Exception (37 page)

Memories of his tiny broken body stretched on a gurney and the guilty thoughts that had haunted her and her sister since that dreadful night filled her mind, drowning Emily in a crippling sorrow. Turning her body, she buried her face into Taylor’s naked chest, letting the pain and guilt come out. She was as vulnerable as she’d ever been.

“Charlie needed a dress, not me. I should have stayed with him at that party. I should have protected him.”

“Sshhh . . . it wasn’t your fault.” He stroked her back, repeating those words for several minutes. His fingers mopped the tears and his lips kissed her head, until they finally dried.

“I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you again, none of this was your fault,” he said with the most sincere look in his eyes. “Nor was it Charlie’s. It’s a parent’s job to protect their children, not a sibling’s. Besides, if you were at that party, you might have died in that car with him.”

She looked at him with new tears pooling. He had no idea how many times both sisters had wished they’d been the ones to die instead of him. With his special ability to see through her thoughts, Taylor looked at her with his eyes glistening now, too. “Don’t ever wish for that, Emily. Wishing you’d died in his place is not honoring his memory, and it’s not fair to the people in your life.”

“Charlie says that. She says we should live a great life to honor him, not wish we could take his place and just ditch the people here. I always thought it was bullshit—” Emily said in an unsteady voice.

“You don’t anymore?”

Her smile was small, but very genuine. “No, I don’t.”

The silence stretched for a few moments, where they simply cuddled against each other. There were no conversations or kisses, just the silence and the comfort it brought.

“Can I see it?” Taylor finally broke the silence.

Emily nodded and, without answering, stood up from the couch. She turned the living room light on and stood in front of Taylor, who was still sitting. With her body slightly turned to her right, she took a deep breath and lifted her top to reveal the tattoo beneath.

Taylor repositioned himself on the couch to get a better look at the drawing. He stared at her bare stomach and the hint of the bottom curve of her breast, which only minutes before would have driven him out of his mind. Instead, this time he took it in like he would a photograph. There was admiration and respect in his eyes, not only for the body he was looking at, but mostly for what that action represented.

While his eyes followed the thick black lines that formed the cat with its mouth full of teeth and the orange hat placed in between his ears, Emily cleared her throat and pushed past her blocks to share with him a bit of her brother.

“He was perfect, the coolest kid in the world. Along with the Brönte’s, Jane was obsessed with
Alice in Wonderland
, so when she found out she was having a boy, she named him after Lewis Carroll.” She gave a big smile and shook her head. “That was his actual name, Lewis Carroll Watson. Poor kid, he hated it!”

Taylor removed his eyes from the drawing on her side to steal a quick look at her smiling face. With their eyes locked, she continued, “He was a biter, you know, from a very young age. Every time we had a fight, the little pest would bite me. This one time he bit me so hard he drew blood and left a scar. After more than ten years the mark was still there, so I thought it’d be a nice place for the tattoo.” She bent her head to look at the spot and ran a finger through the covered scar.

Taylor’s eyes followed her movement. “May I?”

An anxious nod gave him permission to touch the spot. He ran his index finger in the same place she had, and felt the round scar right below her ribs. The cat’s face completely covered the line, making its existence, and the existence of the one who made it, a secret she’d only shared with him. His finger continued following every line of the drawing.

“He sounds like a daredevil. But, in Lewis’s defense, you do look very edible,” he teased, making her laugh. “Did Charlie have a bite mark on her shoulder as well?”

“No,” Emily said, snickering. “She never took crap like that, from him or anyone, for that matter. I remember him trying to bite her once, he must have been four, and she told him that if he ever pulled crap like that on her again, she would turn him into a girl. It scared him senseless and he never tried another time.”

They shared a few laughs before she continued the story. “The first time Charlie held him, he delivered a nasty baby puke all over her shoulder. After that, every time he was sad about something, usually something Jane said or did to him, Charlie would hold him to her shoulder and say that that was his shoulder, he’d marked it when he was a wee thing and it would always belong to him. Therefore, he could cry on it or talk to it whenever he wanted to. That’s why her tattoo is there; because even though he’s gone, it will always belong to him.”

