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They are the most wonderful words I’ve ever heard.
I love them so much, I store them away in my galloping heart, knowing they will never leave.
It feels like ages go by before I’m able to visit June, but when we’re finally summoned to her recovery room, I snatch Aggie from the empty table beside me and make my way down the corridor.
“Brant!”
When I step into the room, my eyes widen. She’s hooked up to cords and monitors, and the image makes my chest pinch tight. June is far too little to look so broken. A clunky white cast adorns her right arm, but it doesn’t take away from her beaming smile. I return it instantly. “Junebug.”
Racing to her bedside, I watch her baby blues glisten with a glaze of tears. She doesn’t even notice her parents filing into the room, followed by Theo. I have her full attention. “I didn’t mean to fall. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you ever apologize, June. It was an accident.” I pull Aggie out from behind my back, watching her eyes grow even wetter. When I discovered June was going to have a cast, I rushed to the bathroom and wrapped his little elephant arm in a spool of toilet paper to match. “Aggie wanted to have a cast just like you.”
“Oh, wow!” she exclaims, reaching for her favorite toy with her good arm. “Thank you!”
The Baileys rush toward her, besieging her with tender hugs and kisses. Theo cries quietly into her pillow as he lies down beside her, apologizing for leaving her all alone. There are so many tears, so many whispered words, so many thankful thoughts. I watch from my perch in the corner, grateful I was made a part of this family.
Where would I be without them?
When emotions have settled, June reaches for me again, so I curl up beside her on the small bed, breathing in the scent of her lilac hair. “Thank you for bringing me Aggie,” she murmurs, snuggling into me. “I was scared without him.”
I smile sadly. “I know you were, Junebug. I had a stuffed elephant when I was your age, and he always made me feel better when I got scared.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
She ponders this, blinking up at the ceiling. “What happened to him?”
I knew the question was coming, but it’s not the time to give her the gory truth. It’s not the time to explain Bubbles’s fate—that he was part of a massacre, stained with my father’s blood and tossed away like garbage.
Maybe it’ll never be the time to tell her that.
“I lost him one day,” I opt for, my voice hitching slightly.
“You lost him forever? Not just for a little while?”
I swallow. “I lost him forever.”
Closing my eyes, I try not think about my old childhood comfort. Instead, I drink in the comfort of June and her warm breaths and her swiftly beating heart.
“I’ll find him for you someday, Brant,” she says, squeezing my hand in hers. “I promise.”
I realize it’s a promise she can’t keep, but I smile anyway.
“Can you sing me the rainbow song now?”
Mrs. Bailey pulls her chair closer, right next to June’s beside, and runs her hand along my arm. “How about we both sing it?”
June nods with enthusiasm. “Yes, please. It’s my favorite.”
It’s my favorite, too, Junebug.
It used to be my favorite because it reminded me of Mom.
Now, it reminds me of June.
While Mrs. Bailey twines her fingers with mine and sweeps a loose tendril of hair from June’s forehead with her other hand, she sucks in a deep breath. My eyelids flutter closed.
