“Okay, I’m actually done with the first draft.” I sit on the unmade bed and press the phone to my ear while I talk to Charm. “I finished all but one before Zoe . . .”

I was going to say before Zoe came, but all Charm or anyone who knows our situation would hear is before Zoe died. I let the words dissolve in my mouth. That’s what she is to others: an epitaph with no dashes, not a year she was born and a year she passed away, but a solitary day, mere hours.

“Okay,” Charm says, that hesitation in her voice like everyone else’s, like she’s not sure it’s safe to talk to me yet. “Look, Grip, we can delay this again if we need to.”

“No, it’s fine. Your production team has been really patient, and I appreciate that.” I glance at the stack of printed pages splayed on the bed. “All the poems are finished. I was just doing a final read-through.”

“If you’re sure,” Charm says, a bit of relief in her voice. “That’s great. Just email it.”

“Cool.”

Silence pools on the line, and I’m not sure if she has more to say or if she’s waiting for me to go.

“Um, how’s Bristol?” Charm asks. “I called her, but it went to voicemail. I haven’t heard back, but I figure she’ll call when she’s ready. I don’t want to bother her.”

I didn’t want to bother her either, the first day, the second, the third . . . but we’re at day ten, and I think it’s time someone bothered her and shook her out of this. I’m probably the only one who can reach her, but who’s gonna reach me? I run a hand over my head. I need a haircut, a shave. Have I showered today? Have I eaten? I’m as bad off as Bristol is, but afraid to express it, to let her know. This kind of grief, it’s impossible to bear, but this, what Bristol is allowing, what she’s doing to herself—it’s unsustainable. I love her too much to let it go on.

“Grip?” Charm prompts. “Bristol? How is she?”

“Oh, well, not great.” A heavy sigh falls between us over the phone. “I mean, we’re not great, but I guess that’s to be expected. We’ll get through it, but it’ll take time.”

And I’m not sure how.

“I’ve known Bristol a long time,” Charm says. “Longer than you have, actually, and I’ve never seen her the way she is with you. She’s almost unrecognizable, honestly. As long as I’ve known her, she was great at putting up walls, keeping people out, but she doesn’t have that defense with you. Just don’t give up on her.”

I let her words wash over me, cleanse my discouragement away, and renew my commitment to reaching my wife.

“Giving up on Bristol is not an option,” I say, swallowing my doubts. “But thanks for the encouragement.”

“And how are you holding up?” she asks, her voice a little lighter. “Who’s going to take care of you?”

“Bristol will,” I reply. “We take care of each other.”

My response comes before I even have time to think about it. I wondered who would reach me if I’m occupied with reaching Bristol, who would take care of me if I’m taking care of her, but that’s the answer: we take care of each other. We always have, and if we meant our vows, we always will.

“Charm, I need to go.” I consider the closed bathroom door. I don’t hear water running or any movement.

“Of course. I’ll be on the lookout for your email. This book is going to be amazing, Grip.”

I don’t give a damn and don’t even bother responding, just hang up. Charm will cut me some slack for my rudeness. Being around people is hard because there are all these rules, all these things you have to do, and the only thing I want to do right now is hurt, hurt and hold my girl and heal.

When I enter the bathroom, the shower’s not running and there’s no steam fogging the mirror. Bristol’s on the floor, her long legs stretched out flat along the tiles, her back to the tub. She cups her breasts where two huge wet spots show through the T-shirt. Her head is bowed and tears run unchecked down her face. I rush over to squat beside her.

“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.