Chapter 30
Now
Bea
I’m convinced the weekend following Silas’s birthday is the shortest in time immemorial.
Saturday gets eaten up in smoldering, dragged-out kisses and rotating from his bedroom to the living room and backyard while allowing very little space between us.
It’s insufferable. We’re insufferable. If I didn’t adore it, I’d be revolted.
I make us sourdough cinnamon rolls from the filched starter we’ve kept alive over the weeks, and we house the entire tray.
He remains shirtless, like maybe he’s unlocked that comfort level for himself again, and I want to celebrate this without making it into a big deal but decide the best way to achieve this is to not make it into anything at all.
That non-plan disintegrates when he drops some frosting onto his abdomen and I slide off the counter to lick it away.
The next thing I know, we’re in his shower and he’s hot and hard where I pump him in my hand, his mouth covering mine in filthy adoration and grunted praise.
I don’t let him reciprocate, tell him not yet, but I do let him wash me from head to toe.
We’re free to look our fill, and we touch even more. We play gin in our underwear until he gets worked up over my lacy shorts, takes them off me, and goes down on me right there on his kitchen table with the early-afternoon sunshine blazing through the windows.
Evening sneaks up on us, more time lost in him running around the first floor trailing one of Calcifur’s toys and her chasing him merrily.
She lies down beside my lap at some point, touching me willingly, even purring for one solid minute, and I hold my breath for every second.
Then Silas and I are on the couch, genuinely feeding each other grapes because, as previously mentioned, we’re insufferable, and I’m cackling reluctantly because I just realized the playlist he plays the most has songs that all feature some line about fire or being on it.
He’s an unrepentant, irreverent menace. Every smile line and dimple is at full attention on his face as he stares at me, and I am teeming with everything this emotion is.
I am combustible with glee. I’m physically sore from laughing, aching with hope.
“I am so happy,” he says, at the same time I say, “I’m having so much fun.”
I let my head thunk into his chest with a miserable moan. His palm cups the back of my neck, chuckling, kneading the base of my skull. “It is so much,” I say. “I feel so much.”
“It’s mutual,” he says. “I’m right here in it, too.”
It’s a lash to my heart when, later, I catch myself thinking, I wish I could tell Merritt.
I wish I could call her and fight off a squeal, overshare dirty details while splitting a pizza and some wine.
And I will never get to. I wish I’d have told her in the first place.
Even if it hurt, even if she did get angry or jealous, we would have muddled our way through, and I should have had faith in our friendship.
We were stronger than that. I am going to regret that I didn’t for as long as I live.
This realization isn’t overwhelming like I once might have thought.
I’m not crushed or even submerged under the wave of it now that I know how capable I am of carrying multiple, vast things.
I’ll honor her with my grief, my most advanced stage of love, even the parts enmeshed in my regret, and I’ll honor her by living a life as joyful as I can.
On Sunday, we awake to a shockingly warm house, so Silas and I pack a picnic before he drives us out to the tide pools, and even though he’s as attentive as ever, I mark the tension in the line of his mouth and the way his gaze pinches behind his sunglasses.
“What is it?” I ask.
He doesn’t try to brush me off. “Obviously, it’s a little cooler here, but .
. . it’s another dry day,” he says. “Been unnaturally hot and dry all summer. Means it’ll be a bad fire season.
” He reaches across the blanket to grab my ankle, like he’s worried I’ll drift off.
“Means I’ll be gone a lot, most likely. More than I was already going to be. ”
My eyes dip to his scars. A bad fire season will not only mean he’ll be gone a lot but he’ll be in danger that much more, too. I can’t—no. That’s a can of thought worms I’m keeping the lid closed on until I’m forced to open it. Working myself up over that worry now means suffering it twice.
The workweek rears its ugly head, and we’re both back to the grind, but the bubble we’ve created is nebulous and moves with us.
We find each other for my lunch hours, other than the one time he’s on a call, and we add a new beat to our established rhythms. We get our meals situated and try not to ogle or grope each other, and I open up my email to check on the status of my eggs, on which Francine sends constant updates.
