by Kennedy Ryan
“Baby,” I whisper, gently moving her hands away. “It’s okay.”
It’s not fucking okay. I’m an imbecile saying asinine shit. My inadequacy overwhelms me in the face of her brokenness, in the reality of mine. She gulps in air like she’s drowning, going under. I want to be her lifeline, but I’m sinking, too.
“My milk is drying up.” She squeezes her breasts, pressing her eyes shut and cutting into her bottom lip with her teeth. “Soon it’ll all be gone and I’ll have nothing. It’ll be like I never carried her . . . like she was never here.”
She opens her eyes, meeting mine with dark humor, her lips tilted to a bitter angle.
“You know I don’t even have stretch marks.” She tugs the shirt up and the edge of her panties down. “Except these.”
She lovingly caresses a small patch of faint stripes at her hip. Her fingers drift to the relatively small but still-red scar from her C-section. “And this.”
I was there for that scar. I watched them reach in and pull Zoe out. I’ll never forget cutting the cord, hearing that first squawk confirming that our mission was accomplished, that Zoe had made it.
“I wish I’d seen that,” Bristol says, watching me with watery eyes. “Seen you cut the cord.”
Only now do I realize I spoke my thoughts out loud. I didn’t mean to; I try to keep my pain to myself. Some days I can barely stand under the weight of it, but I look over at Bristol, hear her crying in her sleep, and I muzzle my own misery. She carries so much already. The last thing she needs is me being a pussy, weeping all over her. I want to be strong for her and more than anything, to protect her. I’m supposed to be her first line of defense, and watching her sobbing on the floor, caressing her scars, and clinging to her grief, I can’t help but think I’m failing colossally.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” It’s not really what I want to say. I just want to join her on the floor and weep, but one of us has to be strong. I tug at the hem of the shirt but she folds into herself, keeping the shirt in place.
“No, I don’t want to get cleaned up.” Her head drops back to rest on the lip of the tub.
“Well I’m not letting you sit on the floor all day in a sour T-shirt and . . .” My voice fails.
“And what?” she demands. “Cry? Wallow? Why not?”
“This situation—”
“This situation is grief.” Her strident voice ricochets off the bathroom walls. “Stop trying to fix me.”
“I don’t need to fix you,” I bellow back, my restraints snapping. “I need you, Bristol.”
“What?” she whispers, uncertainty shadowing her face. Did she think I wasn’t suffering? I know I protected her from the worst of it, but she has to realize I’m as gutted as she is.
“Fucking newsflash: Zoe was mine, too. I’m her father. I’m broken.” Tears set my throat on fire, and these words are the match. “It’s killing me that she’s gone, and it’s killing me that you won’t let me in.”
“I don’t know how.” Tears paint her cheeks. “I’m in the dark.”
“So am I.” I grab her hands between mine. “You’re my light. I’m your light. We only get through this together, Bris.”
“I just feel so . . . alone.” The word comes out on a gasp of desperate air, a hammer falling on my heart.
“Alone?” I bow my head, momentarily squeezing my eyes shut against the sight of her loneliness. “God, Bris, you’re killing me. You feel alone? When I’m right here?”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Grip.” She shakes her head and tries to catch the tears sliding over her cheeks, but they’re too many and too fast. “I meant—”
“This,” I interrupt her, holding her ring finger up between us. “Means something to me.”
I caress the word Matty inked into our skin. Still.
“When we are alone, you and I, through years, through pain,” I say, quoting my vows, my voice wilting and wet. “My heart will answer again and again, still.”
She looks at me, her eyes wide and wounded, my words seemingly having no effect on her. I can’t do this, not right now. The only thing that hurts more than Zoe being gone is Bristol not sharing this burden with me, not letting me in.
“Fuck it.” I heave myself off the floor, avoiding the pain in her eyes that I obviously can’t comfort. “I’m, uh . . . going to get a haircut and a shave. I just need to get out. I’ll be back.”
