Page 114 of Something Like Sunflowers

She didn’t even have a name.

A tear rolls free, and I nod at her, this young woman before me now. One who stands tall and brave for what she believes in. Who is not asking but telling me what she needs.

“Okay,” I agree, releasing her.

The room falls silent, except for the beeping of the machines and the soft padding of Ellie’s footsteps across the tile floor.

Dustin stands by my side, his arm around me, as we watch Ellie approach the bed, her miniature boots scuffing the sterile floors with chicken shit dirt clods in their wake, and a smile tugs at my lips, just slightly. Devyn wouldn’t have her hospital room any other way.

I notice that Ellie a bouquet of sunflowers in her left hand, and her tattered up diary in her right that she doesn’t bother setting down as she hoists herself onto Devyn’s bed, crawling in beside her and snuggling her, just like I wanted to do, and that brings a smile to my lips.

They fit so well together like that, my two girls. Cradled together like it was always meant to be.

Please, God, make her well.

It’s the only thing I can manage when I see the two most important pieces of my heart outside my chest like this.

“Devyn, you can’t leave us. You have to wake up, do you hear me?” Ellie whispers, kissing Devyn’s cheek softly and shoving herself up to a sitting position.

“You were right about the sunflowers,” she says, sniffling through tears and snot and wiping her arm across her face. “It didn’t matter if it was blue or green or even yellow light. It didn’t matter about the soil or the water.” She holds the sunflowers up as if Devyn can see them, and a spastic laugh bubbles from her throat. “No matter what I did to the baby sunflowers in the shed, the minute I transferred them to the fields with full sunlight, they all bloomed. They just needed the right conditions.”

She leans over on her knees and lays the sunflowers down on the table beside them, settling back down next to Dev, and I realize minutes later that my eyes are blurry because I’m crying. Full out. Watching an interaction that could be their last.

God, it can’t be their last. I say prayer after prayer while I watch them.

Please do not let this be their last.

“You were right about Jonathan, too. He does like me.” She makes a face that’s a mix of disgust and excitement and squeezes Devyn’s hand. “Just like you were right about the silkies and the ducks, Dev. You were right about it all.”

She starts to cry now, softly at first, but soon it’s picked up to heavy waves of tears until she’s gasping, hyperventilating. “Please, D-evv-p—please—wake.”

“Maybe you should take her out of here,” Dustin suggests, but I’m already one step ahead of him, leaning in toward Ellie to scoop her back up, but she swats me away.

“No, Papa, no!” she screeches, yanking her body away from me and curling her fingers back around the edges of the hospital bed. She drapes her body over Devyn and sobs into her. “You have to wake up, Devyn. You have to! You were right! Polly is a better mother because she’s there! She wants to be there! That’s what it was all along.”

“Ellie, please, baby, you need to give her some space to heal. Let’s just—”

“No! She’s going to wake up. She’s gotta wake up. Wake up, Devyn! Wake up! You’re my silkie. You’re my Polly. Wake up, please. You’re my Polly!”

“Eleanor!” I scream at her, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her so she snaps out of it and hears me. She quiets, her eyes wide, lips trembling as she shakes, her breath coming out in short, rapid spurts.

I look into her eyes, wild and full of fear and that same grief that plagues me.

“Breathe,” I tell her.

And she does.

We breathe together just like that. Next to Devyn. We try to match her breathing.

Soon, I’m cradling Ellie while we wait for Devyn to wake, all of us breathing together. And in a way, it’s soothing.

“It should be me in that bed,” Ellie suddenly says, which has me sitting straight up.

“Why would you say that? It couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“I heard Uncle Dusty tell the police officers she was taking a paper to the courthouse for my custody. I know about the marriage certificate too. I listen in on just about every meeting with Katie, just so you know.”

“You aren’t in that bed, though. You know that? Devyn made a choice and had an accident. But do you think she would have made another choice where you were concerned? Because I can tell you she wouldn’t. She’d choose you, Ellie. I know that about her.”

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