Mayfly Melodies

Nineteen

Noah

It's the bulls and blood, the dust and mud. It's the roar of the Sunday crowd. It's the white in the knuckle, the gold in the buckle—Garth Brooks

The sun had just risen over the fields as Noah drove along the road that would take him into town. He bounced along the dirt road in his truck, kicking up dust as he went. He had one hand resting on the wheel and the other by the open driver's side window. The wind blew through his hair and the radio crackled out reports of the weather and traffic reports for the day.

"—expect blue skies until around six pm at which point there will be scattered showers across the Johnston county area. Tomorrow you can expect thunderstorms and heavy winds."

Noah flicked the radio off. He was running late. He'd woken up early—something that wasn't hard to do when one hardly slept—but had gotten distracted by Caroline just as he'd been about to head out the door. He'd finished his morning chores and had gone inside to shower and change before going to pick up Bailey at Annie's Diner.

But, just as he'd opened the door to head out, he heard a strange little sound coming from the kitchen and had gone to investigate. He found Caroline there, a surprise because it was so early at only a little after seven am, but her presence had been the least surprising thing about the situation. What was more was the fact that she was popping a piece of bread in the toaster and, Noah swore, humming.

It was the first sound that Noah had heard his sister utter in nearly a year. The tune was unfamiliar but Noah barely even registered this fact. He was too shocked. He could barely move. For a long moment, Noah just stood there, in the entryway to the kitchen, and stared at his little sister.

She was so beautiful. Noah had grown up knowing this fact. Caroline had won a lot of the beauty pageants she'd entered and many of the boys in town had been infatuated with her. Noah had enjoyed the task of warding off any of the unworthy ones which, he admitted, had been most of them.

Much of Caroline's beauty came from the internal ferocity that she had. His sister was like a tigress, stunningly beautiful but terrifyingly strong beneath the surface. But, over time, he'd seen that strength begin to ebb and fade away. The light that radiated out from her seemed to have been slowly dying, kept alive only by Noah's insistence and interference.

Standing there, in their little kitchen, making her own food and humming, Noah could see that ferocity returning. Her dying light was coming back to life all by itself with no help from Noah.

Noah hadn't been able to move for a few minutes. Caroline hadn't even seemed to realize that he was there. But when she did notice, she fell silent immediately and pretended as if nothing had happened. Her eyes, eyes that were only a few shades lighter than his, stared at him. Really stared at him. For the first time in months, Noah felt as if he were actually looking at his sister and she was looking back. Not through him, as she tended to do, but directly at him.

"Were you just humming?" he asked her, dumbfounded. He felt the weight of the world settle about his shoulders, as if he were moments away from crumpling.

He didn't know what he expected. Was he waiting on her to speak, to say 'Yes' or 'No' like a normal person? Did he expect her to nod or shake her head, just some sort of silent affirmation or refusal about what she had or hadn't been doing? Noah didn't know. All he did know was that he couldn't move. It was as if his feet were frozen to the ground, waiting on Caroline to thaw him out.

But she didn't do anything but walk away. Noah saw the change in her moments before she left. It happened in the blink of an eye. She went from present, from a girl who could stare down a mountain to make it move to a girl who was no more aware than the wind passing through the trees. Just one second and she was gone, fading back into the safer recesses of her mind where the pain of their shared tragedy could no longer affect her.