Page 3 of Tulips and Lost Time

I’ve never crashed my bike in my life. But that car, with all the airbags and safety ratings…

Fucking useless.

“Hey.” I approach my friend and hand off the bag, though he wasn’t asking for it. Then I shove the front passenger seat forward with practiced moves, something me and my friends have done a million times over the years. Careful not to jostle the baby, I climb into the back and clip the seat in to the base I guess my sister or someone secured while I sat in the NICU.

“The girls aren’t coming?” Curious, Angelo’s movements are slow as he dumps the bag and I pull the seat back into place and settle beside the baby. Finally, he closes the door and rests his arms on the frame, staring in at me and furrowing his brows. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to piss a bunch of people off?”

“Because I am.” I fix my seatbelt and take Billy’s tiny hand in mine, placing my finger in her palm and curling her tiny digits around until her nails, a little too long, become my sole focus. “The twins want to mother me.”

“And you’re running away?”

“I just need a minute of quiet.” I stroke Billy’s cheek with the pad of my thumb and exhale. “Would you leave Laine behind?” I gulp and drag my eyes away from the little girl who still has some Macchio features. The shape of her nose is all her mom’s. The angle of her jaw. The curve of her eyes. “You waited your whole life to call her yours. Waited nine months for the baby to arrive. Waited through delivery to make sure everyone was safe. And then you just…” I drop my gaze and hate that my eyes burn. That they itch and tempt me to bring my hand up to swipe the irritation away. “Would you leave her behind?”

He shakes his head. Soft, silent, certain. All qualities this man has possessed since we were kids, banging around our friend’s garage and pretending we knew how to play musical instruments. “No,” he admits quietly. “I wouldn’t leave her behind.”

“But they’re making me leave Kari,” I grit out, my vision blurring, though I wish it wouldn’t. “After all the promises I made and all the years of swearing to her brother I would keep her safe.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Luc.” He plays with his car keys, dangling the set from the tip of his finger and blocking the rest of the world from looking into his car and witnessing what may be my undoing.

This… right now… today. May be the moment I die.

“That prick ran a red light. You didn’t…” He shakes his head. “You couldn’t have predicted that. You couldn’t avoid it.”

“Please take me home.” I reach up and wipe beneath my eyes to rid myself of the persistent itch that won’t leave me alone. “I can walk,” I rasp out. “I will. I don’t mind.”

“You’re not fucking walking.” He pushes up straight and turns to study the girls who wait by doors. They hurt for me. I know they do. They love me, just as I love them. And they grieve for me, just as I’ve grieved for them during their times of need.

But I don’t have room for them right now.

I don’t have the shoulders to carry their pain on top of my own.

“I’m taking them home,” Ang announces. “He wants a few hours alone.”

1

LUC

HOMECOMING

“So this is it.” I set Billy’s car seat on the kitchen counter inside my nineteen-sixties fixer-upper on the very edge of town, unsnapping the straps and freeing the too-small infant from her cushioned safety. Then I pull her to my chest and hope, pray, beg for the emptiness I feel to fill with something else.

Something not quite as painful.

I’ve held a thousand babies in my life. Starting with my twin sisters, six years younger than me, then their kids, our friends’ kids, my godson, plus the few I’ve delivered over the years on the job as a paramedic.

Babies don’t scare me, not even the small, slightly early kinds.

But bringing this one home without her mom by our side—terrifying.

I study Billy’s cheeks, chubby despite her prematurity. Her long lashes and wispy, blonde hair.

“This is home,” I murmur, turning a slow circle, though I watch only her. “The kitchen, where Mom makes her coffee and kisses me on the head. Right…” I bring my hand up and tap at the back of my skull, precisely where my spine begins. “Here.” She drops those kisses without thinking, a little gift just for me. They’re my favorite kind. “And over there,” I drag my focus up and glance toward the ratty couch in the living room, still a little messy with unfolded laundry. A tea towel, draped over the arm to dry a spot of water I’d spilled the same day we ended up in the hospital.

Seems like a lifetime ago now.

“That couch is where Mom was sitting just last week.” I gently bounce the sleeping baby and wander closer. “You were swimming around in her tummy, kicking her ribs and searching for more space to stretch your legs. So we pointed a flashlight at her belly to make it fun.” I lean in and press a kiss to the tip of her button nose. “You chased the light like you were in on the game all along.”

Billy is just eleven days old. Still new. So she doesn’t open her eyes to hear me chatter.

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