Chapter 13 – Annie Rose

Pete’s expression was kind. “We were rooting for you,” he said, and went to find someone else to tell this to.

Clara came and took Thomas’s hand. They walked out into the Wyoming June, and somewhere on the hill east of Millfield, in the small cemetery with the view of the mountains, last Friday’s wildflowers were still in their iron holder, catching the summer light.

Their daughter arrived in March of the following year. She was born in the early morning, when the Wyoming sky was still dark and the first light was just beginning to come over the mountains to the east—Annie’s mountains, the ones visible from the hill.

Thomas had been at Clara’s side through all of it. He held her hand and did not leave the room. He was thirty-six years old and had done this once before in fear and helplessness; he did it again in a different kind of fear, the kind that has hope underneath it.

The baby was born healthy. She was small and dark-haired, and had from the first moment the air of someone who has arrived somewhere and intends to stay. Thomas held her and looked at her for a long time.

Clara watched from the bed. She had been thinking about something for months, thinking about it carefully, the way she thought about things that mattered. She had not said it to Thomas because she did not want it to be a question; she wanted it to simply be true.

She looked at her daughter in Thomas’s arms. “Annie,” she said.

Thomas looked up.

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“That’s her name,” Clara said, “if you want it.” She held his gaze. “Not to replace her, not to fill the space James left, but because Annie was there before I was. She’s part of how we got here. She deserves to be part of where we go.”

Thomas looked at his daughter. He thought about Annie Hail, who had loved wildflowers, hated carnations, argued with books, sent every letter, and would have had opinions about all of this—strong ones, delivered directly, probably with something said about how long everything had taken.