“Grip, wait.”
“I can’t. Just . . .” I walk to the door, tossing words over my shoulder. “I’ll be back.”
Before I make an even bigger fool of myself, I get out of the bathroom, out of our bedroom, but I can’t make it to the front door. I collapse onto the couch, drop my head in my hands, and cry like a damn baby, an ocean’s worth of salty tears. I was counting on those vows. That she meant them the way I meant them was my only hope of surviving this. In the hospital, I told her I believed the only way we could survive this was together. If she won’t let me in, I’m out here on my own. I hoped she would trust me with her pain because she’s the only person I trust with mine. If I don’t have Bristol, I ain’t surviving shit.
44
Bristol
When we are alone, you and I,
through years, through pain,
my heart will answer again and again, still.
Our vows drown out the tortured thoughts that have crowded my head for days, finally penetrating my consciousness the way nothing else has since Zoe passed. Grip wants me to let him in, but stumbling in the dark, I can’t even find my way to the door and its slippery knob. I’ve never told Grip about my nightmare, waking up with our daughter’s heartbeat in my ears. I’m covered in the hot breath of horror every morning and I’ve never told him. The panic that assaults me when I think about the first time I’ll see a mother out with her newborn—at a coffee shop or the grocery store or the park—he doesn’t know.
The hurt in Grip’s eyes, it wasn’t because Zoe’s gone, it was because I’m gone. He misses Zoe, too. As I pull my head out of my own ass for the first time since we came home, I see that, but the hurt I just saw wasn’t about her. It was about me.
I drag myself off the floor, standing as straight as I can. I can’t seem to pull my spine straight anymore. I lean, I bow, my body reflecting my bent spirit. When I step into our bedroom, he isn’t there. He did say he was going out. I’ll at least shower and change these sheets. I’ve negotiated eight-figure deals with ease, but now these two simple tasks daunt me.
When I pull the sheets from the bed, papers go flying in the air. I hadn’t noticed them, and now they’re all over the floor. I bend to collect them, jarred when my daughter’s name catches my eye.
For Zoe, our glory baby.
“What is this?” I ask the empty room, my breath seizing at the dedication.
I shuffle through a few more pages before I realize it’s Grip’s poetry book for Barrow. Maybe I’ll read through them when I’m feeling more myself. Right now, I’m not in the mood for beautiful words skillfully strung together, not even from Grip. I’m stuffing the pages in the drawer of the table on his side of the bed when I see my name.
Not my actual name, but the title I know was inspired by me.
Pretty Bird
That’s what he called me, how he teased me when I said my laugh sounded like a bird. That day, years ago, I had no idea how fragile joy is, that in a moment, with just a few words, everything can capsize. You can sink. One day the wind is in your sails then in no time you’re the Titanic. I sit on the bed and read the poem attached to that distant memory.
My pretty bird,
Like a peacock, spread yourself for me.
Awe me with your plumage.
We’re birds of a feather, you and I.
I hear your cry, do you hear mine?
A mating call before you fall,
your holla never heard.
My moaning bird,
One by one, I’ll count your feathers.
Let me try to make it better.
/>
Can I kiss your scars?
I want to give you what you’re needing
Use my heart to staunch the bleeding
And for your broken wing,
my arms will be the sling
Where you go, I go, even due south
Borrow my breath, mouth to mouth
Resuscitation
A flock to ourselves, a murmuration
Just us two in our love nest
Hide in my love, take your rest
Till you’re ready to fly again
Fly into my arms,
A safe arrival,
a sure survival,
a glorious revival
Then we’ll leave this nest together
Two birds, we’ll soar above
the past behind us
A path we can’t un-fly
A death we can’t un-die
But we ain’t at death’s door
Nah, it’s time to leave.
Our hearts can do the impossible
Do you believe?
Then fly, my love! Soar!
My pretty bird, fly with me
and cry no more.
