Page 94 of Lost and Found

“The Byrds and the Bea” group chat blows up until Silas gives them the okay to come to the hospital. Indy will stay at Sage and Fisher’s with baby Luna so they can join, too.

When Bonnie and my mom step into my hospital room, it’s the first time I cry, like being in this primal state has reduced me to a girl who just wants her mom to make it better. They both seem satisfied with whatever Silas is doing and leave us for the waiting room after a bit.

I make Silas sing to me, right up against my ear. I tell him to stop abruptly, like I can’t take one more second of it. I get weepy and ask him to start again.

Selina checks me for the umpteenth time and offers to call the anesthesiologist. A beast has taken up residence in my skin. My voice comes out like a growl when I look at Silas and say, “No. No more numbing, right?”

It’s the first time he truly cracks and loses his composure. “Bea, honey,please. I know you said you didn’t want one and you told me to keep you strong, but . . . Christ, Bea. I’m so full of shit. I get numbed at the dentist!”

It seems impossible that I could be in this much agony and laugh at the same time, but somehow, I do. A raspy, gasping one. I tell Selina no. Silas nods and squares his shoulders, ready to bear whatever he can for me.

An hour later, I regret it more than I’ve ever regretted anything, including the microbangs I tried at thirteen. I am so tired of being in pain. I’m so, so tired. I want it to be done. But Silas keeps on holding me up when I can’t take it anymore. He never leaves my side.

An unknown number of hours later, something is approaching, and I know it’s . . . it’s a vortex of pain. A spinning whirlpool I’m convinced will really rip me under this time and never let me go, and I’m sweating and groaning and begging Selina to get the epidural Messiah or whoever they are and she’s telling me it’s too late, and just before I explode into a sob, Silas makes me look into his eyes.

“Hey, Red,” he says. “Fuck Picasso, right?”

A long, lowing moan before I can reply. “Fuck.Picasso.”

My body knows what it needs, and I’m rocking and scooting myself into place, readying myself to slip into that final ring of pain. The doctor and nurses are suiting up around me, and soon enough I’m pushing. I’m pushing like I can turn my soul inside out, until the doctor asks Silas if he wants to catch her, and even in the fugue of it all, I think,Yes, there’s no one better. There is no one I’d rather have right there to catch me.

And then I hit that point in the pain where I’m certain I’ll never come up, but this time, I know I will. I know what’s on the other side of this, and just like every wave ever has, this one will get pulled back, too. It snaps and flattens like a tether, and thereshe is, in Silas’s big, capable hands, brown-haired and squalling and wriggling and bloody and the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. She’s my greatest pain and my enduring love and a whole entire person I get to know. Our catch of a lifetime. She cries and the room vibrates with awed laughter, because crying means being alive. To live is to cry. Her exit from my body is our first goodbye and our first hello. Her dad lays all eight pounds of her on my chest and kisses and cries into my sweaty hair, telling me,Thank you, thank you, thank you.And even as she’s being scrubbed and jostled, she calms against my skin. I feel her heartbeat in her chest, the pulse in her body passed down and birthed from love. Our eyes meet, and my universe sprouts new stars.

“Hello, Sailor Byrd,” I tell our daughter. “Welcome to the world.”

EPILOGUE

At the end of life, or in our most quiet and contemplative seasons, the luckiest of us go back through our moments, lost and found. We don’t trot out our achievements or dissect what we’ll leave behind. When time gets small, we pick the smallest fragments of it that shine inexplicably and hold them close.

Merritt Young thought about the women in her life more than anything else, toward the end. She thought of her mom letting her and her sister sit on the counter while she prepared meals, making idle chat or singing along to Shania Twain or Stevie Nicks. How her mom always called the three of them the “the Three Musketeers.” She thought of trying to get out of yard work with her sister and devising a plan together, rubbing poison ivy on their calves thinking this would be enough—that their mom would tell their dad they needed to stay in and watch movies, they couldn’t sweat and spread the rash, et cetera. But they’d grossly underestimated how bad those rashes would be and just how much they’d spread, and spent that weekend taking turns in oatmeal baths, being snippy at each other. Still, they’d been united in their misery. She thought of her sister curling her hair before her first dance and that time she got to be the one to teach Devin how to apply eyeliner. How good it felt to be the one teaching her something for a change. She thought about how it felt to see Devin become a mom and how good she knew her sister would be at it because of how she’d micromanaged and looked after her. That’s what she’d put in the letters she left to her nephews. She told them to listen to their mom, because evenif Merritt hated to admit it, Devin knew what she was doing, and she was proof of that. Devin had been the best big sister, Merritt’s bonus mom whether or not she wanted her to be.

She thought of all the punch-drunk late nights laughing with her best friend over nothing, when every bit of recall was so funny it would make their ribs hurt and their lungs seize. She found all their fights so silly now, too—the ones with her sister and all her best girlfriends. Those jealous, insecure fits that only came to the surface because they’d made each other feel safe to be utterly themselves. How each little fight grew them into women who cherished other women.

Merritt thought about boys and men, too, of course. But those moments were more abstract than anything, flashes and colors and warm pangs. She thought about the mortifying giddiness of having a crush, and the thrill of putting a guy in his place when he deserved it. The adrenaline climb and crash of falling in and out of love.

God, if nothing else, the drama had been a fun ride, hadn’t it?

When Silas Byrd showed up at the hospital still bandaged from his own brush with death, Merritt loved how he looked when she tilted her chin and said,“There he is. The one who got away.”Like he was trying to balance on his back foot and was proud of her at the same time. Merritt took that chance to send Bea to get something to eat, knowing she hadn’t in at least twelve hours, too afraid to leave her side.

“I don’t plan on dying in the ten minutes it’ll take you to grab a sandwich, BB,”Merritt said when Bea tried to refuse.

That sigh her poor friend let out . . . that was when Merritt felt some bitterness. By then, she was looking forward to no more pain, but she couldn’t stand thinking of her loved ones hurting for so much longer. Hell, at leastshegot good drugs.

“You better not,”Bea had said before she cut a pleading look up at Silas. A look they shared before they both turned away like it stung.

Merritt wondered, but . . . she didn’t know what she thought she saw. Everyone shared all sorts of heavy looks around her these days.

“Sounds like ayouproblem if I do,”Merritt replied, giving her best shrug. Bea kissed her forehead and left for the cafeteria.

Silas didn’t try to make the moment profounder or more emotional than Merritt wanted it to be, and what a strength that was, she thought. To be willing to keep someone afloat while holding the weight of knowing they’ll be gone soon. They laughed about memories and even gossiped a bit.

“You’ll cheer her up, right?”Merritt asked him.“BB? She’ll need a firm hand when it comes to cheering up after.”A litany of memories drenched in feeling churned through Merritt . . . howgoodit felt to see her friend succeed, celebrate, win,shine. She wanted to know that would go on.

Silas’s expression wavered some, but eventually, he said,“Yeah. I’ll do my best.”

“Make sure she doesn’t settle for anyone, either. I’m counting on you. No one that doesn’t deserve her.”

“So, no one, then?”he’d said with a wry puff of a laugh. Their eyes met before he began studying the bandage on his hand.