Page 49 of Forever Then

Chapter Thirty-Nine

TEN-YEAR-OLD ME HAD NO IDEA

Gretchen

There’s barely a chance to respond before Cheyenne calls everyone to gather on the patio and I’m ushered to a seat at the outdoor dining table. Miguel makes way for my siblings to sit across from me, grins spread wide on their face. A surprise I’m clearly not in on.

Nerves already settling in, I crane my neck to find Connor. He appears a few seconds later and drops into the seat next to me. “I’m right here.” He kisses my temple as he squeezes my hand, steadying me.

Cheyenne emerges through the sliding patio door with a large gift-wrapped box that she sets in front of me before moving in beside Miguel who stands behind my brothers and sisters.

“I wasn’t expecting gifts,” I say hoarsely, searching for a smile to match everyone else’s.

Cheyenne’s fingers fidget nervously over her stomach and my heart clenches at how familiar the action feels. For a moment, I’m comforted by the fact that her nerves get the best of her the way mine do.

“Well, it’s only one,” she says. “But we’ve been working on it for a long time,”

Music silenced, nobody says a word as I tear away the wrapping and open the box beneath it. Inside sets a large photo album. It takes both of my hands to heft it out as Connor clears away the box underneath.

It’s a scrapbook. A scrapbook bursting at the seams, so thick I’m shocked the binding is intact. The jagged, uneven edges are made up different colored pages of varied thickness and texture as though pages have been added over time.

The photo pocket on the front holds a three by five purple index card with the word Yanaha written in an artistic script, decorated with hearts and stars drawn on in colored marker.

My fingers run over the word Winona whispered into my ear. Not a word. A name.

“It means ‘brave’ in Navajo,” Winona’s voice comes from my left.

“It’s the name I gave you when I held you,” Cheyenne adds.

The calm press of Connor’s palm runs over my back.

“It’s what I wanted most for you. I didn’t know where you’d end up or what you’d have to face. I just wanted you to be brave in the face of whatever life brought you.”

Any and all words get stuck in my chest. Emotion courses through me too rapidly for me to speak.

Brave is the last word I would use to describe myself. I’m cautious and careful. The person who volunteers to stay on the ground and keep watch over your personal effects instead of jump out of the airplane. The girl who stays home to read instead of going to the party.

“She’s the bravest person I know,” Connor says, voice warm and sure.

Tears free-fall into my lap as I shake my head. “I’m not brave at all.” My words land so quiet I think only Connor hears them.

“Gretch, you are brave. You’ve never changed who you are for other people. You’ve never given pieces of yourself away just because everyone else is doing it. You left small town Illinois and moved to New York City without knowing a single soul. You worked your way through college.”

I swipe the tears running down my face, embarrassed at this whole display in front of so many people.

“And when people have let you down.” He swallows and my eyes lift to his. “When they disappoint you. When they hurt you.” He pauses, squeezing my hand. “You forgive them. Even when they don’t deserve it. When others choose to stay angry and hold grudges, you forgive.”

I turn back to the scrapbook. My fingers drift over the first name I was ever given: Yanaha.

“ You got yourself here,” Connor continues. “You stepped out and you did the big, scary thing. You went looking for something not knowing if you’d find it. But you did find it, Gretch. Perhaps it was about thirty people more than you planned on, but…”

Amidst the sound of sniffles, light laughter bubbles up in tiny bursts across the patio and I can’t help but laugh, too. Because isn’t that the truth and, also, thank God I’m not the only one crying.

Connor finishes, voice certain; “You are the bravest person I know.”

“Whew, mija,” Grandma Rosa cuts through the emotion as she makes a dramatic show of wiping her eyes dry. “If you don’t marry that boy.”

“Right?” Cheyenne and several of the aunts say in unison, all dabbing away tears in one way or another.

I snicker into my chest, thankful for the lighthearted turn of conversation. When I look at Connor, his whole face twinkles as if to say you heard them . I mouth a quick “thank you” before turning to the first page in the scrapbook.

The inside front cover is a copy of the framed picture I saw yesterday of Cheyenne holding me as a newborn. On the right is a piece of notebook paper taped to the scrapbook page where Cheyenne has written out my birth story .

It will take hours to absorb every page of a book this large. For now, I flip through them, taking in as much as I can.

