Page 54 of Tulips and Lost Time

“No toes to be stepped on. You’re my best friend. You have just as much right to worry about her as I do.”

“Ouch.” Kane chuckles, his chest bouncing and eyes dancing. “You were a snake in the grass, and then you complain that he hits you sometimes?”

“You’re jumping the fence on this. Over and over again.” I study my brother-in-law. “You wanted me to claim her for my own, but then you sympathize with Marc and call me a snake.”

“I’m allowed to play both sides,” he smirks. “I know how this story ends. You get together. You say I do. You have sex sometimes, and you do the extra thrust thing, so now you got twins.”

But of course, the giant elephant that wanders my home comes to sit square on the center of my chest. Because Kari’s not here with us. And neither is Billy’s brother.

We came home without them. And now my family won’t leave me alone, terrified of how I’ll unravel once I’ve taken a moment to breathe and think.

“She went off to college and left me behind,” I admit. “Just like I told her to. And though I was the one who said she should check out everything else the world had to offer, it seems I wasn’t quite ready to accept the consequences that came with that.”

“She fell in love with someone else?” he guesses. “She found steak elsewhere?”

“Pretty fucking much.”

15

LUC

WHAT WAS THAT THING ABOUT LOST TIME?

Christmas comes and goes. And then Kari’s nineteenth birthday. The twins and Britt age up. They graduate high school, and my work keeps me busy.

And all the fucking while, I’m left on the outside looking in.

Even with my sisters. They grow and mature. They date and break up. They attend their prom, and they sure as shit didn’t sleep in their own beds once the dance was over.

Because they’re women now, and not children.

Colleges are applied for. Not just the one in the city Kari attends, but others, too. There’s no point placing all of one’s eggs in a single basket, so Jess and Laine applied all over the country. They would have gone to New York if that’s how things turned out for them. They’d have gone to Boston if the acceptance letters came in that way. California would have suited their beach bum personalities. And Seattle would have served their wanderlust. But of course, the trio—four, including Kari—made a pact that if they could all attend the same school, they would.

All for one, and one for all… or some such thing.

So when those letters started arriving and things were getting real, the trio sat down and considered their options.

Kari was in school for nursing.

Jess was heading toward law.

While Britt and Laine had similar aspirations—teaching was where their hearts laid.

And in the end, matching letters were laid out on the Turners’ kitchen counter for the rest of us to inspect and dissect.

The girls would reunite in the next school year, and an apartment would be secured. Not only were my sisters heading away, out of my day-to-day life, but Kari would be leaving the security of a school dorm. Leaving where she has guards on the grounds, a meal plan to ensure she ate each day, and a roommate to keep an eye on things. Instead, she would move in with the wild three, forced to shop for their own food or starve, and experience freedoms she’s never had before in her life.

Fuck. This. Shit.

For two and a half years, my texts remain unanswered. Unopened. Unacknowledged.

For two Christmases. Two Thanksgivings. Birthdays: hers and mine. The guys and I continue to hold on to our day jobs, because that’s what we like doing. But our band gains notoriety, too. Permanent gigs at a local club. Real life rock stars commissioning our words, our songs. Life just trudges forward callously, like my whole soul isn’t someplace else. In someone else’s hands. And as the time passes with no word from Kari, I’m forced to accept that I fucked us up.

I broke a heart I swore I would not. And now I have to live with the consequences of knowing Kari is safe and fine just an hour from where I lay my head each night. She’s happy and learning, getting that college life I wanted her to experience.

I told her to go away. And she’s listening.

“We’re all back together again,” Alex announces at family dinner, Thanksgiving, in Kari’s third year away. She’s a full-fledged, grown ass woman now. One who can legally drink and smoke—not that she does either. She can party and have sex. She can practice her learned skills on real life humans, and when the situation arises, she can probably save a life, too.

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