Our Gravity

Bryce softly sang along with the music, punctuated by frequent sniffles and his voice cracking as he cried.

  Banana Pancakes gave way to Better Together. Dustin started softly singing along with Bryce, the way they had with Kira. Bryce’s voice grew a little stronger, but Dustin couldn’t see his face from this angle, just Kira’s back.

  Dustin looked down into Jenny’s peaceful face as he sang, singing to her as much as he sang to Bryce, for Bryce, with him.

  Singing to their daughter.

  Yes, Kira was her mother, but at some point—he didn’t know when—his brain had sneakily shifted and Jenny was his. His and Bryce’s. Their daughter. He didn’t care she wasn’t biologically his—she was his.

  The way Bryce was his.

  Never Know started playing. Dustin knew for the rest of his life he would think about this night when he listened to this music. This night, and the mornings in the kitchen, and the afternoon Jenny was born.

  The first night he and Bryce made love.

  All these memories and more, permanently locked into his mental gravitational orbit to hover there, around these songs.

  And he was good with that.

  Inaudible Melodies played, and they sang. And as they sang, Dustin felt her take a breath…

  And then no more.

  Bryce’s voice faded out, choked, crying. Dustin sat up and carefully watched, listening.

  Kira lay still.

  He leaned in and kissed her cheek, then got up, still managing not to wake Jenny. He walked over to the door and cracked it open enough he could look out. A nurse sat at the desk out front, and he caught her attention.

  She nodded and quickly picked up the phone.

  Dustin left the door cracked open and walked over to stand behind Bryce. Bryce sobbed now, even as he tried to sing. Dustin didn’t have the heart to turn off the music. This was for Bryce now, and Dustin would honor it, respect it, let him do what he needed to do.

  The night nurse quietly walked in, her stethoscope in her hand. She offered them a kind smile and walked around to Kira’s other side, listening in several places for a while before leaving again after giving Dustin a little nod and a sad smile.

  She’s gone.

  * * * *

  How am I supposed to do this without you?

  Bryce stared at Kira’s face and willed her to come back to him even though he knew that was futile.

  She’d wanted to be a mom. She’d wanted to have a family. Not only had that been taken from her, she’d been taken from him. His best friend.

  This wasn’t fair. They were supposed to raise their kids together, do things together as families.

  Grow old together and share everything.

  Be obnoxious in the nursing home together.

  If I Could started playing and the lyrics were too much for his soul to bear. Bryce fumbled for his phone and silenced the music. Then he kissed her hands, kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose.

  She’d always be thirty-one.

  She’d always be his best friend.

  She’d always be the mother of his child.

  She’d always be his biggest heartbreak.

  He’d remember her as the laughing kid who never made fun of him for what he enjoyed doing. The girl who’d asked him to homecoming and prom every year in high school, because she knew he wouldn’t ask anyone else, and she didn’t want to go with anyone else.

  The girl who’d sat with him in freshman orientation in college. Who’d held him when he’d cried over the breakup of his first serious relationship with a guy.

  She was.

  In every chapter of his life, either a costar or there, ever-present, in the background.

  He knew what had to happen next. He had to force himself out of the bed and into Dustin’s arms and, somehow, go home and let the next step happen.

  They would take her, cremate her, place her in the urn she’d already chosen, and call them to come pick her up when she was ready in a few days.

  A few days earlier, after she’d finally slipped into a non-responsive state, Bryce had cut several snips of her hair to keep, tucked away with the hospital bracelets and sharks teeth and pictures.

  Dustin had mostly shouldered the weight of Jenny’s care the past several weeks. How did he shift from the death watch to being a dad now?

  He was aware Dustin had sat down again, on his side. Bryce knew he still held Jenny.

  He knew if Kira could speak that she’d tell him to get up and hold their baby. To let her go now, to let her pass on.

  To let things happen, the things she’d actively arranged so he wouldn’t have to.

  He needed to call Steve and Kate.

