"Yes."
I kissed her cheek, her forehead, and her cheek again.
"I love you, baby."
"I love you too, Mom. I'll see you when I wake up."
"You will see me when you wake up."
"Tell Pickles and Beau I said bye."
"I'll tell them."
I stepped out.
The nurses pulled the curtain. The curtain hid her. I walked to the door and stepped out into the corridor.
Bonnie was my whole world, the only reason I got up every morning. I just wanted her to have a normal life — to run without her chest hurting, to go to school like every other kid, to grow up beautiful and strong and free. I didn't need miracles. I just needed the surgery to work.
The corridor was bright.
I walked back to the family lounge, and Beau was in the chair he had been in. Mrs. Park was across from him. Kit was on his phone.
Beau saw me and stood up. He held me until my trembling eased.
I sat down beside him.
He had his phone in his hand.
He had been looking at it.
He glanced up at me when I sat down and looked at me like he had been waiting for me to come back.
"Sabrina."
"Yeah."
"Can you finish this? I'm trying to text my mom about what is going on, but I can't find the right words. I can't do it right now."
He held the phone out at me.
I took it.
The text said, “Mom, Bonnie is in pre-op. Sabrina is with her. Her surgery has just started. I…” The text was missing the next sentence, the one where you tell your mother how you are doing, and Beau hadn't, by his own admission, been able to write that sentence.
"Help me word it."
"Beau."
"I can't, Sabrina. I've been staring at it."
I took the phone.
My finger went to the keyboard.
I was thinking about what Beau wanted to say to his mother. I'd been a mother for nine years, and I'd been asked by men who didn't know how to talk to their mothers to help them write a text, and I'd developed a small expertise over the years.
A notification slid down from the top of the screen.