Apparently, I am very lucky because of Merritt’s age when they were frozen.
Out of twenty eggs, thirteen were successfully fertilized.
They’ll choose from whichever ones make it to the blastocyst stage for transfer, selecting whichever looks “the best,” a criteria list that defies my comprehension.
When we talked about it over the weekend, I couldn’t tell if Silas was at all bothered by not taking me to the transfer appointment. If he was, he certainly hid it well. He made plans for us for the rest of the weekend after.
“You’ve gotta relax but stay occupied, right?
” he’d asked over our cabbage roll dinner.
“Then trust me. You can even leave your phone at home, if you want.” Smart, since I haven’t been able to stop myself from reading every blog and Reddit thread available at my fingertips.
What will make it work the first time? What can I do to increase my chances?
Some wild forum full of claims pineapple will make my uterus stickier.
By Wednesday, I’ve eaten enough that I’m certain I’ve done irreparable damage to my taste buds, and I can smell it coming through my pores.
When will I know if we did it? If I’m positive?
I cannot—absolutely should not take an at-home test until somewhere between five to eight days post, according to everything I’ve read.
They won’t even test me in the doctor’s office until twelve days.
Conflicting information exists everywhere.
The only issue with Silas not being the one taking me is that I want him to be, and I’m alarmed by the lack of alarm bells this sets off in me.
Should I care about involving Bonnie more than I care about my own experience?
I’m preternaturally certain that I could depend on Silas to keep me relaxed the whole way through the procedure.
Make me laugh. Doubtlessly, he’d even find a way to make it fun.
We lunch in the park by the salon on Wednesday, and after Silas kisses me breathless against a tree, I walk back to my car on trembling legs, my phone chiming with notifications when I slide into the driver’s seat.
Sweetie, I’m devastated, a text from Bonnie reads, but I’ve got the full-fledged flu. I don’t think I’ll be able to take you on Friday. I can’t get you sick.
I feel so guilty, how quickly the smile yanks across my face.
I feel awful, really, like I manifested this somehow.
I tell myself I will let Bonnie get all the loud, annoying toys she wants to get for the baby one day and that I’ll never complain.
I tell myself we’ll always come to her for Easter and that I’ll let her have any grandmotherly traditions she wants.
And in the meantime, I fire back some overwrought reassurances telling her to take care of herself, that I’ve already got it worked out.
I call Silas and spot him answering his phone from his truck, still parked across from me.
“That’s a record,” he says. “Hadn’t even started the car before you missed me.”
I snort, but my nerves start to crank. “Silas.”
“Bea,” he says solemnly.
“Will you—if it’s not too much, I mean. Would you be open to taking me to the appointment on Friday? Bonnie’s sick, but also I could ask Yana—”
“Of course I will,” he says. I can see his soft smile from here.
“You’re sure this isn’t too much?” I ask.
“I’m certain.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s usually what certain means, Red. And I promise you. I am.”
Time does what it always does. Drags through every minute and flies by in days.
The morning of the transfer arrives like any other.
Unassuming and overcast. I opt for decaf tea instead of coffee today and take the proffered Valium I was prescribed without debate, and by god, that stuff is heaven.
A warm blanket for my psyche. It’s not until Silas is pulling us into the parking lot that I realize he hasn’t pushed me to make conversation.
Merely he’s kept a stream of music playing and remained a quiet, steady presence at my side, my hand threaded through his and an occasional kiss to my knuckles.
He’s always had a read on me like that, hasn’t he?
Inside the clinic office, a middle-aged woman with kind eyes comes up to Silas and me and says, “You two are such a beautiful couple. Good luck.”
I look down at where I’m clutching his hand. He thanks her smoothly, charmingly, while I stay stuck on mute. His grip remains firm and warm around my clammy palm, dimples winking in his unshorn face.
They’re guiding us back now. I’m not sure why I expect it to be a cold, white-walled laboratory of some kind.
It’s just a regular old patient room. A regular old cushioned bed with a paper liner and all.
