Our vows drown out the tortured thoughts that have crowded my head for days, finally penetrating my consciousness the way nothing else has since Zoe passed. Grip wants me to let him in, but stumbling in the dark, I can’t even find my way to the door and its slippery knob. I’ve never told Grip about my nightmare, waking up with our daughter’s heartbeat in my ears. I’m covered in the hot breath of horror every morning and I’ve never told him. The panic that assaults me when I think about the first time I’ll see a mother out with her newborn—at a coffee shop or the grocery store or the park—he doesn’t know.

The hurt in Grip’s eyes, it wasn’t because Zoe’s gone, it was because I’m gone. He misses Zoe, too. As I pull my head out of my own ass for the first time since we came home, I see that, but the hurt I just saw wasn’t about her. It was about me.

I drag myself off the floor, standing as straight as I can. I can’t seem to pull my spine straight anymore. I lean, I bow, my body reflecting my bent spirit. When I step into our bedroom, he isn’t there. He did say he was going out. I’ll at least shower and change these sheets. I’ve negotiated eight-figure deals with ease, but now these two simple tasks daunt me.

When I pull the sheets from the bed, papers go flying in the air. I hadn’t noticed them, and now they’re all over the floor. I bend to collect them, jarred when my daughter’s name catches my eye.

“What is this?” I ask the empty room, my breath seizing at the dedication.

I shuffle through a few more pages before I realize it’s Grip’s poetry book for Barrow. Maybe I’ll read through them when I’m feeling more myself. Right now, I’m not in the mood for beautiful words skillfully strung together, not even from Grip. I’m stuffing the pages in the drawer of the table on his side of the bed when I see my name.

Not my actual name, but the title I know was inspired by me.

That’s what he called me, how he teased me when I said my laugh sounded like a bird. That day, years ago, I had no idea how fragile joy is, that in a moment, with just a few words, everything can capsize. You can sink. One day the wind is in your sails then in no time you’re the Titanic. I sit on the bed and read the poem attached to that distant memory.

I read it again and then again. Each time through, the words find spots inside me that need soothing. I finish storing the other pages in the drawer, but can’t make myself let Pretty Bird go. The sheer vulnerability of it, the need and love infuse every line. I’m about to call Grip, to ask him to come home, when I hear a muffled sound from the living room. I let the sound lead me, and my heart finds new ways to break when I see my husband, seated on the floor, back to the couch with his head in his hands, shaking with sobs.

I hear your cry, do you hear mine?

I haven’t. I’ve been so consumed with my own grief, turned inside out in my pain, I didn’t see his. I didn’t hear his cry.

“Grip,” I say in a voice I can barely hear myself but that grabs his attention immediately.

He stiffens, his head jerking up as if he’s been caught. When our eyes connect, he tries to pull it together, tries to pull his strength back in place, but it fails him like a broken gate hanging off its hinge—the same way mine fails me every morning when I wake up and roll back over, unable to face the day. His rugged features crumple, a broken dam of tears running over his face.

“God, Bris.” His voice falls apart like wet tissue. “I need you, baby. I wish I could do this without you, for you, but I meant it: we don’t survive this unless we’re together. If we’re together, I know we can.”

“Our love can do the impossible,” I quote from Pretty Bird. “Do you believe?”

His eyes narrow, recognition of his own words sinking in. Before he can ask, I answer.

“Your poem was on the bed.” I sink to the floor beside him, reach for his hand, linking our fingers and placing them in my lap. “I hope it’s okay that I read it.”

His glance shifts away from me, eyes squeeze closed, long lashes wet against his cheeks. His cocksure bravado, the confidence he wore like skin drew me before. His vulnerability woos me now.

“I’ve never felt this lost,” he confesses, his broad shoulders shrugging helplessly. “You said I want to fix you. In some ways you’re right, but not to make it easier for me. I’d do anything to stop your pain, but I can’t seem to find the solution. I only know that if we’re together, there is one. Grief counseling, therapy, whatever it takes—I just need to know at the end, we’ll still have each other.”

I blink, swiping uselessly at my own tears. I’ve been looking for light, and it’s been right here the whole time.

“You can start by just holding me,” I whisper.

“God, yes.” He breathes into my hair and pulls me across his lap, long legs stretched out over the floor. I huddle into the breadth and strength of his chest. How could I have forsaken, forgotten this comfort all along? For long moments, we just hang on to each other, both crying, grieving what we’ve lost and clinging to what we still have. There with my head against his chest, I hear it.

Thump, thump, thump.

His heartbeat. Every day the sound of Zoe’s heartbeat lured me deeper into darkness, but as I wrap my arms around him, the percussive rhythm of his love and devotion and unwavering commitment beating into my ears, I know it’s Grip’s heart that will lead me out.