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“Please, love,” he starts, and I cross my arms in resignation, trying not to tangle up all of the lines still attached to my hands. “Just for the rest of the night, the doctor said if you’re looking OK we can take you home tomorrow afternoon.”
“I can’t be here, Papa,” I breathe out, falling back on my pillow and closing my eyes. I’m in a regular room now, staring at the same four walls I looked at on my wedding night, where I’d slept on the pullout couch listening to Mickey snore in the bed across the room. “It’s just…it’s too much.”
“I know.” He leans over and kisses the top of my head. I feel like a child, being told what I can and can’t do. And deep down, I know it’s because I’m angry. I’m frustrated that I’m here, that this happened, that I can’t even think straight, much less get up and walk out of here. Then, he looks at his watch, and shares a glance with my mom and Penny.
“Surprise, bitch,” I hear from the door, and my head snaps so fast at Alex’s voice that my neck gives a satisfying pop. Immediately, my family rushes to my side, but I laugh, rubbing at the side, and that seems to tell them I’m ok. I’m more than OK - I’m grinning as Nolan wheels Alex into the room in a clunky wheelchair. She’s dressed in the same disgusting plaid hospital gown as me, her sweaty blonde hair pulled up in a high bun on top of her head. Wrapped tightly in a white blanket, a little pink hat on her head, is my Goddaughter.
Wordlessly, I hold out my arms, already feeling the tears streaming down my face.
“Gimme, gimme, gimme,” I sob, and Alex grins as she hands over her daughter delicately. My father comes around and claps Nolan on the back as they observe us - he walked Alex down the aisle when her own father hadn’t bothered to come to their wedding. He was the closest thing Nolan had to a father in law, but I don’t think either of them were complaining. Nolan and Brett already came as an inseparable pair. Having them with two women he cared deeply about was just icing on the cake.
Silently, I stare down at the sweet face in my arms. Pink cheeks, a button nose, just like Alex had in all the pictures I’ve seen of her as a baby.
“I had to promise Amy box Cowboy’s tickets,” my mom explains, gesturing to Alex and Nolan, who I know shouldn’t be out of their part of the hospital. But Amy, one of the nursing supervisors, had helped arrange Mickey exiting his designated area for something other than testing when we’d married at the chapel downstairs.
“Worth it.” Papa slides an arm over my mom’s shoulder, kissing her temple.
“We haven’t told anyone besides a few people the name,” Nolan says gruffly, and gives a slight nod toward my parents, who clearly have been playing double duty supporting all of us. I know his mom is probably breaking every speed limit between here and Kansas trying to get here to see her first grandbaby.
“Spit it out, then,” I choke, trying not to lose my absolute shit for the umpteenth time today. I look back up at my best friend, and she’s grinning too.
“Mikayla Grace Calloway.” My eyes find my Goddaughter’s face again, still so serene and wide-eyed as she takes in the new world around her. Then, Alex adds, “Mickie.”
And I fucking lose it. Tears start streaming down my face harder, and Nolan, clearly concerned that I’m going to drown his daughter, reaches for her. I hug her closer to my chest.
“Don’t even think about it, Calloway.” I sniffle, and then look up at him. He’s smiling, if not still concerned, and I can’t help but smile through my tears back at the man who has my best friend’s heart.
Nolan wouldn’t have been someone I’d chosen for Alex, not by a long shot. She’d always gone for the bad boy - the black leather jacket, motorcycle type. But when they’d met long ago at a party Penny hosted for one of their baseball wins in college, it was clear to everyone but her there was a spark there. He was a golden retriever of a guy, despite dominating on the field, and I think she was a little scared of being too wild for him.
Boy, had that changed fast. Their domestication now was bordering on HGTV levels, when they actually got to home-make between baseball seasons.
When I’d managed to match with Mickey online, it had been sheer coincidence - I didn’t even notice that we had mutual friends until we were days deep into an intense conversation about vintage cars, something my dad taught me about growing up. It had taken Mickey mentioning something to Nolan, who mentioned something to Brett, who mentioned something to Penny, for me to even realize that Mickey was the friend of Nolan’s that had recently moved to DFW for work.
On our first date - first hangout, really, since he just came over and we talked until three in the morning - he told me all about the mischief he and Nolan caused in club baseball growing up, and then on school teams. When Nolan left for his college scholarship, and Mickey was left behind to go to school there, it had pulled them apart.
But within months, it was like they’d never been separated. Nolan, Brett and Mickey fell into an easy friendship - the happy-go-lucky best friend, the soulful artist dating my sister, and the man who settled for a career he didn’t love halfway across the country to get out of his tiny hometown.
Losing Mickey - loving Mickey - had broken me in ways very few people would ever understand. But his death also broke Nolan, broke all of my family and friends - our friends - in some ways. And it was what kept us together, kept us close, and kept us fighting for moments like this, when joy shoved shadows aside and made us all forget, however temporarily, of the horrors we endured together.
WhenIfinallysettlein my own bed the next night, I’m frazzled and frustrated.
“Stop fussing over me,” I whine, ripping the comforter Penny was adjusting away from her. She purses her lips, looking back down at me, and then to my mother in the corner, who’s tossing laundry into a long-forgotten basket. “I’m f-” Carla’s glare from the door cuts me off. “I don’t need all this.” I gesture around the room, the last light of Friday filtering in through my curtains. There’s a stash of snacks sitting on my side table, along with a newly-purchased gallon size water bottle with a long straw and half a dozen get well soon cards mixed with a few birthday ones. At least three blankets cover my bed, and Bex is patiently waiting for my sister to stop moving them so she can climb in next to my legs.
“No phone,” Mom says, and I roll my eyes - which hurts, just a little bit.
“The doctor said no excessive screen time for the first 24 hours. It’s been…” I look around, and then realize I don’t have a clock in my room, since I just used my phone and my watch, which are on the side table. Penny’s eyebrows, now raised, tell me not to look at it.
“Just over 24 hours,” Carla supplies, but then bites her lip when my mom and sister look at her.
“See!” I laugh, trying to adjust myself on the over-fluffed pillows, which were waiting for me, freshly laundered, when I’d walked into the apartment. “Mama, I’ll be ok. I just need rest.” Her nostrils flare, dark hair, just like mine, swishing over her shoulder, her Yale sweatshirt pushed up at the sleeves. She shares a look with Penny. “Seriously. Pen, go give the kids my love. You’ve been away from them for, like, a day.”
“Brett’s got it,” Penny says dismissively, waving her hands, but I press on.
“Y’all.” All three of them look at me, then. Mom looks like she’s about to smack me for trading my colloquial Italian terms for something so southern, but I needed to get their attention. “Go. Please.” I give them all a pleading look. “Carla will be right down the hall. If anything happens, I’ll get her.” Mom and Penny look at her, and she nods, though concern still etches her face. I think if it were up to her, she, like everyone else, would have rather seen me trapped in the hospital bed for at least another day. But I needed to get the hell out of there, and despite their protests, they understood.
Finally, I’m able to convince them to leave me, and I shuffle down in my covers, taking a deep breath as Bex hops up, snuggling next to me. Reluctantly, I pick up my phone from the side table, turning it on for the first time since it was plugged in to charge when we got home.
The notifications are jarring. Consistent buzzing in my hand, a flurry of drop-downs and pop-ups that I try to dismiss, wading into my texts. (68) Messages.
