“He probably died in realization that you named him Blow Job,” he says, his eyes light. “Though you definitely overfed him.”
“We don’t have the best track record,” I conclude, “but this time can be different.” We couldn’t keep a goldfish healthy because we were too consumed with our addictions. We’ve done a one-eighty, so what’s to say that this won’t fall into place?
He stares deeply into me and says, “I just don’t want our kid to be damaged like us.”
My breath catches and it takes me a minute to collect the right words. “We can’t live in fear of that. It’ll cripple us.”
He pulls me closer, and he kisses me so strongly that the air is vacuumed from my lungs. A head rush of epic proportions.
When we break apart, his forehead on mine, he whispers, “You and me.”
I smile against his lips. “Lily and Lo.”
“And someone else,” he says.
And someone else.
I have many more months before I meet that someone, but we’re beginning to accept this new world, a new reality where we’re no longer allowed to be selfish. It’s our greatest test yet.
{ 65 }
2 years : 03 months
November
LOREN HALE
I draw circles on a paper napkin at the kitchen bar, Ryke on the stool next to me. The girls are huddled in the living room, tension stretching the air. But it has nothing to do with me. Or Lily. Daisy has finally let her sisters focus on her for once.
Something happened. Months ago. A year, maybe with Daisy. It’s bad. I can see it written all over my brother’s face. Connor watches us from across the counter, drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup.
The mugs are packed in cardboard boxes, all the cupboards bare. Everyone is moving back to Philly when Lily graduates, but we have no idea if we’ll be splitting apart from Connor and Rose.
Ryke rests a hand on my shoulder. “How are you holding up?”
“Ask me again when it fucking sinks in,” I say.
“That you’re going to have a kid?”
“Yeah,” I nod. “And I already feel fucking awful for the thing.”
Ryke pauses. “He may not have addiction problems, Lo.”
“No, it’s not that.” I stop drawing and point my pen at Connor. “Our kid is going to have to compete with theirs. It’s already fucked and it’s not even born yet.” I selfishly wish they weren’t having a baby. Then I’d know, for certain, that we’d have their undivided attention, their help with every misstep we make. It’s going to be a bigger challenge without that. It’s going to force Lily and me to take full responsibility. Maybe it’s better this way, even if it’s harder.
Instead of being sympathetic, Connor grins into the rim of his cup and Ryke is smiling. My brother says, “Connor’s kid is also going to be a snot, so you can rest assured that yours won’t be totally fucked.”
I begin to smile too.
Connor is about to reply, but a painful sob emanates from the living room. We all stiffen, our shoulders pulled back in alarm.
“Should we go in there?” I ask, picturing Lily and her sisters in tears. But I remember how Lily hugged Daisy in Utah when her little sister was bawling, how she’s been the shoulder to cry on. My muscles loosen.
“Five more minutes,” Connor says.
Maybe that’ll give my brother enough time to share the cliff notes version of what happened. I resume drawing boxes around my squares, the pen bleeding through the napkin. “It has to do with her sleep issues, right?” I ask, remembering in Paris how Daisy had a night terror. She slapped Ryke in the face without realizing it. I didn’t even deduce that she might be having them every time she slept.
“Yeah,” Ryke says softly. He shifts on the stool so we’re angled towards each other. “It hasn’t been just one major event that triggered her problems. Most nights, she can’t even fall asleep at all.”
I frown. “Has she seen—”
“Yeah, she’s seen doctors for her sleep disorder, and she’s been going to therapy for post-traumatic stress.”
I go rigid. “Post-traumatic stress?” I’m beginning to realize that we only see fragments of people, and the pieces that I’ve been given create one of the most incomplete pictures of my brother, of Daisy and their relationship.
In the background, we can hear the faint sounds of Daisy crying as she talks. Ryke looks so torn up that he has trouble concentrating on our conversation and not the girls.