  He needed to call Ed, so he could file paperwork for them.

  Jenny had a pediatrician appointment tomorrow. He’d put her on his insurance when she was born, his daughter.

  Seeing his name on her birth certificate had sent him to the bedroom to lock the door and cry—happy tears, fortunately.

  Now he could marry Dustin and he could adopt her. Ed had the paperwork. All he had to do was file it.

  But first he had to get out of this bed and let her go, and he wasn’t sure he had the strength to do that.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed when Dustin finally stood and nestled Jenny in her carrier.

  No!

  He couldn’t take his eyes from Kira’s face, the pain and deep lines finally eased.

  She was finally at peace and out of pain.

  He was aware of Dustin quietly moving around the room, walking over to the door, stepping out for a moment.

  Returning, someone with him.

  Then Dustin left again, and Bryce wasn’t sure, but he thought Dustin had carried something outside.

  He returned a little while later, the jingle of car keys, and Bryce knew.

  Dustin started breaking down the portable crib.

  The other person, whoever they were, sat in a chair across the room, outside Bryce’s field of vision, probably a nurse or one of the hospice volunteers, someone to sit there with Jenny more than with him.

  While Dustin loaded the car.

  Finally, Dustin stopped going back and forth and the other person left the room, closing the door behind them.

  He felt Dustin’s warmth, his presence, behind him.

  “Hey, B,” he softly said. “It’s time.”

  Bryce sniffled. “I don’t want to leave her alone.”

  “She’s not alone, buddy. They’re waiting for us to go. They’ll take good care of her. We can’t do anything else for her.”

  He shook his head.

  Dustin sat on the edge of the bed, behind him, and Bryce heard the sound of an envelope opening. He knew she’d left them messages, letters.

  His heart couldn’t take it.

  Dustin made him look.

  She’d used pink gel ink, writing in large, capital letters, taking up the whole page.

  GO HOME, B!

  I LUV U!
  And a smiley face.

  Sobbing, he closed his eyes and kissed her forehead one last time as Dustin helped him sit up and turn, on the edge of the bed. Dustin tucked the note back into the envelope and slipped it into Jenny’s diaper bag, a bag Kira had picked out on Amazon and bought.

  Dustin finally got him standing, and Bryce swayed on his feet for a moment before he felt steady enough to stand without Dustin’s arm around his shoulders.

  Then Dustin shouldered the diaper bag and picked up Jenny’s carrier.

  He turned one last time and wished he hadn’t. She looked like she was sleeping, peaceful.

  He wanted to climb back into the bed with her and never leave it.

  Dustin draped his free arm around his shoulders and gently but firmly steered him out the door. Outside the room, one of the caseworkers stood, waiting, a clipboard in hand.

  “I’m so sorry, Dustin, Bryce,” she softly said in a kind and practiced voice that made Bryce want to scream. “I need a couple of quick signatures, an
d then we’ll follow her plan.”

  Dustin set down Jenny’s carrier and took the clipboard from her, quickly signing Bryce’s name to the forms where she indicated.

  “Thank you,” Dustin told her. “We appreciate everything you’ve done and how you took care of her.”

  “Of course.” Her smile widened briefly as she focused on Jenny. “She’s so beautiful. Such a sweetheart.”

  “Thank you.” Dustin hugged her, and two of the nurses who’d taken care of Kira, who walked over to say good-bye.

  Bryce felt…numb. He hugged and nodded but couldn’t speak. He worried he’d start screaming.

  Or crying.

  How could he still cry? Shouldn’t he be cried out by now?

  Somehow, Dustin got him out to the car and inside it. Once they were on the way, Dustin placed a phone call, and Bryce didn’t need to be a psychic to know it was to Steve.

  “Hey.” He let out a weighty sigh. “10:17. … Yeah. Okay. I’m driving us home right now. I need to get him inside and get Jenny and everything situated first. … He’s…not. I’ll talk to you later. … Yeah, you, too.” He hung up and set the phone in the center console.

