out in her head. She shouldn’t have yelled like that. As she waits for him to open the door, she replays Noah’s rejection like a dull knife to the gut.
She knocks again. Maybe it’s just her lot in life to be alone, to raise Mason without a father. Isn’t that what she deserves? The gnarled truth burrows deeper until she wants to cry. She bites back more tears as Mason cracks the door and she steps over the threshold, apologizing for scaring him.
As she says the words I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, she’s saying it to him, of course she is, but really, she means it for someone else.