Chapter 18 – Washing

Everyone is sitting at the table and the food is ready. Mimi is a little tense. Is Noa coming to eat or not? Suddenly the bell rings and Mimi is shocked. Claire opens the door and enters with Noa. He is a big broad man with the square jaws of a fighter. Mimi introduces him to the others, after which they welcome him with the usual hospitality. Mimi asks him to sit next to her. The table is of course also set for him. Jacques has also come again and is sitting next to Lisa. He has a crush on Lisa, Mimi thinks. During dinner he straight up asks Noa how come he lives on the street.

With some reluctance, Noa tells us that he trained as a shoemaker in his youth, but once he finished he didn’t like it. He wanted to become a mercenary in a foreign legion, because adventure appealed to him. After years of the smell of blood and gunpowder, intrigue and betrayal, he had seen enough misery. He resigned and is now looking for a good life.

“Do you want to become a shoemaker again?” asks Jean Paul.

“I have indeed started doing that again,” Noa answers. “I earned some money with that along the way and was able to buy some food every now and then.”

Claire and Lisa look at each other in silence. The friends don’t need words to know what the other is thinking.

“Spend the night here tonight,” Claire suggests. “Then we can see if we like each other enough for you to move in.”

The next morning Noa leaves without a word and gets up before the others. He’s back again at dinner. “Sorry I left last night,” he apologizes. “I haven’t had a roof over my head for so long that I couldn’t sleep.”

He also stays the night that night and leaves in the morning after breakfast. During dinner, Claire asks: “Do you think you can finally make the decision to stay here now?”

Noa nods.

“Then let’s show you the bathroom first,” Jean Paul says. “You need a wash.”

“Where is the shopping cart with your things?” Mimi asks.

Noa chuckles. “In the driveway, around the corner from your house.”

“Our house,” says Mimi with a beaming smile. “Your house too.”

While washing dishes with the other girls, Mimi realizes that she is happy. She did a good deed.

Lisa looks at her with a smile and nods. “You have taken a good initiative.”

Mimi hears the men talking in Jean Paul’s room, which now also becomes Noa’s room. He can stay and he wants to stay.