  Bryce laid his head against the window and stared out at the night, wondering how he was supposed to move forward now.

  * * * *

  She called that right.

  She’d warned him weeks ago that she knew Bryce wouldn’t want to leave her. That’s why she’d left him that note to use to get him moving, knowing Bryce might not want to listen to Dustin, but at least at that moment, he probably would listen to her.

  Even though she couldn’t talk anymore.

  He’d kept that note in Jenny’s diaper bag, ready to show him, wishing he hadn’t needed to use it but always suspecting he would.

  Now they’d have to start over, in some ways. They’d never really lived together alone. The bulk of their relationship had formed around Kira and taking care of her, the three of them together, preparing for Jenny’s arrival.

  Against the odds, Jenny had come, Kira had met her…

  Now it was time to figure out who they were.

  When they arrived home, Dustin grabbed Jenny and waited by the passenger door until Bryce finally forced himself up and out of the car and toward the front door. Archer met them at the front door with disapproval in his eyes and a flicky tail. Every time Dustin had come home to take care of him and take care of washing clothes and swapping out clothes for Bryce, Archer had followed him, vocally crying, as if yelling at him for his daddy and his adopted mommy and new tiny human being gone.

  Once he had Bryce inside, he left him alone and took Jenny down to the nursery to get her settled. He knew he needed to take care of Bryce, but first he wanted to unload the car, put stuff away, and get Steve called back.

  By the time he’d accomplished item two, Bryce had made it to their bedroom and was sitting on the end of the bed and staring at his hands.

  Dustin kicked off his shoes and double-checked the baby monitor before calling Steve back.

  “Okay, we’re home.” He walked out to the kitchen to preset the coffeepot for in the morning.

  “How’s Bryce?” Steve sounded about like Dustin felt, grated raw and ready to collapse.

  “Not good.”

  “Was…it quiet?”

  He’d been sending him text messages, keeping him posted. Kira had been adamant that once she was unconscious, she did not want her parents seeing her.

  “It was like she went from being asleep to being a deeper level of asleep. She wasn’t in any pain, didn’t feel anything. She just…went to sleep.”

  Dustin could hear Kate crying in the background and it sounded like Steve wasn’t far behind her in terms of losing it. “Thank you for being there for her. For taking care of her. She told us how much she loved you, too. Said you were like a big brother to her.”

  He finally let his own tears flow, knowing he couldn’t hold them back any longer. “I never had a little sister, but I loved her like one.”

  “How’s Jenny?”

  “Misses Grandma and Grandpa,” he tried to joke. “Can’t wait for you two to move to Florida.”

  “We had an offer on the house today. But we’ve got two more people coming tomorrow to look at it, so we’re going to wait and hear what they say. It’ll be a couple of weeks then. I can’t start my new job until next month. My current job said I can keep working until then.”

  “That’s good.” He jotted himself a note to log onto MLS and start searching for listings for them. Tomorrow would be paperwork day, including seeing what they’d need to file for Kira’s life insurance policy.

  “I’m going to let you go. Thank you again. Hug Bryce for us, please. Love you both.”

  “Love you, too.” He leaned against the counter and tried to pull himself together for Bryce. He could fall apart later.

  Bryce needed him now.

  Archer walked into the kitchen and rubbed against his legs, meowing. Dustin scooped him up and held him. “Sorry, buddy. She’s not coming back.”

  After a few minutes, he put the cat down, blew his nose, and returned to the bedroom to find Bryce sitting exactly as he had been when he’d left him there.

  Dustin got him undressed and finally coaxed him into bed. After he undressed, he crawled in with him, holding him, wishing Bryce would just let it out and cry.

  There wouldn’t be a funeral. Kira had asked them not to have one. She’d given them a list of people they could notify about her death, like certain friends on her Facebook account. She’d opened a new Facebook account after leaving Shawn, blocked Shawn and his family and close friends from it, and added the few friends she knew wouldn’t give him any information about her. She’d basically abandoned her other old social media accounts.

