I press my palms against the rough hospital sheets and think, We did it. I birthed myself, and it was a long and hard and painful labor, but I am alive and I am here. For good. Somewhere deep down inside me I knew—I know—that I won’t get another chance. Use it or lose it.
“Well, Blue, you look like shit.”
I open my eyes, and there’s Jo standing in the doorway of my hospital room, arms crossed, a phoenix tat hissing at me from its perch near her elbow. She looks like she’s just come from a goth biker meeting, all leather and ass-kicking boots and dark purple lipstick.
“I’m counting my fingers,” I say.
Mae stands from where she’d been sitting in the chair next to the bed and yawns. Her short hair is sticking up in all sorts of angles, her clothes rumpled, and there are dark rings under her eyes, but she smiles when she sees me, and I smile back.
“I’m going to get some coffee, even though caffeine intake at two in the morning is not advisable.” Mae glances at Jo, her smile turning into a little smirk. Attitude looks good on her. “She’s all yours.”
She and Jo high-five each other as she leaves the room, then Jo crosses to my bed. She flicks her long straight bangs out of her eyes then waits there, still as the Charles on a windless day.
“You were right,” I say. “The only thing I was hiding from was myself.”
Jo slides her backpack off and sits on the edge of the bed. “Lay it on me, sister.”
“When my aunt and uncle said they were leaving, that freaked me the hell out. I mean, I know they offered to let me go with them and I wouldn’t be homeless, but I felt like I’d be homeless. You know?”
She nods. “Walk me through your thought process.”
“Even before I saw the Realtor, I was upset. Because we graduate next month and I don’t know what to do with my life. Having a sister like Mae just makes adulting hard. Because it’s like, no matter what I do, I feel like a lame-ass failure. She’s literally going to be a rocket scientist.”
“What Mae is going to be is irrelevant. What do you want? Who will you be?”
I have thought this question so many times, but it’s different hearing it now, after everything that happened tonight. When I faced down the wave and decided to ride it.
“I want to be happy.”
“What does happy look like?”
I close my eyes. And there it is: the little house, the garden, yoga, making soup. Kids and chili night, I put a spell on you, Drew.
“Having a family,” I whisper. “Being a mom and just loving. Being loved. Maybe fostering some kids, like Mae was. I basically just want to be my mom—the Hannah version of her. But…”
“But what?”
“It’s so retrograde. I mean, who says their goal in life is to be a freaking housewife?”
“Dude, fuck what anyone thinks.” She shakes her head. “You know, I love certain things about the time we live in. I love that even though my parents are mad conservative, they’ve had to accept I have a girlfriend. I love that I get to vote and that women can run for president. I love that Beyoncé is in the world. You know what I mean?”
I nod.
“But…” Jo reaches into her jacket and frowns. “Okay, this is a conversation to be had over cigarettes. Ugh.”
I laugh. Addicts, man. We do our best.
“But,” she continues, “what I don’t like is this intense pressure for everyone to be fucking exceptional all the time. Or, no. This idea that we aren’t already exceptional. I mean, yeah, we have to not waste our goddamn lives watching TV and shopping. That shit has to stop. But the life you’re talking about: It’s beautiful. And fuck anyone who shames you for wanting it. This one life: It’s all we get. It’s not about the likes and the degrees and the bank account. It’s about the love, man. It’s only about the love.”
My heart breaks wide open then because I get it, I get it so hard: My mom didn’t mean that our family wouldn’t have been complete because I wasn’t enough—just Hannah. It wouldn’t have been complete because our hearts had more room in them, and that space was for Mae and for Drew and Ben and even my new baby sister, Pearl. And the little ones in my own future. I’m enough as I am, but if it were just me, I wouldn’t be truly happy. Because I want my family. I want the love.
“Fuck, Jo. Fuck.”
“And that, my friend, is what we call an existential mic drop,” Jo says.
I’ve learned something the Little Prince’s thorny rose never did: A rose is beautiful whether or not anyone is admiring her, choosing her. Shakespeare said, “That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” And it’s true. Her beauty does not increase or decrease under observation—a rose is going to bloom whether you see her or not, whether you put her in your vase or walk right on by. She is not just. She is. And that’s enough.
Jo unzips her backpack and takes a plastic bag out. She hands it to me. Inside is an old dish towel wrapped around a bowl—the most beautiful bowl I’ve ever seen: grayish-blue pottery with gold-filled cracks all over it. Somehow delicate and strong at the same time.
“My sponsor gave this to me the day I quit the shit for good—a little over six years ago,” Jo says. “It’s from Japan.” She reaches out and traces the tip of her finger along one of the cracks. “It’s a style called kintsukuroi. When pottery breaks, the potter puts it back together with gold instead of throwing the pieces away and starting over. It makes the piece even more beautiful—and much more valuable.”
It hits me then, a memory of my mom singing along to Leonard Cohen in the kitchen while she makes soup: There’s a crack in everything … that’s how the light gets in.
I hold the bowl between my palms, the gold blurring as my eyes fill.
You are enough.
I start to hand her the bowl, but she shakes her head. “It’s yours now.”
“But I fucked up.”
Jo nods. “Yeah, you did. C’est la goddamn vie. Remember, it’s progress, not perfection.” She rests her hand over mine. “Relapsing is a bitch, but you’re gonna be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“I talked to your paramedics. They said you thanked them. Usually, addicts are pissed as hell when they get woken up. They don’t care that you just saved their life—fuck you because you ruined their high.” She shakes her head. “One time, my mom woke me up—she had Naloxone in the house—and that’s exactly what I said to her: Fuck you. To my own mom. For saving my life! But the last time I overdosed, I said thank you. I was so goddamn grateful to be alive. I haven’t used since.”
She hands me one more thing—a pamphlet about the Pink House. Jo had told me a bit about it—a rambling Victorian sober house, absolutely pink, in Cambridge’s weirdo community, with ten bedrooms, all occupied by female-identifying former addicts. Jo runs the place.
“One of my girls is moving out,” she says. “In June. I think this could be a good place for you to land while you figure out next steps. You can get a job, get involved. We have daily meetings. Support. A great kitchen with a big-ass soup pot. Even a poetry night.” She smiles. “Think about it.”