Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
ELLY
Once, when I was about seven, my family went to a beach BBQ party in Alabama with some of Papa Jim’s friends from work. There were tons of kids to play with, endless plates food, and plenty of beer for the grown-ups.
Papa Jim wasn’t a problem drinker, by any stretch, but he enjoyed a day in the sun with a few beers and hey—Mama was driving.
She’d offered on the way down. Alcohol made her sleepy, and she didn’t want to zonk out on a towel in front of Papa’s work friends and all their wives and kids. And, of course, she always kept a sharp, sober eye on me when we were anywhere near water.
You know those kids who take to swimming like a fish to water?
I was more like a rock.
Or a newborn giraffe, all straining neck and spindly legs that thrashed around without doing much to keep me afloat. Two years of summer swimming lessons at the Y had made me just confident enough to be dangerous.
Mama only turned her back for a minute, she told me later—just long enough to get some other kids settled with watermelon slices—but that’s all it took.
I was at the edge of the swimming zone, determined to show the big kids I was as brave as they were, when the ocean grabbed me.
It was like the waves just wrapped an arm around my waist and jerked hard, dragging me under and away from shore. When the ocean finally spat me back to the surface again, I was coughing up saltwater and gasping.
Still, I swam and kicked as hard as I could, but it was barely enough to stay in one place.
I couldn’t get any closer to shore, no matter how hard I tried.
By the time one of the teenagers reached me on his boogie board, I was so weak I could barely cling to his shoulders as he towed me to safety.
Afterwards, I didn’t go into the ocean for years.
I still can’t face a stretch of white sand without a tickle of fear at the back of my throat.
Those ten minutes I spent fighting for my life have never left me.
But it’s the way the ocean sucked me under that haunts me most. It just came out of nowhere.
One second, I was bobbing on the waves, the sun on my face and not a care in the world.
The next, I was in a dark, alien realm where there was no air or sound and no doubt in my mind that I was in very serious trouble.
That’s what it’s like tonight.
One minute, I’m on the bathroom floor, suffering through the worst flu symptoms I’ve ever had, the next I’m jerked under by a riptide. The pain twisting through my gut is instantly muted, but I’m still dimly aware of heat burning behind my eyes and my arms limp and clammy on the cool tile.
I’m also still miserably aware of the tiny voice calling my name from the door to my bedroom, then closer, closer, until Mimi’s there beside me, sobbing as she falls to the floor, her little hands gripping my shoulder.
“Mama! Mama, what’s wrong, Mama?” A sob rips from her throat. “Mama, please wake up! Wake up, I’m scared! Mama!”
The terror in my little girl’s voice rips me apart.
To hear her so frightened and know I’m the reason for it is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me as a parent.
For a moment, I think the guilt surging through me like a tsunami is going to be enough, that I’ll be able to open my eyes and comfort her, tell her I’m okay, just really sick.
But I’m too deep under the waves, being tossed back and forth by pain, the animal part of me lost in the suffering of my body as something deeper assures me this might be it.
This might be…the end.
Like, the end , the end.
God, it came so unexpectedly.
So fast.
I’m not ready.
Are we ever ready?
But we just found him , a panicked voice whispers in my bones. He just found us! We just found our family and Mimi still needs her mama and I need my baby girl and I need happy endings to be real.
I need there to be a point to it all .
I need something in this chaotic world to make sense.
I’ve fought my way here, through hardship and suffering and shame. Surely this can’t be it? This can’t be all there is? Just the fight and now…the fall.
And then like the answer to a prayer, Grammercy’s voice is close, deep and comforting and taking care of business. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but when Mimi speaks again, she sounds calmer—still scared, but relieved that a beloved grown-up is here to take charge.
She loves him, she truly does.
And he loves her, and suddenly I’m not scared.
I soften into the freedom that oblivion offers because…it’s all going to be okay.
Even if this is it for me, Mimi will be loved.
Grammercy will hold her when she cries and comfort her as she grieves and eventually give her reasons to be happy again.
He’ll keep my baby girl safe and laugh at her jokes and talk through her problems and always be her biggest fan.
