All the Pieces of You
-Sodapop-
Steve and Evie got married the day after Lily Bloom's first birthday. Why did they choose that day? It was the soonest day that the courthouse had open.
"They're gonna say it's a honeymoon baby," Brooklyn whispered to me while they signed their marriage certificate. We were their witnesses. Evie had given Lily her bouquet to hold, and most of it was ending up in Lily's mouth.
"Man, we shoulda used that one," I whispered back to her. I pulled the flowers out of Lily's mouth and she scrunched up her face at me. She pulled all the same exact faces Brookie did.
Brooklyn shook her head at me and tried not to laugh. "Four years is a long time to be pregnant. No thank you."
I felt a little guilty after that I got married without Steve even knowing. Well, that's not true. I told him after we left Tulsa after getting drafted. But still. He was my best friend. I guess I didn't think it was all that special of a thing, to be at your best friend's wedding, until I was at Steve's.
Lily did not want to give the flowers back to Evie. While Brooklyn held her, I had to open her little hands to get them away from her.
"Sorry our kid slobbered all over 'em," Brooklyn said. Lily pouted her lips but she didn't cry. She moved on pretty quick and started playing with Brooklyn's hair. That kid of mine, I didn't know what was up with her, but she almost never cried.
"Aw, she just turned 'em into baby's breath is all," Steve cracked a joke. Evie didn't laugh, but she did smile a nervous kind of smile. After what happened with Brookie, she was real worried over having a baby.
Since Steve and Evie were officially married, Two-Bit decided to throw them a party in place of the wedding they didn't have. But, of course, he decided to use our house for this party. Not that I minded, that's just Two-Bit for you.
Lily was jazzed about it. Even if she was still just a baby, she loved people. She could babble nonstop if you let her, playing at talking with anyone. Especially her uncle Ponyboy.
"Look, your favorite person, Lily," I told her when Ponyboy made it to our house. Lily started to wriggle in my arms, all excited, and reached out to Pony. As soon as Pony had a hold of her, Lily gave him a hug.
She also had this new thing she was doing where she copied Brookie's allergies. If Lily heard her mom sniffing, she would start doing it, too. So now, Lily decided to lay her head on my brother's shoulder and start sniffing.
"Is she sick?" Pony asked, putting his hand on her forehead.
"No," I said, just when Brooklyn had come to check on Lily.
"Is your kid fakin' allergies again?" She asked me. I shrugged and kissed my wife.
"What can I say? She likes attention." And really, Lily did. She ate it up. Darry always called her a ham. According to him, I was the same way as a baby, always showing off somehow.
"Tell your uncle you're just a faker, Lily Bloom," Brooklyn told her, tickling under Lily's chin until she laughed and hid her face on Pony's shoulder.
"Sorry, she's kinda a mess," I told Ponyboy, ruffling Lily's white-blonde hair. Pony was real proud of himself for coming up with Lily's name after seeing her hair. He said her hair and her name matched, since lily flowers can be white.
Two-Bit's big, loud laugh filled up our house. Me and Pony looked over to see him trying to get Steve to chug a beer with him. "You gotta get some hair on your chest before you're a father!"
Steve wiggled away from Two-Bit, laughing. "If I need advice, I think I'll go to Soda…y'know, the actual only father in the room."
"It ain't that hard," I told Steve. "You just gotta keep 'em alive."
I wasn't sure how Steve and Evie thought they were going to pass this baby off as a 'honeymoon baby', like Brooklyn had called it. Everyone knew about the baby, because Evie had told Brookie, Karen, and Grace, and girls can't keep secrets for nothing. I reckoned that little white lie was for their parents.
Even though she was excited about everyone being around, Lily let out a huge yawn. It was getting late, for her anyway.
"Here," I said, taking Lily back from Ponyboy. "I'm gonna take her outside, away from the noise." It was mostly so loud thanks to Two-Bit and his big laugh. But the nights were warmer now, at least warm enough to rock Lily to sleep on the back porch.
