“It’s your mommy,” Margo whispers like they’re already good friends and she’s telling him a secret.
She sits on the edge of the bed so I can see Max. His eyes are tiny slits, mouth pressed in a frown like he’s thinking hard about something important. I feel like I know him already. Like I’ve always known him. I cry. Margo puts her arm around my shoulder and we hold Max between us, because I’m still too shaky to take him on my own.
I touch his chubby cheek. I have never met anyone so beautiful.
“I love you,” I say, as soon as words will take shape in my mouth. Max yawns and makes a squeaking sound like a kitten. My tongue feels thick and my head is fuzzy and I worry none of this is real. I don’t understand how it’s possible for love to feel like the entire ocean churning in my chest.
Max stretches his arm in the air. I touch his hand and he wraps his fingers around my pinky. I don’t know for sure, but I think he’s very strong for a baby.
“He’s okay?” I ask.
“He’s absolutely perfect,” Margo says. “Nurse confirmed.”
She pushes hair from my face, and my forehead feels funny. I reach up and touch a bandage taped across my head.
“You’re okay too,” Margo says. “You knocked your noggin pretty good, and you had a C-section, so you’ve got stitches in both places. Nothing that won’t heal, but your head might feel swimmy for a few days.”
I think I can feel the pull of stitches in my stomach, but everything is numb. I try to wiggle my toes and I’m not sure if any of them move. I don’t remember going to the hospital. I was at the lake. I remember the lake.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
“Carly called.” Margo gestures to the chair in the corner and there’s Carly, curled up, fast asleep. Her tall black boots are splayed out on the floor and my guitar case is leaning against the wall beside her. I didn’t look any further than Max. I didn’t realize there was anyone else here. But there she is. So close and she’s not a dream. I remember her calling my name now. It wasn’t a dream. I want to wake her up, but her sleep looks necessary.
“That girl hasn’t left this room. I told her I would stay and you were fine and she could go home and sleep, but she wouldn’t leave you,” Margo says, smiling, her eyes welling up.
“How did she find you?” I ask. The thread from Carly to Margo doesn’t make sense. They’re from different pockets.
“My number is in your notebook.”
“How did she find me?”
“I’m not sure,” Margo says. “She called and told me she brought you here and you were going into surgery. I got in my car so fast I didn’t stop to put on real shoes.” Margo points to her feet. She’s wearing fuzzy pink slippers. “I didn’t guess you were going to Ithaca, sweets. I thought maybe you were headed back to Florida.” She sniffles.
“I was going to call you,” I say. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You don’t get to disappear anymore. You can’t go running off into the woods like a wounded deer. You lean on me when it hurts. That’s what we’re here for—to lean on each other.” Margo nods like we’ve made a pact.
I nod too.
It is so warm, the three of us, huddled on the bed. The room smells like summer. There are flowers. Lots of them. On the nightstand, on the windowsill.
“Did you go crazy in the gift shop?” I ask.
“Carly and I called all your friends in your notebook to tell them you had the baby. I thought they’d want to know. And then these started showing up.”
There are daisies from Arnie and roses from Cole. All the girls on staff at Ollie’s in Florida sent lilies. Slim sent a basket of violets. And there’s a big vase of sunflowers. I wonder where anyone gets sunflowers like that in November. Margo tells me they’re from Irene and David and July. She says July wants to meet her nephew and they’re all coming to visit me tomorrow. For once, the idea of seeing Irene doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.
— Chapter 71 —
Margo is out getting us lunch because she says no one ever enjoyed a hospital meal before and she doesn’t expect it to happen now. She left me her slippers and wore my boots. She looked hysterical.
Carly is still asleep, and I don’t know how she’s comfortable all wound around the arms of the chair, her hand hanging over the side and I know her fingers will have pins and needles.
The sound of Max’s breath and then Carly’s then Max’s makes me feel like all the air I’m breathing is coming from their lungs. I imagine it making me strong, healing the ache in my guts. It seems like some kind of miracle that a doctor could excavate Max from the depths of me and introduce him to the world—that I am still here to see him after being taken apart and stitched back together.