Page 24 of Lost and Found

Silas: This is your room.

Silas: [pic]

Silas: You get the best view of the backyard. That madrone is one of the reasons I bought the place. I can see it from my room, too, but you’ll see it better on top of me.

Silas: Above me. On the top floor, above me.

Bea: Thank you for that clarification. . . . It is a very cool tree.

Silas: I’m picking up on some sarcasm, and I don’t appreciate it.

Bea: *sigh*

(Twenty minutes later)

Bea: It is a neat tree, Silas. Kinda looks like an old man’s gnarled hand. I’m into it.

Silas: You’re into old men?

Bea: Goodbye.

Silas: Sorry, can’t read that, I’ve misplaced my glasses.

CHAPTER 8

Now

Silas

It’s an unseasonably warm morning for this part of Oregon in spring. The steam rising off the asphalt is so thick it looks like smoke. I have the day off, I scored the last marionberry scone from Savvy’s this morning, and my coffee is perfect. Bea moved the bulk of her things in over the past week, but whenever I offer to help her unpack, her replies get increasingly shorter and standoffish, so I figure she might need some space.

That aside, by every other account, I should be in a positively chipper mood.

Instead, I am idling in a parking lot forty miles outside Spunes, staring across a verdant expanse of lawn at a cheerful brick building that looks more like someone’s home than a community center, and I can’t even make myself get out of the truck. Out front, rising up from a bunch of colorful pansies at the base, there’s a marquee that reads:

9:00A.M.: PING-PONG TOURNAMENT

12:00P.M.: BURN SURVIVORS MEETING*

(*LOVED ONES WELCOME!)

I’ve tried to attend one of these group meetings before. Up until four months ago, for the year that it was covered by theunion, I saw a bimonthly therapist without fail. From the very first point that I was physically healed enough to take myself, I worked on getting over the accident.Near-death experience, my doctor often encouraged me to call it. When our time together came to a close, she gave me a list of other resources I could seek out, most of which I ignored at the time. I’d been antsy and tired of feeling purposeless, ready to get back to work. I’d checked off the necessary boxes.

Then the first panic attack happened. I consulted that list and saw the website for the group meetings. I figured since I’d actually enjoyed going to therapy before, I would probably enjoy this, too. I like talking to people. Ilikedtalking with my doctor, analyzing and codifying all my thoughts and feelings. It probably cured some part of my inner middle child to have someone pay attention to my stream of consciousness for an hour. I even liked how my doctor laughed indulgently when I remarked on this to her.

This is why I was so confused by the nerves that overtook me the first time I showed up to a group meeting, but at least that time I made it past the door and all the way into the room.

A spread of cookies and refreshments had caught my eye. I was loading up my plate when I spotted someone else walking in. A Black man about my age, built like my brother Micah, excessively tall and fit, with a huge grin on his face. Missing the lower half of his right leg. Behind him came another man, but I couldn’t tell you his age. That man’s burn scars covered most of his face and the entirety of his arms. They’d been laughing to themselves and stopped when they saw me, then greeted me with a nod. I turned around and felt their stares searing into my back. Could practically hear their thoughts broadcasting to each other.“What’s he doing here? What’s he got to be upset about? He looks fine.”

When a pair of women came in with a little girl between them, one side of her face freshly scarred and pink, I couldn’t take it. I set my stupid cookies and lemonade down and left.

I’m not sure why I thought I’d try again.

Lie.

Idoknow why I wanted to try again. Bea Marshall is why. The way she’s willing—eveneagerto honor Merritt best, despite treading all her heavy feelings. The way she’s scraping together her bravery and determined to dive in.

It was the way she looked at me when I volunteered to go through that list with her, the tight set of her shoulders collapsing in relief. It felt like a risk, inserting myself that way, especially given our history, but—