I read it again and then again. Each time through, the words find spots inside me that need soothing. I finish storing the other pages in the drawer, but can’t make myself let Pretty Bird go. The sheer vulnerability of it, the need and love infuse every line. I’m about to call Grip, to ask him to come home, when I hear a muffled sound from the living room. I let the sound lead me, and my heart finds new ways to break when I see my husband, seated on the floor, back to the couch with his head in his hands, shaking with sobs.
I hear your cry, do you hear mine?
I haven’t. I’ve been so consumed with my own grief, turned inside out in my pain, I didn’t see his. I didn’t hear his cry.
“Grip,” I say in a voice I can barely hear myself but that grabs his attention immediately.
He stiffens, his head jerking up as if he’s been caught. When our eyes connect, he tries to pull it together, tries to pull his strength back in place, but it fails him like a broken gate hanging off its hinge—the same way mine fails me every morning when I wake up and roll back over, unable to face the day. His rugged features crumple, a broken dam of tears running over his face.
“God, Bris.” His voice falls apart like wet tissue. “I need you, baby. I wish I could do this without you, for you, but I meant it: we don’t survive this unless we’re together. If we’re together, I know we can.”
“Our love can do the impossible,” I quote from Pretty Bird. “Do you believe?”
His eyes narrow, recognition of his own words sinking in. Before he can ask, I answer.
“Your poem was on the bed.” I sink to the floor beside him, reach for his hand, linking our fingers and placing them in my lap. “I hope it’s okay that I read it.”
His glance shifts away from me, eyes squeeze closed, long lashes wet against his cheeks. His cocksure bravado, the confidence he wore like skin drew me before. His vulnerability woos me now.
“I’ve never felt this lost,” he confesses, his broad shoulders shrugging helplessly. “You said I want to fix you. In some ways you’re right, but not to make it easier for me. I’d do anything to stop your pain, but I can’t seem to find the solution. I only know that if we’re together, there is one. Grief counseling, therapy, whatever it takes—I just need to know at the end, we’ll still have each other.”
I blink, swiping uselessly at my own tears. I’ve been looking for light, and it’s been right here the whole time.
“You can start by just holding me,” I whisper.
“God, yes.” He breathes into my hair and pulls me across his lap, long legs stretched out over the floor. I huddle into the breadth and strength of his chest. How could I have forsaken, forgotten this comfort all along? For long moments, we just hang on to each other, both crying, grieving what we’ve lost and clinging to what we still have. There with my head against his chest, I hear it.
Thump, thump, thump.
His heartbeat. Every day the sound of Zoe’s heartbeat lured me deeper into darkness, but as I wrap my arms around him, the percussive rhythm of his love and devotion and unwavering commitment beating into my ears, I know it’s Grip’s heart that will lead me out.
45
Grip
“Can you get carpal tunnel from severe masturbation?”
Amir glances up from whatever game he’s playing on his phone.
“I don’t want to know this,” he answers distractedly.
“No, it’s a real question. I’m gonna WebMD that shit.” I pull out my phone and lean against the kitchen counter in our Tribeca apartment. “It’s like this sharp pain in my wrist whenever I—”
“Man, you broke my concentration.” He scowls down at his phone. “Asking me dumb questions.”
“Remember that Dave Chappelle episode when he was teaching the kids about STDs?” I ask him.
He looks up to catch my eyes, already laughing over the infamous episode.
“I’ll beat my dick like it owes me money,” we quote together.
The laughter dies down, but I’m not done teasing him.
“I figure if anybody would know about jerking off too much, it would be you,” I say, shrugging casually, fighting back a grin. “You know, since you never get any.”
“Not that it’s any of your damn business,” Amir says smugly, “but I’m getting plenty, and Shon ain’t complaining.”
“I just threw up.” I point to my mouth. “In here a little bit.”
“You told me about the stuff you and Bristol did all the time.”
