Epilogue Bea
Six weeks later.
Penn has the baby.
He's had her for most of the morning, which is not unusual.
It started on day four, when I came back from the shower to find him in the chair Ronan built—Penn gave the specifications; Ronan translated them into actual furniture in forty-eight hours, because this lodge has a language and Penn has learned to speak it—with her in the crook of his arm and an expression I didn't have a framework for.
"I can take her," I said.
"She's calm," he said.
He has said this most mornings since.
Today I don't argue. I stand in the doorway of the nursery—the room Ronan added to the east end of the lodge over four weeks, quietly, without announcement, because Ronan builds what this place needs before you've finished asking for it—and I watch Penn hold my daughter while morning light comes through the new window.
His hand on her back does a small, regular check every few minutes.
He's been monitoring her breathing since the hospital.
"Penn," I say.
"She's fine."
"I know she's fine. You can put her?—"
"Elevated sleep surfaces show a 73% improvement in duration for newborns under twelve weeks." A pause. "I pulled the literature."
I don't argue with the literature. I have learned not to argue with the literature.
He looks up at me over the top of her head. The thing in his face that used to take real work to find. Just sitting there now, available.
"I've been thinking about her middle name," he says.
"We gave her a middle name."
"I have three alternatives that I think warrant consideration." He looks back down at her. "I've been running them against frequency data. To prevent?—"
"Penn."
"Yes."
"She's six weeks old."
He considers this. "Six weeks and two days."
Of course he knows the exact day.
Downstairs, Fletcher is making food. This is not news—Fletcher has been making food since month three, when he began a research project into nutritional needs by trimester that I didn't request and couldn't stop.
He printed charts. Taped them to the inside of a cabinet.
He has since added a postpartum chart and another, smaller one, in pencil, that I found last week.
First Foods (7–8 months). Seventeen items. Preparation notes. Texture gradation.
She is six weeks old.
"You made a chart," I said.
He looked at me. "It's a draft."
I love him very much.
Ronan is outside. He's been working on the east-property trail—widening it, smoothing the grade. He told me matter-of-factly last week: I'm adjusting the trail. For the stroller. No question. Just: this is what the property needs, so this is what I'm doing.
I started to say you don't have to ? —
"I know," he said, and went outside.
I've stopped finishing that sentence. There's no have to here. Just: this is what we do. This is how this works.
Cory comes in from his morning perimeter at eight-fifteen.
He mapped the new route on a piece of paper and left it on the counter—not for me, I don't think. Just to have it documented. The route now includes the nursery window, the trail head, and a check of the parking area.
He's running the perimeter for more people now.
He comes through the back door and looks at me at the counter with my coffee.
"Penn still has her?" he says.
"Penn still has her."
Something in his face that's almost a laugh.
His shoulder settles against mine. Mountain through the window. Coffee and cedar and something of Fletcher's already in the oven. Penn's voice, just audible from upstairs, saying something careful and precise to a six-week-old who understands none of it.
I don't check myself. I used to— is this too much, are you sure, what happens when —and the habit is just gone. Not suppressed. Gone. Like a door that got removed from its frame and the space became part of the room.
I'm here. This is mine. I'm not going anywhere.
Later, Penn finally lets me take her. He holds her one extra minute before the handoff, his hand still at her back.
"I was thinking," he says.
"You're always thinking."
"About the spring. For the outdoor space. I have some models?—"
"Penn."
"—for child-safe fencing that integrates with the existing property line. I've consulted with Ronan." He pauses. "He has thoughts."
I look at him. Penn Haskett, who spent six days arguing himself out of coming downstairs and lost, who held out longest and arrived most completely, who has been awake since four o'clock because his mind won't quit.
"We have months," I say.
He looks at me. Not the analytical look. The other one.
"Yes," he says. "We do."
I carry her to the window.
The mountains are there the way they're always there—cold, indifferent, unchanged. They were here before I drove up this road in a rainstorm with nothing. They'll be here after everything.
The lodge stands in the middle of them, solid, south-facing, load-bearing in all the ways that matter.
I press my lips to the top of her head.
She smells like the beginning of everything.
End of Their Lost Omega