Nothing could have prepared me for that moment. After the doctor pronounced her legally gone, a priest came in and said a few words. Then we took turns saying our goodbyes. Reed offered to stay with me while I said mine, but I felt like it was something I needed to do on my own.
She was gone, but I hoped her spirit could hear me as I spoke.
“Hi, Mom. I’m so glad I got to know you. You’re probably thinking I’m a little crazy for saying ‘I got to know you’ when you weren’t awake the entire time I’ve been here. But I did get to know you, because I got to meet my two brothers, who you raised. They’re loving and kind and the type of men who are a living testament to good parenting. So while we might not have had the opportunity to chat, I got to know you through them. And you’re really pretty great.” I wiped a few tears from my cheek. “I know it mustn’t have been easy for you to give me up. My brothers said you always felt like I took a piece of your heart the day you left me at that church. Well, I feel the same way right now. A piece of my heart that I’d just recently found is missing again. It disappeared when you took your last breath. Someday, we’ll meet again and make each other whole.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek one last time. “Until then, I’ll have an angel watching over me.”
I didn’t even remember walking out of her room that last time, or even saying goodbye to my brothers before we left the hospital. On the ride back to the hotel, Reed kept asking me if I was okay. I thought I was. Thought I’d made peace with finding her and losing her all in barely a week’s time. I wasn’t crying anymore and didn’t feel distraught, oddly. But there’s a difference between finding peace and going numb. It wasn’t until we were back in our room and I went into the shower that everything hit me. I’d stepped under the water fully dressed.
Hot water sluiced over my back, making my clothes droop from weight. I squeezed my eyes shut and started to cry. My shoulders shook and sobs racked my body, yet for the first twenty or thirty seconds no sound came out. But then the cork popped off the bottle, and it all started to pour out. I cried hard. Really hard. A sickening, howling wail gurgled from my throat. It didn’t even sound like it came from me. I leaned against the tile to keep myself up.
I vaguely heard the bathroom door click open, but Reed’s presence didn’t register until he was right behind me standing in the tub. He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. “It’s okay. Let it out. I got you.”
I leaned back, shifting my weight from the wall to the man standing behind me, and pressed my head to his chest. I cried for so many things—Lydia dying so young, my brothers being without a mother, never being able to hear her voice or see her eyes, my mother—my amazing adopted mother—who did everything right, yet I could only give her 99 percent of my heart because the other 1 percent belonged to a woman I’d never known.
Reed just stood there, one hand holding me up and the other stroking my sopping-wet hair. We stayed like that for a long time, until the water turned cold. Eventually when my tears ran dry, he reached around me and twisted the knob to shut off the water. It squeaked as he wound it. “Let me get you out of these clothes.”
Shivering, I nodded.
He knelt down in front of me and unbuttoned my jeans. Peeling the soaked denim down my legs, he looked up at me and spoke softly. “Hold my shoulders. Step out.”
Doing as I was told, I pulled one foot from my jeans, then the other.
“I’m going to take off all your clothes, so I can get you into something dry. Okay?”
I nodded again.
Reed slid my wet underwear down my legs, and I stepped out—this time at least without needing to be instructed to.
“Lift your arms.”
He pulled my soaked T-shirt over my head and unfastened my bra, letting the heavy clothes fall to the tub floor with a loud thunk. I still hadn’t moved an inch as he stepped out of the tub, grabbed a towel, and shook it open before wrapping it around me.
“You okay?” he asked again.
More nodding.
“Come on. Let’s get you dressed in something warm and into bed under the covers.”
I finally spoke. “But you’re soaked, too.”
“I’ll get out of my clothes after we get you settled.”
I shook my head. “No. I’ll wait.”