I wrapped her in a blanket anyway, because I didn't want to hear it from Brooklyn if Lily did get a cold. I didn't figure it would take her long to fall asleep, though. She already had her head on my shoulder when I walked out the back door.
The day was about Steve and Evie, but I really couldn't believe that Lily was already a year old. A whole year. She wasn't our tiny new baby anymore, even if she was still really little.
She had tiny little teeth and a lot more hair and talked, but wasn't walking yet, because I will admit she was awful spoiled. And she ate real food now, too, but still needed a bottle at bed time. We were working on it. Since Brooklyn worked in that dentist's office for so long, she was worrying over Lily's teeth if she kept the bottle much longer.
"What do you think, sister?" I asked Lily, settling her in my arms. "You're gettin' up there in years, huh?"
"One's not so much," I heard Steve behind me. I didn't know he had followed us out. He sat down by us on the steps. Lily looked over at him and smiled, but she was already starting to fall asleep. Her eyelids were drooping closed.
"I hate to break it to Evie, but I don't think any baby's gonna be as pretty as y'all's."
I shrugged, and when I did, it spooked Lily a little. She jumped and her eyes opened back up, and she fixed me with a look that Brooklyn had surely given me before. It made them both look like Dally.
"You say that now, but wait 'til you have yours. You won't be thinkin' that anymore."
"This is scarier than Vietnam," Steve said, looking down at his hands. I did not like to talk about Vietnam. I was happy to leave it all behind. But Steve wasn't the same way. He needed to talk about it, and he needed to talk to me about it, because I was the only one there.
"Don't I know it," I told him. "Evie'll be fine. Brooklyn's just dramatic." I tried to make a joke, but it was hard to, even with it so far behind us. Before Lily was even born, we had plans to have more than one kid. Now we really weren't so sure.
"I don't know how you can stand it, Sodapop. Havin' a little girl, I mean. Remember what we used to be like?"
"You mean you? Or Two-Bit or Dallas or Curly or Tim?" I asked. "I was an angel."
That made Steve smile. "She's lucky she's got so many uncles around. The only boys ever allowed to even look at her will be the Ponyboys and the Johnnys of the world."
"I take it you want a boy, then?" Steve shrugged.
"I'll be happy so long as everything goes okay. I think I might worry a little less over a boy, though. Besides, if it is a boy, I think I would want to name him after Tommy. Remember him?"
Steve didn't have to ask. I remembered everything about Vietnam, except for losing that dang leg, even if I didn't talk about it.
"Yeah," I told him, holding Lily closer to me. "I do."
I did, even if I didn't want to. Tommy was our age. He had gray eyes and hair that was starting to match even though we were all nineteen when he died. He was our buddy, and a damn good one to have.
Tommy was shot in the head in the middle of laughing. One minute, there was a smile on his face. The next, he didn't have much of a face left.
And a moment after that, I shot the kid who had killed Tommy.
I did not want to think about it, not when I was holding my little girl in my arms, on my best friend's wedding day. "I think he would've got a kick out of that."
I only said something else because I knew Steve was waiting for me to.
"I bet he'd get a kick out of your leg, too." It was a good joke, and it made me laugh, but I couldn't take talking about it. I never could. I stood up carefully.
"I better go put Lily to bed before Brooklyn has my neck for having her outside so long at night."
I laid Lily in her crib inside, and then I stood in her dark room and closed my eyes. I could see Tommy's face in my mind, clear as day, and I pushed it aside. Steve did two more years in Vietnam than I did, and I understood that, but it was hard to listen to. Hard to remember.
Brooklyn, bless her, had come in while I had my eyes closed. She wrapped her arms around me and laid her cheek on my back.
"I thought you fell asleep with her in here," she whispered.
"I just needed some quiet time, too."
"Do I need to ban Steve from talking?" If I were to write the never-ending list of reasons I loved Brooklyn, this would be at the top: she understood. She never pressured. She let Vietnam rest, because she knew that's how I needed to deal with it.