“Yeah, but I’m me, and you’re you.” I grab an energy drink from the refrigerator and toss it to him. “You see the difference?”
We both laugh, and it feels good. I laugh less than I used to, not gonna lie. The last month has been the hardest of my life, certainly of my marriage. That day when Bristol cracked the door to let me in, when she read my poem, it was a turning point, but it was just a beginning. It feels like we begin something new every week. Bristol started taking the prescription Dr. Wagner suggested, and her moods stabilized and her hormones evened out some. We’ve been seeing a grief counselor and attending a support group for bereaved parents. Now that we’re back in New York, we’ll have to start with a new group since we’ll be here for the next few months. Another new start—Kai’s starring in her first Broadway show. Bristol is just getting back into the swing of things, and she wanted to base here for a little bit.
“Your little problem should be over soon, right?” Amir raises his brows, gulping down the energy drink.
“My little . . .” Realization hits me, and I offer a frown instead of the smirk he probably expects. “Oh, yeah.”
He knows Bristol had her six-week checkup yesterday, right before we flew to New York, clearing us for takeoff, you could say. I never thought I could go six weeks without sex, but that’s been the least of my problems. I mean, I had to jerk off a lot to function in polite society, but I didn’t mind. I waited years to have Bristol, and I have the rest of my life with her. Six weeks is a drop in the bucket. Do I want her? Hell yeah. Maybe it’s different for guys, or maybe just different for me, but grief doesn’t suppress my sex drive. The fucking Jolly Green Giant could sit on my sex drive and it wouldn’t be suppressed, but it’s been different for Bristol. She’s not the same. She may never be. We may never be.
I feel it, too, that tectonic shift in the fundamental structure of who I am. My very nature rearranged to accommodate Zoe, and even though she’s gone, that space I made for her in my heart, it won’t ever close. It’s a wound that’s nowhere near healing—if it ever will—but life has a way of herding us back into its fold, of returning us to the flow of things that keep us moving forward. Bristol’s just getting back to work. Between Kai’s stint on Broadway and deals she’s working for Jimmi—who’s here in New York, too—her work pace is as demanding as it’s ever been. I think she needs that to distr
act her from some of the real shit we probably aren’t ready to face.
I’m finalizing my next album, starting promo for the book of poetry with Barrow, and have a few dates left on the Contagious tour with Iz.
Speak of the devil—my phone buzzes, and Iz’s name pops up.
“Dude.” I walk through to the living room with Amir and flop onto the couch. “What’s good?”
“You’re coming tonight?” Iz asks without preamble, a rare urgency in his voice.
“Yeah, I . . .”
My next thought leaves my head when Bristol comes down the steps looking rather scrumptious. She’s been pretty low key over the last six weeks, but tonight she’s got a dinner engagement with Jimmi and she’s pulled out all the stops. Her hair grew longer when she was pregnant and falls to the middle of her back, dark, streaked, wild. The dress is simple, relying on the shape of her body for its provocation and seduction, and let’s just say Bristol’s snap back game is on point. Between the grief starvation diet and her previously active life, you’d never know she just had a baby six weeks ago. The dress is white and strapless, clinging to all the curves that are riper now. The milk is gone, but I know her breasts by heart—and by hand—and they’re fuller than before. I love Bristol any way I can get her, but I’m not gonna complain about bigger breasts.
Not never.
“Grip?” Iz prompts, voice still anxious. “You are coming to the town hall?”
“Sorry. Yeah.” I drag my eyes away from Bristol as she smiles at Amir, greeting him with a kiss on the cheek. “I’m coming. I wouldn’t miss you taking down Clem Ford.”
Bristol’s head jerks around at the mention of that man. Her eyes meet mine, and I can tell she’s on high alert.
“My daughter’s been in an accident,” Iz says abruptly.
I sit up from my indolent slouch on the couch, elbows to my knees and the phone pressed tightly to my ear.
“Man, Iz. I’m sorry to hear that. Is she all right?”