“You know, the first anniversary of losing her is next week, and I’m aware of what she’s missing a whole lot more than I usually am.”
I knew that the anniversary was coming up, because so was the anniversary of us finding each other. Seriously, fate worked in ways that blew my mind – like that fucking spider saving our lives – but at the same time, she’d had to lose her mom for it to happen. I decided to go with some slightly older sibling wisdom. “I can tell you that she’s still here watching over you until I’m blue in the face, Tab, but you know that better than anyone. With the amount of love she gave you from the second you existed, you know she’d hang around to continue making sure you were safe and happy. Just like if Liv lost me, I wouldn’t leave her side for anything, and I wouldn’t want to miss a second of her life, even if I wasn’t the one giving it to her. I don’t think it matters much how old our babies are when we die, we still want to be a part of their lives.”
There were tears pouring down her face as she listened to what I was saying. “You’re right, she wouldn’t want to miss anything,” she agreed shakily, the tears flowing faster now. “Obviously there are some moments I hope she doesn’t see, like maybe she goes to watch over Liv for those, but for the rest I love that she’s here to see them,” she sobbed, and then covered her face crying even harder, “I just wish I could see her, too. It’s not fair, Jose, it’s just not fair.”
Closing the distance between us on the couch, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in tight. “I know, honey.”
And that’s how we stayed for the next twenty minutes, me holding her and letting her get it all out, and her literally getting it all out and crying harder than I’d ever seen her cry. It’s funny, I didn’t harbor any ill will toward our biological father. He hadn’t strung us along or messed us around, he’d made his choices, stuck to them, and had to live with them. Life had thrown huge boulders in mine and Tabby’s paths, some shitty – some not so shitty, but they’d brought us into each other’s lives. If he’d stayed around would we have met each other? More than likely that would be a no, or it would have taken us years to think about doing it. The fact was, we’d come into each other’s lives when we needed the other the most, and the thought of her suffering like this, and not being able to fix it for her, killed me. When she finally started to calm down, I reached over and pulled out a couple of Kleenexes from the box on the end table. You needed these suckers everywhere when you had a baby, so even though it was Ellis’s house, there were enough boxes to make sure that you never had to go hunting for one. Passing them to her, I pulled back and tried to keep my reaction neutral at the state of her makeup. “Do I look bad?” she asked as she blew her nose and patted her cheeks.
“Uh…no?”
Rolling her eyes, she called me on my bullshit. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad would you say it was?”
Deciding not to say out loud that a ten wouldn’t even cover it, I got up and went to get her a pack of baby wipes to help her out. I was just bringing them back when the door opened and Ellis and Dave walked in laughing about something. Well, that was until they saw Tabby and both started choking.
“Nice,” she snapped, rubbing harder with the Kleenex, which only moved the mascara across her face instead of off it. “You could at least pretend not to notice it.”
“I don’t think anyone would achieve that, baby,” Dave replied seriously. “What the hell did you guys do?”
Pulling out a couple of the wipes and passing them to her, I left her to it, and dealt with the men. “Her mom’s first anniversary is next week, and it all caught up with her.”
“Ah, hell,” Dave groaned and went over, lifting her up, and sitting down with her on his lap. Giving them a moment, I looked at Ellis and saw he was doing the same. “Where’s the princess?”
“She fell asleep with her nose in her lunch, so I cleaned her up and put her down for a nap. I think she’s coming down with something, though, because she’s been off all day.”
He immediately went into worried mode, pulling out his phone and unlocking it. “What are her symptoms?”