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“What?” she screeches, whipping her head around to me. “Ew, don’t be so fucking disgusting. I’m not perving on my brother. Why would even say shit like that?”
“Ahhh,” Noah says, slightly awkward. “Because you’ve been staring at me for the past five minutes with this funny look in your eyes, and it’s kind of creepy.”
Tully blanches at Noah before a heavy, unimpressed scowl settles onto her face. “I was looking at your Lily tattoo, you moron. It’s changed.”
Noah’s head dips down, taking in the tattoo and she’d be right; Noah went in last week and had a little more detail added to the design. He also touched up the colors and made sure it was perfect before he dared walk out of the shop.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, holding up a finger and tracing a few lines that swirl and connect the piece of art into the others. “I found this one drawing Lily made me when she was six and it had all these swirly lines making a border around the page so I wanted to add them in. I had the tattooist recreate them.”
Tully stands and walks towards Noah with her brows pulled down, getting up close and personal with his chest and studying the tattoo. “So, these are technically Lily’s designs?” she questions before tracing one of the swirls.
“Sure is,” Noah says, giving her a brotherly smile. Her eyes grow watery and in the next instant, a sweaty Noah is drawing his sister into his arms and giving her a tight hug. “I miss her too,” he murmurs a second before she breaks down in his arms.
I consider running in and getting her some tissues and joining their hug, but something tells me to keep my ass planted in my chair. This is their moment between siblings as they continue mourning the loss of their little sister.
Violet must be able to hear the sobs from inside as a second later, she’s poking her head through the internal door. “What’s going on in here?” she questions, taking in her children in a state that no parent should ever have to see.
They both ignore her and she turns to me. “They’re missing Lily,” I explain.
Violet’s heart shatters before me as she walks into the garage and pulls her babies into her arms. With Noah towering over them, it’s not exactly an easy task, but she makes it work.
They stay in each other’s embrace until Tully’s sobs have finally settled and instead of breaking away and getting back on with what they were all doing, they all pull up chairs around me, still needing that family closeness.
“You know,” Tully says with red puffy eyes as she turns to her mom after the fiftieth story has been told. “I don’t know how you did it.”
“What do you mean, sweet girl?” Violet questions with Aria curled up on her lap, her homework completely forgotten…again.
“I mean financially,” she says. My eyes flick to Noah and while he still looks relaxed as they remember the little girl in all the photos, there’s a tightness in his eyes. “I was too young at the time to understand how expensive all that must have been, but dealing with that on top of trying to be at the hospital every chance you got and knowing the treatment wasn’t working anymore.”
“Yeah,” Violet sighs. “It was certainly very hard, but we pulled through. We always do. You know, your father was working two jobs and nearly killing himself to be able to bring in the kind of money that Lily needed.”
“Huh?” Noah says. “What do you mean? Dad wasn’t working two jobs.”
“He certainly was,” she says. “He would go to work as usual during the day and would work as an online sales consultant during the night. That way he was able to be home with you two while I slept at the hospital with Lily.”
“Really?” Tully says as Noah goes extremely still.
“He sure did. It was hard and if we didn’t have you two, I don’t know how we would have survived,” she says, giving Tully a fond smile. “During that last twelve months it was getting too much and your dad was burnt out so we ended up getting a loan against the mortgage and your grandma paid what we couldn’t afford from her retirement savings.”
“Excuse me?” Noah grunts.
Violet nods. “We’re only just catching up now, but I’m so grateful. That money is what paid for those new treatments for Lily and gave her those last twelve months. Your grandma had to work another few years before she could retire but it was worth it to have my baby for those few months and to see that smile just a little while longer.”
I sit up a little straighter and glance across to Noah. This isn’t good. His jaw is clenched and his hands balled into fists.
