Chapter 24: Say My Name

The baby came in May, on a Tuesday, in the middle of the morning rush at the shop.

I was arranging peonies when my water broke on the floor beside the cooler.

"Mitchell," I said, very calmly.

He was across the room with a customer, holding a vase.

He dropped it.

Nine hours later she was in my arms, red and furious and perfect.

She had a fist full of black hair and eyes that were going to be pale blue.

Mitchell sat on the edge of the hospital bed and didn't say anything for a long time.

Then he put one finger in her palm, and she gripped it.

"Hello," he said, in the same quiet voice he had used on my stomach.

It was the only word he said for ten minutes.

By midsummer the loft had a table.

He built it out of cedar planks left over from the hull he had finally finished.

It was a long pale thing that took up half the floor.

The boat itself sat out in the yard now, under a tarp, waiting for a buyer who would not be told its price.

On the first warm Sunday of July, we filled that table.

Meghan came with a bottle of wine and a business card that said her name under the words Events, Done Right.

She had spent June planning a charity gala, and the invoice for it had cleared the last of what she owed.

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