Chapter 46 Magnolia
Waking up next to Bode is my favorite adjustment I’ve made over the last week.
He’s been non-stop with everything going on, but the one thing that remains consistent is that he comes home and gets in this bed with me at the end of the day.
I brush a few pieces of his dark hair away from his forehead, and it must tickle cause he buries deeper into his pillow with a tiny, annoyed grunt.
My intention to trap him here for the entire Sunday morning goes completely out the window when my stomach flips.
I close my eyes and breathe in as slowly as I can, to keep it from turning from a simple bout of nausea into something worse.
When I open my eyes, Bode’s still fast asleep, so I pull from beneath him and pad quietly into the bathroom.
I’m still nauseous, puking up literally anything I look at.
Dot says it’s probably grief, that it’s just the sadness bearing down on me, but I’ve been letting go of so much of it, and something still isn’t right.
I lock the door and pull open the drawer beneath the sink to eye up the tests that sit inside.
I bought them three days ago in a fit of grief and rage.
Thinking what a funny joke the world would be playing to make Mama into a grandmother a few weeks after she leaves me.
Or worse, to make me one and for me to turn into her one day and repeat the cycle.
The cardboard rips too easily as I try to be quiet.
The stick is so small to be something that holds the fate of something so large and scary.
It makes very little sense to me, but I need to know, no matter the outcome.
I follow the steps with shaky hands, set it on the counter while I wash mine, and after about fifteen seconds, I realize a minute is too long.
So much can happen in a minute.
Life, death. Happiness, a lifetime of grief.
I leave the bathroom and the test. Abandoning both for the kitchen and a cup of tea that will hopefully solve all my problems. I fill the kettle and let it sit on the stove as I start to move around, attempting to walk the dizzy feeling off.
I wander around the house, stopping at the front closet, and wrap my arms around myself as I stare.
It’s full of my shoes, ones I barely ever even have the chance to wear anymore, ones I never wore in the first place.
I kneel, start pulling them out, and set them in two sloppy piles—one for donating, the other for keeping.
The main point is to make room for more cowboy boots.
Once I’m finished there, I get up only then realizing that the kettle’s been whistling at me for so long that half the water is gone.
But I make a cup of tea out of what’s left and make my way back upstairs to a room that’s been empty for a long time.
I stare at the doorknob and push it open, eyeing up the dust and discarded furniture.
Mama kept everything in hopes that one day, down the line, I’d need it. But when she got sick…
Her brain quit, and mine abandoned the idea of kids because I couldn’t bear to bring them into a world I might leave too soon.
I enter the room, careful not to knock anything over, and set down my mug on the dusty dresser before inspecting a pile of boxes containing all sorts of clothes and embarrassing art projects from my younger years.
It’s unbelievable that she kept all of it, most of it’s crap, but I’m grateful she did because the pink ruffles of the tiny dress I wore for my christening tickle my fingertips as I pass over it.
I try to be quiet as I start moving things around and digging through boxes to sort for more donations. After about thirty minutes, the room starts to look like a room again, with two garbage bags for the trash and a single box full of things I just don’t have the heart to part with just yet.
“Packing?” Bode’s sleeping voice tugs me from my concentration.
“Mm,” I hum, looking at him over my shoulder. He’s leaned against the doorframe in stretched out grey Henley and a pair of old pajama pants. His hair is messily pushed back off his face, and he looks well-slept, better than he has in days. “Organizing,” I corrected him.
“Is there anything you need me to put in a storage unit?” He asks so simply, like it’s an easy thing for him to do.
But that’s Bode, everything hard is made simple because he’s him.
He takes a problem and creates a solution, like it’s always been there.
Just like he takes care of me, for as long as I could remember, it was me taking care of Mama, but now, Bode picks up the pieces I can’t get to and the ones I didn’t even know I lost. With a simplicity that makes me envious and grateful all at the same time.
I’d never be alone. Not with Bode Walker on my tail and in my bed. I look around the room and chew my lip. “I don’t think so,” I say.
“Alright, well if you find anything-” he starts, and I shake my head as I turn.
“No, I don't think we need a storage unit,” I explain a little better.
“If you want to sell this place, Maggie, we have to empty it out.” Bode smiles at me, it’s lazy, and I want to kiss it until the sun goes down.
“I was thinking maybe,” I pause, smiling at the thought. “We fill it instead?”
Bode’s confusion only makes me laugh. I don’t know what the test says, it could be anything, and I know I’d still want that possibility, if it meant doing it with him.
“Magnolia-Mae, you’re confusing me,” he says, and I giggle, wandering around him and padding down the hall back to the bathroom.
The test is right where I left it, upside down on the counter, and I stare at it for a second, listening to the spring thunderstorm rolling over the house.
It takes less time for Bode to fill the doorway than it does for me to find the courage to flip the test.
I can’t even bring myself to look at him, but I flip the stick and hold it in my hands like I might break it if I jostle it around too much.
The two little lines stare up at me and confirm every thought I’d been having over the last week.
A tiny drop of water hits my palm, and for a second, I think I’m crying, which honestly at this point, wouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but Bode speaks.
But I look up, and the water is coming from a small crack in the ceiling, and I sigh darkly as another small leak bubbles and falls onto my arm.
“I’ll fix it before the baby gets here.” His voice is steady, not an ounce of doubt to be found, and when I look over at him, his expression carries the same conviction.
“Easy fix.” I feel my body trembling, from excitement, from fear, probably both. But Bode doesn’t seem to notice, he just nods in agreement as a smile grows on his face.
I don’t have to ask him if he’s sure, I can feel it, I can see it.
All the reservations he has are muted, he’s entirely on the same page as me.
Because maybe alone, or under the idea of doing it with someone else, is scary, but doing it together is a whole new comfort that neither of us expected to find.
“Real easy,” he swallows hard and steps into the bathroom, taking the next leaky drop to the cheek as he wraps himself around me. “It's going to be okay, Wildflower.”
“I know how much you love fixing things so…” I mumble on, and Bode grabs my face in his hands as we collide together in a messy, needy kiss so full of life there’s no room for anything else.