Daisy adds tearfully, “I’m going to miss the sound of your heels in the morning.”
“And when you always put pop tarts in the toaster for us, even when you hate pop tarts,” Lily cries.
We’re all a mess. I squeeze their hands, but it only intensifies what remains between us, an underlying goodbye even if it’s not a permanent, fixed one. This is goodbye of our lives in one house together.
“I love you both,” I tell them strongly, “and I’ll always be here if you need me.”
“When,” Daisy corrects. “When we need you.”
Tears spill down my cheeks, and they hug me at the same time. I’m the oldest of them, but I consider Daisy and Lily wholly equal to myself, the sweeter and more lovable sides of a Calloway sister, while I’m the fierce quarter.
When we break apart, we all turn towards the men, all of them looking a little choked up. Loren has his son on his side now, no longer over his shoulder.
“She’s not dying,” Loren reminds Lily. “And I can put in a pop tart for you.”
“It’s not the same thing.” Lily sniffs, hesitantly leaving my side. “You like pop tarts, and you’d eat mine.”
He sighs, wishing he could fix her sadness, knowing he can’t. The best he does is tuck Moffy to his chest and then Lily springs onto his back, wrapping her legs around his waist. They head through the archway and towards the door like that.
Ryke looks about the same as Loren did, raking a hand through his thick hair. He patiently waits for Daisy to leave my side.
“Moffy!” Jane calls, not all that coherently though.
Connor scoops her up before she falls in pursuit of her cousin. He distracts her with his wine glass before finding a stuffed toy.
“Will you call me every day like you did before?” Daisy asks, her scar along her cheek more reddened since she’s been crying. When I was in college away from everyone, I used to call her every day like I did Lily and Poppy. I made it a routine to keep in touch, even if I became a nuisance.
“You’ll probably see me more than I call,” I tell her. “I promise.”
“Will you come to my doctor’s appointments with me?” she wonders. It’s the first time she’s asked this aloud. “It’s all really confusing, and…I think you’d understand the fertility treatments and all the options they keep bombarding me with.”
I nod, restraining as many tears as possible. “Of course.” I wipe her cheek. She’s been postponing any kind of ovarian surgery until she has a better sense of the long-term effects.
“Okay, big sister,” Daisy says with a heartfelt smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.” We let go of our hands, and she approaches Ryke.
“Whoa thar, pirate,” she says with half-laughter, half-tears, unable to contain her sadness like she usually can. She covers her face with her hands to hide it.
Ryke hugs her to his chest and kisses the top of her head. Daisy rubs her face and then whistles. Coconut leaps off the couch and sprints to her side. Then they all quietly leave, Ryke nodding to me in recognition on the way out.
The double doors slam shut.
I dazedly sit next to Sadie on the couch. “That was brutal,” I tell her matter-of-factly.
She purrs in agreement before stretching—and then collapsing back in a sleep. The cushion undulates as Connor takes a seat beside me with Jane in arm. He passes me my own wine glass, and I kick off my heels and rest my feet on the couch.
He pulls me closer to him, until I lean my whole body weight against his side, and he sets his hand on my thigh. I sip my wine, and he combs his fingers through my hair.
“Is it quiet to you in here?” I ask.
“No, darling,” he says.
“What do you hear?” I take another sip, and I reach my hand out so Jane can play with my bracelet on my wrist. She immediately takes interest in it.
“Alarm clocks beeping during school days, in multiple rooms,” Connor tells me. “They keep ringing at different intervals.”
I smile, imagining teenagers pressing the snooze button. “Who wakes them up, me or you?”
“We take turns.” Of course we do.
“What else?”
“The slam of bathroom doors and the turn of faucets. Music from bedrooms and laughter—always laughter.”
I rest my chin on his shoulder. “I must be laughing at your smile.”
He immediately breaks into a full-blown grin.
“I wasn’t joking, Richard.” I glower.
“You don’t laugh when I smile, you do this.” He pinches my chin so that my head rises off his shoulder. I’m carving my name in his forehead with daggered eyes. “You do know what a ‘laugh’ is?”
I give him a look of zero amusement. “I’m going to cut off your tongue.”
His grin spreads. “Then the house will be literally and figuratively quiet.”
I face-palm him, and he kisses my hand…and then he kisses me, my breath caught in my throat and my wine glass almost slipping from my fingers.
His lips against mine, I kiss back.
And I hear alarm clocks beeping, laughter in the kitchen, yelling by the pool. I listen to the vigorous pulse of our future, roaring with life.