  She’d given Bryce and Dustin all the logins, though. The only reason she hadn’t closed her old accounts was because she’d had them since they were in college, and there were plenty of pictures of Bryce and her together on them. Pictures Bryce wanted to retrieve, along with the dates they were posted and any other information, so he’d have it for Jenny.

  No one would be told about Jenny. That was the way Kira wanted it. She also hadn’t told anyone, other than her parents, where she’d gone when she left Dallas. Less chance of Shawn eventually finding out about Jenny that way.

  They all hoped he’d be lazy enough not to look farther into her death once he eventually heard confirmation of it.

  But a funeral, as far as she was concerned, was too risky, too much of a chance of someone finding out about Jenny.

  Dustin was almost asleep when he heard Bryce speak.

  “D?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you. I love you.”

  In the dark, Dustin found Bryce’s lips and kissed him. “Love you, too, Master.”

  Bryce finally went to sleep, and only then did Dustin relax again and let himself slide into darkness.

  Chapter Thirty

  Bryce lay awake the next morning, alone in bed. He’d almost bolted out of it, worried that he wasn’t at the hospice—

  When it hit him.

  He could smell coffee and hear Dustin talking to Jenny, or maybe to Archer, he wasn’t sure which.

  He didn’t bother putting his glasses on. He used the bathroom and pulled on a robe and stumbled out into the kitchen.

  Dustin had Jenny in his arms, feeding her a bottle. What he hadn’t heard from the bedroom was the sound of Jack Johnson playing from his phone, turned down low, Dustin singing Banana Pancakes to her, tears rolling from his eyes as he slowly shuffled around the kitchen with her. Archer sat with his tail tucked around his body, watching him from the far end of the kitchen.

  Except for the tears it would have been funny.

  He started singing with him, walking over to join them, wrapping his arms around both of them and staring into his guy’s eyes.

  The man he was going to spend the rest of his life with.

  The man he l
oved with all his heart.

  The man who’d done what no one should ever be asked to do, who by all rights Bryce wouldn’t have blamed if he’d walked away.

  The song ended and Dustin leaned in, resting his forehead against Bryce’s. “Morning, Papi.”

  He managed a laugh. “Morning, Daddy.” He kissed him and then reached over to turn off the music. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

  “I’ll call Ed and Kimbra and everyone.” He handed Jenny to him. “I think she’d like to spend some time with you.” He kissed Bryce again and turned to make his coffee for him.

  Her eyes were open, and she stared up at him with her sweet brown eyes.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” Wasn’t this when he was supposed to be sobbing his heart out? But all he could do was stare at this perfect, precious miracle.

  Dustin walked into the living room and turned on the TV there, to the morning news.

  Life would…get back to normal.

  Not today.

  Today, he wanted to hold their daughter and rest in Dustin’s arms and not think about the world at large. They needed to get through this next period and then life could…resume.

  Three weeks.

  That was how long Kira planned for after. To handle paperwork. To get the death certificate back so they could get married. To have the wedding. Quiet time alone to grieve. Then, they’d both go back to work.

  They’d raise Jenny.

  They’d figure out the rest of their lives.

  I still need to find him a collar.

  Because maybe they were dads and were going to be married, but he didn’t want to lose sight of what brought them together.

  Dustin was his. Especially after all they’d gone through. He wanted to make sure his boy knew how damn much he loved him.

  * * * *

  The next week, with Kira’s death certificate in hand, Bryce and Dustin headed to the county courthouse. It was the same clerk who’d helped them before, and she eyed the paperwork—her side-eye activated when she reached the dates on the marriage certificate for Bryce and Kira, which they’d brought as well.

  Bryce looked…lost.

  Dustin stepped in. “She was his best friend, and she wanted to make sure her baby had a father when she was born and would be taken care of. This was the plan, the way she wanted it. Please don’t hassle us. We’re grieving enough as it is.”