Craving Lily (The Aces' Sons 4)

“You think?” he asked, meeting my eyes before staring out at the yard again.

“Yeah. It doesn’t even look like the same yard.”

“That was the idea.” He sighed and pulled me tighter against him.

“Food’s ready,” my mom announced. “Quit looking back there. It’s morbid.”

I snorted and took one last look around the backyard where so many things had changed for us. It didn’t even look like the place we’d lost my grandpa, grandma, great gram, and cousin Micky.

Charlie scrambled into her seat at the table and without thought, I sat in the chair next to her while my parents grabbed the food and drinks. There were a lot of things around the house that I helped out with, but we’d learned early on that bringing food to the table wasn’t one of my strong suits unless I was doing it all by myself. When there was another person helping me, it turned into chaos as we tried to move around each other without colliding.

Just as I realized my mistake and started to stand up again, my dad came in behind me.

“I can help—”

“Orange juice at your 11:30,” my dad said at the same time.

We both went silent for a moment.

“Whoops,” he said quietly, kissing the top of my head. “It’ll take some getting used to.”

I nodded around the lump in my throat and glanced around the table.

“I should probably start calling people,” my mom said, smiling as she sat down across from me. “Or do you want to break the news? We could have some people over, or maybe go to the club? We should celebrate.”

“Uh,” I stuttered out. “No.”

Mom’s eyebrows rose.

“Can we just… not?”

“You don’t want to tell anyone?” my dad asked incredulously. “That’s not gonna work.”

“No, I just don’t want a party,” I mumbled, the thought filling me with mortification. “We can call people, but I’d like to talk to Cam and Ceecee first. And Rose should know, too. Then we can spread the word.”

“Oh,” Mom said softly, disappointment coloring her voice. “Sure. That makes sense.”

The rest of breakfast was mostly silent as we tried to figure out our new normal. I was sure that my parents were filled with just as many questions as I was about how our lives were about to change once again. I could suddenly do so many normal things that I hadn’t been able to before. I was seventeen. Most seventeen-year-old girls could drive. They went on dates. They had more responsibilities than I did, and weren’t connected at the shoulder with their cousins every day of their lives.

After my parents went upstairs, Charlie helped me clean up the kitchen, and I realized just how odd it was to have my sight again when I reached down to turn on the dishwasher and couldn’t remember which buttons to push. I glanced at my sister uncomfortably as she hung a dishtowel on the fridge, then quickly closed my eyes and felt my way to the correct buttons. Leaving my fingers where they were, I opened my eyes and took a mental note of the ones I’d pushed so I could remember them for later.

It was fine, I told myself. Growing pains.

“Come see my room,” Charlie ordered, grabbing my hand with her tiny one.

“I’ve been in your room,” I reminded her as she led me upstairs. “About a million times.”

“But you haven’t seen my dolls,” she replied stubbornly.

“Hold up,” I said as we reached her bedroom door. “Go in and get your dolls, I’ll be there in just a second.”

I left her in her room and walked down to the hallway to my parents’ bedroom door. I felt bad that I’d told my mom that she couldn’t call anyone, since I knew she was dying to tell my Aunt Callie the good news. Just as I raised my hand to knock, though, I heard their voices.

“Calm down, Ladybug,” my dad soothed over the sound of quiet sobs.

“I don’t know what to do,” Mom replied, sniffling. “Do we act like it’s no big deal? It is a big deal. Oh, my God, Cody.”

“Act however you wanna act, baby.”

“But I don’t want to freak her out,” she sobbed. “I don’t want her to think that it’s been this horrible life because she was blind. What if we act really happy and she thinks that? What if we act really happy and then it comes back? It would be so much worse for her!”

“It’s not gonna come back.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And I don’t think that anything we’re gonna do now will make it better or worse for her if it does come back,” my dad continued. “She’s gonna have to deal with that shit all over again, either way.”

“Why now?” she asked, her voice so quiet I could barely hear her. “Why after all these years? The doctors said that therapy would help. It didn’t. They said a calm environment would help. It didn’t. They thought it would’ve been gone within weeks!”