Page 218 of Lost Lyrebird

Dozer checks in with the others and meets each of their gazes.“So we let him prospect, and he’ll become Lily’s shadow.”

Finn drums his fingers on the table.“Yeah, I think it’s for the best.”

Bodie adds.“Me too.”

“The kid acts like he’s at death’s door.But sure.I’m not opposed,” Taz voices his opinion.“Just gonna be a mood killer is all.”

Dozer shakes his head.“Like you’re not?”

“What?”

Dozer waves his hand.“That’s neither here nor there.My point is, if we agree, I’ll get Cap on board and his blessing when we get back.”

The men all nod their assent.

Dozer gets up from the table, and we all follow him out of the Diner.

As I ride on the back of Finn’s bike on our way back to New Mexico, I can’t help but wonder at how Mateo is going to take the news.We’re going to be very close, real soon.I’m not upset about that.It’ll give me a chance to get to know him on another level.Maybe then I can figure out how to fix what’s broken between him and Finn, and Mateo not being alone might just be what he needs.

It’s twenty-one days later, while in a local grocery store shopping for condoms and a few other essential items for the HOCs, when I come across a woman who is the female version of Deeds.She looks so much like him that when I enter the aisle where she’s standing, I come to an abrupt halt.

Her hair color is the same shade of auburn, and she also has tan skin for a ginger, which is something you rarely see.

As I tentatively close the distance, I notice the items in her hands, and she raises one and then the other as if she’s trying to decide between the two.Condoms, or a pumpkin necklace.When I strike up a conversation with her, what I notice immediately is the look in her eyes.They screamhelp me.I don’t know how else to explain it.

So I do.

I offer her a quick escape from the cop following her around the store—a safe haven from whatever else she’s running from.Little did I know at the time that she’d become not just a friend, but a sister in every way except by blood.She became the girl with many names, a pumpkin that transformed from a house mouse into one of the strongest females I know.

EPILOGUE

Our stories will exist beyond the time we remain on this earth.Make it worthy of being retold.

JUNE 2017

It’s a warm summer day, and the sun is reaching its apex in the sky.A breeze picks up strands of my hair and blows a few of them across my face, so I’m constantly tucking those wayward pieces behind my ear.A couple of the hairs are now gray, not a lot, but a few, and I quite like them.I refuse to dye it because I see them more as a badge of honor than anything else.

The tattoos on my body, the gray hairs, the wrinkles around my eyes and mouth speak of a life well-lived, and tell a story.Mine.And that’s not something I would ever change.Not a chapter, page, any line, or any single word written in it.

Every so often, a bird or two draws nearer to keep me company while I sit on the blanket and read to him.I know you’re not supposed to feed the bird, but I do.I bring dried bread every time I come here and break off little pieces and sprinkle the breadcrumbs in the grass for any bird brave enough to venture closer.

Finn used to give me hell about.He doesn’t anymore.So I do what I want, and anyone who has the balls enough to tell me otherwise, I pretty much tell to fuck right the hell off.

I flip to the next page of the book, and tell him about the day we revisited the waterfall and how that too fell into what Finn liked to call the abyss in his mind, where memories would sometimes disappear into.I skim the naughty bits because I imagine hearing about that would be torture, considering the circumstances.Still, I tell him how during our little picnic by the lake, and how we got into a grape fight and how I ended up pelting Finn in the cheek so hard it left a mark, and how he tackled me down to the blanket and tickled me until I damn near peed my pants.Then he’d kissed me for a solid ten minutes straight, and when he pulled back, he told me there was something he’d been thinking about for a while and wanted to talk to me about it.

It was when he told me he was ready.Ready to have kids with me, or at least try.Maybe just the one, and he wanted to know if that was something I was open to.

Through my tears that bubbled up out of nowhere, I had nodded rapidly and yanked him down for another long kiss.It had been on my mind for months.

I’d often study little kids and mothers in particular.At first, I didn’t understand the feelings it had stirred up inside of me, but as time passed, I realized that the warm feeling, the flutter in my stomach, the swelling of my heart as I saw the two interact, was something I began to ache for and want for my own.

But I was scared.I hadn’t had the best mother, and although I had many friends with their children.I had even helped them out a bunch.I’d become the best aunt any kid could hope for.Being a mother, though, that was a dance and a role I didn’t exactly know how to fill.

I’d seen it everywhere I looked.With Ember and Willow, and her other two little ones.With Bethany and her brood.Bodie and his crazy duo.

But yeah, I just wasn’t sure if I’d be any good at it, but I wanted to try.I wanted to see where that road led, and just like I put my heart and soul into everything I did, I planned to do that with motherhood too.

As I tell him this part of the story, tears begin to fall from my face as I read the words out loud.They’re happy tears.I keep reading and flipping through the pages.I tell him about the pregnancy.The god awful pregnancy that had me rethinking motherhood.I tell him how I got as big as a house and how Finn made sure to tell me each day how fantastic and sexy I was, even though I clearly wasn’t.