He’ll be her support system and her defender and her daddy and will never let her forget that her mama loved her so much.
Because of course he will.
This wasn’t an accident, the way we fell so hard and fast. It’s always felt like Fate.
In my most romantic moments, I thought it was because he was destined to be mine.
But maybe he was always meant to be hers , my sweet little girl, who would have been all alone in the world if she’d lost her mom before we met this hard-loving man…
Take care of each other , I think as I sink deeper, leaving the agony in my body behind. I love you both so much.
And I do.
And maybe that’s all there is .
All there ever was.
After all, it’s not the happy ending that makes loving worth it; it’s the act itself. It’s the beautiful places it takes you and the lessons it teaches and the way it breaks your soul wide open, letting all the light in.
And sometimes the light is so bright it hurts.
God, it hurts…to know I might never hold my baby again.
But there’s beauty in that, too, to have loved so fully, with every piece of my heart, no holding back. Bare and raw and fearless.
And maybe it was because I was too young and stupid to understand the price of this kind of love when I first signed on the dotted line.
But even knowing how it’s ripped me open, how it’s scarred me as much as it’s blessed me, how hard it’s been carrying this kind of love all alone, I would choose Mimi again in a second.
I would choose her a thousand times.
For a thousand lifetimes.
So maybe, I’ll get to see her again someday, in some other life, in some other, easier, better world, where we’ll have more time…
It’s my last thought and th?—
Music…
Who knows how much later, I hear music, soft and low.
I have a groggy thought, something about being glad that there’s music in the afterlife, but then, I recognize a melody from The Nutcracker Suite.
Mimi likes to listen to the score when she’s having a hard time sleeping.
Then, I become aware of scratchy sheets against my skin and what feels like a massive bruise encompassing my entire mid-section.
It hurts. A lot. But it’s a softer kind of pain than before, muted by a thick blanket of drugs and the fact that my body is already on the road to recovery.
I’m recovering.
I’m alive…
My lids fly open, tears of gratitude already stinging at the edges of my eyes as I turn my heavy head to see the people I love. Right there. By my side, the way I knew they would be.
Grammercy’s big body is wedged onto a portable cot, his legs hanging off the end.
Mimi is sprawled across his chest with Miss Sparklehorn tucked tight in the crook of her arm and her thumb popped in her mouth.
She stopped sucking her thumb when she was three, but in moments of stress, it still finds its way back between her bow tie lips.
I hate that she was thumb-sucking scared, even for a minute, let along however long I’ve been unconscious, but I feel so lucky to have been able to see them like this, so beautiful and connected and loving each other, even in sleep.
They look like a painting.
Like a family.
Like that happily ever after I wasn’t sure was in the cards for me, after all, and I’m suddenly filled with the certainty that we’re going to make it.
All of us. Who cares about my podcast or the stories we haven’t told each other yet or what happens when we’re over the love-drunk phase and get to the “why is the way he eats cereal so annoying?” and “why can’t she remember anything she hasn’t written down on a list” phase?
This man was meant to be mine, and I was meant to be his.
Forever. End of story.
And if he’s mad about the podcast, I’ll just keep apologizing until he gets over it and loves me again because this is way too much magic to let go of without a fight.
As if he can hear me telepathically staking my claim on every centimeter of his heart, Grammercy’s eyes flicker open. The second he sees me awake, relief floods across his features with an intensity that’s almost painful to watch.
Aw, he loves me…
He really does…
“Don’t worry, baby,” I croak, in a voice that sounds like I’ve been screaming in the stands for hours. “I’m okay.”
“You are not okay. Your appendix burst on the bathroom floor, El,” he whispers, wiggling awkwardly to the side of the cot before lifting Mimi off his chest and guiding her gently back onto the cot.
A beat later, he’s beside my bed, smoothly my hair from my forehead with the same gentle hands.
And suddenly I can’t wait another second to tell him everything in my heart.
“You’re such a good man,” I whisper. “I love that you’re as gentle and loving as you are strong.
I love that you jumped into a relationship with a single mom without flinching.
I love that I didn’t have to worry for a second that if something happened to me, you would love my daughter with your whole chest and be the best dad any girl could hope for. ”