Two pages worth of pictures of Cheyenne and Miguel as teenagers, her pregnant belly on full display. This must have been those last few weeks of her pregnancy when she lived in Phoenix with Winona.

Yearly letters from Cheyenne and Miguel, addressed to Yanaha on my birthday.

Pictures of them as young adults, attending college in Flagstaff together. Their love story documented in photos and hand-written captions.

Wedding pictures. I never could have imagined that while I was a seven-year-old girl, doing the things seven-year-old girls do, my biological parents were a handful of states away, making vows to love each other forever.

Photos and letters telling the stories of the pregnancies and births of each of my siblings.

I flip forward a few more pages and find another birthday letter from my parents, except this time it’s accompanied by a child’s drawing.

“As early as the kids could understand who you are, we started having them make something for you on your birthday,” Miguel explains.

Tears pool in my eyes as I take in MJ’s rainbow drawing, complete with a sun and some flowers. His five-year-old hand scribbling out the words i lub u on my fifteenth birthday .

I look up at MJ who grins shyly at me and I give him a wink before turning my attention back to the book.

More pages, more drawings, letters and pictures from my siblings on my birthday. Even letters from Antonio and Rosa some years.

But it’s not just birthday entries that fill these pages.

Dance recitals. Football games. School pictures.

Vacations. Christmases. All of it personalized with captions written in the margins to highlight memorable details, significant dates and times.

Varied handwriting makes it clear that many hands went into creating and filling each page.

A documentation of their entire lives, it’s everything I’ve missed.

Except I didn’t miss anything at all, because they’ve held me with them through all of it.

Every moment captured and recorded for the sake of this book that is, literally, twenty-two years in the making.

“I love it,” I choke out through tears.

Once everybody has cried and hugged as much as is humanly possible, Gustavo declares the party has resumed as he cranks the music back up.

Thankful for the time and space to breathe, I close myself in the bathroom for a few minutes to freshen up.

On my way back outside, the sound of movement in the kitchen has me detouring in that direction. I turn the corner and find Winona handwashing dishes at the sink.

“Can I help?”

“I should say no since you’re the birthday girl, but I won’t turn down the company.”

She inclines her head toward a drawer where I find clean dish towels. I grab one and sidle up next to her.

“Cheyenne has always been the social one of the two of us. It’s probably why she fits so well with Miguel’s family. I love being with family, but I crave the quiet, too.”

I nod, my towel moving in slow circles against the porcelain of the serving dish. “Same.”

“Yeah?” She turns to look at me.

“Yeah.”

Her hands pause in the soapy water, gaze locked on mine. “ God , it is so good to see you again.”

She turns her attention back to the sink, but her words stick in my thoughts like sap on a tree.

Winona was there. She saw me. She had a camera. She took a picture of Cheyenne cradling me in her arms. Maybe it’s not the only picture she took that day .

I clear the hesitation from my throat. “Arthur said you had a patient go into labor last night.”

She hands me a baking dish. “Yeah. Labor went long or else we would have been here hours ago.”

“He said you own your own birthing center.” Her hands slow their pace under the surface of the water. “In Phoenix.”

“I do,” she says, quieter now.

Setting the dry baking dish aside, I take the mixing bowl she passes over. “Cheyenne said the birthing center where I was born isn’t in business anymore.”

“Yeah, it was a hospital run birthing center. The midwife who ran it retired about ten years ago and the hospital didn’t care to keep it open. Building sat empty for almost a year.”

I worry my lower lip between my teeth, laser-focused on the glass mixing bowl in my hands.

It’s Winona who clears her throat this time. “Wouldn’t you know, someone else came along and bought it. Turned it right back into a birthing center under a different name.”

I set the bowl down gently on the granite countertop. Winona’s hands now braced on the counter’s edge, soapy suds drip into the water beneath them.

“And, um…” She releases the drain, a deep gurgle echoing into the pipes below as the water recedes. Her eyes won’t meet mine as she reaches for another towel and dries her hands. “When did you open your practice?” I finish.

She swipes the streaks of tears from her cheeks that I couldn’t see before and throws the towel to the side before yanking me against her chest. The quiet cry and the fraught clutch of her embrace says everything words can’t.

“It was you.”

“It was me.”

When she steps back, we’re both wiping at our faces. I have a million questions, but I don’t want to force Winona into any sort of confession that could get her in trouble.