I change into the sartorial hospital smock while Silas quietly folds my clothes. And then I lie back and wait.
Time does what it always does. The seconds crawl by like years. Silas scooches his seat as close as he can get it and holds my hand again.
“Have you ever been to Mount Hood?” he asks.
“Not since I was little. I’ve driven by it, of course. But I haven’t visited in a long time.”
“That’s where the campout is with my burn group,” he says. “I guess the trail is about ten miles round trip. We’ll stop for lunch and swim in these pools where the water is, like, turquoise green, Bea.”
“Like your eyes?” I’ll blame the Valium for that later.
His puff of a laugh cools the tear on my cheek. “Sure, baby,” he says, thumbing it away.
“Isn’t it, like, a three-hour drive to get there? We’ll have to expand your playlists before then. I can’t do three hours of your groan-y songs that are all sung exclusively in vowel sounds,” I say, grasping for levity.
“Anything for you, Red . . . Just no classical, all right? Or instrumental stuff.”
“How come?”
He wipes a hand over his brow with a faint groan and a lopsided wince, sighing like he’s about to admit something embarrassing.
“Classical music—a lot of it, at least—makes me cry. You put on something without someone else’s words filling it, and it’s like my brain starts putting on its own slideshow. Don’t get me started on bagpipes.”
Ow. My chest actually burns with tenderness. “Bagpipes?”
“Bagpipes,” he confirms with a stony nod.
“Do you have any other dark secrets you’re keeping from me, Silas?” I tease.
He appears to give it some thought before he grimaces. “I can sing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Unfortunately, no. I open my mouth and Ray LaMontagne comes out.” His mouth tugs down in a grim line.
“Silas Byrd, don’t you ever, ever, ever dedicate a song to me publicly.”
He lets out a startled laugh. “I swear. Never.”
You know what they say about those, I think. “But I will be making you sing around the house, now.”
Dr. Nielsen comes in then, and Time performs another one of her tricks. The good doctor walks me through what will take place before it does. A gust of air will send my tiny Martian, my embryo, up into me, where I hope my body will catch and keep it.
I blink and my feet are in stirrups. I blink and Silas is smiling softly at me, letting me crush his hand.
I blink and it’s done. I’m instructed to lie there for at least thirty minutes more.
Silas gabs about things that don’t require my participation but keep me company.
His fingertips trace patterns into my hand.
“Silas?”
“Yeah, Ruby?”
“Tell me about your eight things?”
His color heightens. Sooty, unfairly nice eyelashes tipped in gold lower over his eyes.
“Oh, you know. A lot of things blended together. Food and memories. I thought about Thanksgivings and Christmases. Lasagnas and pizzas. Think the rest of the food things were probably pastries or desserts. The first time I held Sam and could see he was a perfect combination of two people I loved. First time I hit a home run in Little League. Other firsts I won’t share. ”
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” I tease.
Something about the smile he gives me now feels hot on my skin, searing right through the meds. I’m branded by it, I’m sure. “As far as colors?” His gaze travels up my face and over my hair. “I pictured eight shades of red,” he says.
And this is the most brilliant and confounding trick that Time has in her repertoire. How the most immeasurable changes can be measured in moments.
One night can tie you to someone in a way that eight years doesn’t sever.
One dance could exhilarate you more than a year of defying grief could not.
One moment your best friend is here, and with an exhale, she isn’t. An entire force of nature that my life shaped itself alongside, gone. Yet I’ll carry the marks of her for as long as I live.
I remember thinking that, walking out of the hospital the day she died.
I stepped into the parking lot, where two doctors were smoking cigarettes, laughing.
They’d looked at me and smiled, and all I could think was, Do they not know?
Don’t they see what I’m carrying now? How could they not? I’m immeasurably different.
I am wheeled back into the parking lot with Silas, today—wheeled, due to something about Valium and liability—and this time, I spot two women having lunch at the table next door.
One of them smiles at me, and I think, Does she know?
Can she see what I’m carrying now? How could she not? I’m immeasurably different.
All it took was a moment for my life to change, and the world kept spinning on.