Page 69 of Lost and Found

“You think we’ll catch something?”

He sips from his paper cup. “I know we will.”

It feels natural to let my head fall onto his shoulder. He’s experienced so much loss. So much unfairness. Both of his parents far too young, one slowly and one suddenly. And he still keeps moving through life with all that determined generosity and playfulness.

“Si?”

“Mm?”

“You deserve more than you think you do.”

“Fish on!”

“FISH ON!”

“I think—yeah!Fish on!”

Everyone on this boat is catching fish, other than our party of four. I can confirm that halibut are both realandlook exactly like something someone’s toddler drew. At first, it was exciting just to see people bringing them in, but it’s been more than two hours since the first one was caught, and I’m officially getting annoyed.

Silas is a different story. He’s currently making his way down the deck away from us to celebrate with the same old man forwhat I believe is the third time. He gives him a two-handed high five so hard the poor guy stumbles, and Wren lets out a laugh beside me.

“So, what sparked this idea, if you don’t mind me asking?” she says. “Have you always been a big angler?”

Ellis stands stoically on the other side of her, a few feet in between each pole. He stares at his like he can make a fish bite through sheer force of will.

Either that or he’s eavesdropping fiercely.

“Merritt, actually,” I tell Wren.

“Oh yeah?” Her smile grows, and something plucks in my chest. It is so refreshing to be able to talk about Merritt and not have someone go completely solemn or sad.

“Yeah,” I say. And the rest comes pouring out. I tell her about the letter and about IVF. I explain that this is why Silas let me move in. That he volunteered to do a silly bucket list with me, too. Her smile blends into something softer, and her arm drapes over my back.

Up close, I notice her eyes are watering.

“What an incredible thing you’re doing. I am so excited for you.”

My throat goes instantly, excruciatingly tight. “You don’t think it’s selfish?” I blurt. “To bring a person into this? Not just into the world, with all the pain and uncertainty. But intome. A single person, with my grief?” Her doe eyes dart between mine sympathetically, and I can’t help but care about her answer. All this work I’ve been doing to guard myself from other people’s opinions, and in a blink, I care desperately about Wren’s. Woman to woman, but especially as someone who successfully brought a kid into the world and up in it, under less-than-ideal circumstances, herself. If there is any veracity to my face having that truth-serum quality, I hope I’m summoning it.

She looks down over the edge at the water, organizing her thoughts. “You know the one thing I found to be the most difficult about motherhood, especially in the beginning?” she asks. “The absolute, unending relentlessness of it. Like, it took my brain a long time to wrap itself around the fact that there was no calling in sick. I was seventeen, so for me, it was the idea that I couldn’t just opt out and sleep in on the weekends. I couldn’t just take myself on an errand when I felt like grabbing something. Nothing could ever be that simple again.” Her shoulders hike up, and the arm around me squeezes. “I had to pack accordingly, carry the right shit with me all the time. Consider how he was doing that particular day. And I mean, yeah, those of us who are lucky have support systems and people in our lives who step up to help. We have people in our lives who see it when we need a break, or see whatever it is we need. Sometimes it’s just a change of scenery. Sometimes it’s another set of hands.

“But the thing about motherhood is that once it’s there, it’s there when you open your eyes and when you close them. It doesn’t change who you are. You’re stillyou, but you’re a person who mothers now. And I think . . .” She sighs and takes back her arm, then wraps one of my hands in both of hers. “I think maybe one of the only things that could possibly prepare you for that aspect of it is grief. Grieving. I can’t think of anything closer, in fact.”

She tightens her grip reassuringly. “You have to consider how it’ll feel in certain situations. You have to check in with yourself and give yourself grace. You don’t get to call out of grief, because it’s part of who you are, but it is not the sum of you. You are a person who grieves, and I believe that your capacity for love has been strengthened by it.”

My lungs work in quick, thin breaths. I don’t know what to say, so I hug her instead.

Ellis clears his throat loudly. “Uh, Bea? Bea, your, err, your pole,” he says.

I straighten out of the hug, and sure enough, the tip of my pole bounces down in an aggressive arc.

Excitement surges so fast I struggle to get the words out. “F-FISH ON! FISH ON!”

I hear a distantWoo!from somewhere else on the boat and clumsily get the rod in hand. I crank the reel like we were instructed. Reel down toward the water, pull the pole back up. Reel down again. It is immediately a battle. I press my toes up against the lip of the boat to give myself leverage.

Ellis stammers out a bellow before he’s shouting that he has a fish on, too. He gets his in the boat before I’m able to. My line starts whirring for what feels like the millionth time, and I let out a frustrated groan. My arms feel locked up. Even my legs are trembling.

“Do you want some help, Bea?” Ellis asks me.