She gave Taylor a small smile that was filled with the adoration she felt for her big sister, and the longing she felt for her baby brother. Pulling her shirt back down, Taylor brought her back to the couch with him, where he wrapped her in his arms once again.

“Why the cat wearing the hat?” he asked.

Emily’s smile broadened in a way Taylor was beginning to associate with memories of her siblings. “Because he had as many teeth as the cat, was completely bonkers like the hatter and was just as magical as both of them combined.”

“I would’ve liked to have met him.” Taylor’s words were almost a whisper.

“Man, he would have adored you. He always wanted to have a big brother who he could play hockey with.” She turned her face back to him with a smirk. “He’s the reason I’m a Rangers fan. He loved them. We used to buy him jerseys and he would wear them everywhere: to school, to his friend’s house, to bed, to visit Nana—he would wear those things even to church.” She laughed. “Jane despised them, therefore we encouraged it.” He laughed as she continued, “That was his dream, to move to New York and become a Ranger.”

“He sounds like me at his age, but I wanted to play for the Leafs, of course,” Taylor answered humorously, tucking a stray lock of her hair that had escaped the bun on top of her head. “Thanks for telling me about him and the tattoo.”

Her smile changed from fun and relaxed to a grateful one. “Another first—”

Taylor’s lips moved very slowly to deliver a kiss to the tip of her nose, like he’d done earlier that day, but this time, there wasn’t any hesitation or awkwardness between them. The late hour and their long day had both of them yawning. However, as it always was when they were sleeping under the same roof, saying goodnight was hard.

Taylor walked Emily to her bedroom door where they talked for just a while longer. After their goodnights were said, Emily walked into her bedroom and was about to close the door when Taylor’s voice called her from down the hall. With a stretch of her neck, she met his eyes.

“Just for the record, the tattoo—” His tone was as wicked as the smile and wink he offered. “Pretty hot!”

“Oh, Taylor!” she said with mock annoyance, exaggerating an eye roll before going into her room and closing the door with a grin that wouldn’t subside.

The next day was as busy as a day could get. With Taylor’s help, Emily sorted and answered various emails, divided the students into each of the groups and chose the books they’d read for the first month of the semester. He’d been a great help, but the best part of having him around was simply the fact that he was there. Even when they were quiet or he was working through his own things, just the fact that they had woken up in the same place and were sitting at the same table was relaxing to her.

By late afternoon every preparation for the first week of classes was done, Emily’s blog entries were programed for the next two and a half weeks and Taylor had set up a few meetings with Stanley Parker and two other photographers who were interested in using his space.

Having decided that, from that weekend on, Taylor would stay with Emily instead of his sister, he drove to Penelope’s before their dinner at Old Joe’s to collect his things, giving Emily plenty of spare time to prepare the little surprise she had planned for him.

“I’m officially moved out of Poppy’s, and looks like guyliner dude is moving in. His shit was all over the place,” he said, settling down on his usual seat next to her.

“And were you nice to him?”

Taylor sighed before answering. “Yes Mom, I was as nice as I could be to him and I talked to Penelope like we discussed. Happy?”

With a broad smile on her lips, Emily patted his shoulder and placed a small box on the table in front of him. Taylor looked from the box to her with suspicious eyes that made her laugh.

“What’s this?” he asked working through the blue bow sitting on top of it.

“It’s a treat for being such a good boy.” Behind the mocking tone she used Taylor could hear the excitement.

“I just hope it’s not a bone,” he teased.

Sitting inside the box was a silver key attached to a plastic key ring. His eyes flew up to hers. Blue and brown sparkled with an excited glow, and both faces were cut with the same gigantic smile.

“Yep, you’ve just been keyed,” Emily said enthusiastically.

Removing his eyes from Emily’s, he took a good look at the item in his hands. He’d been so shocked that the key ring attached almost went by unnoticed. The item itself was nothing special, just one of those cheap acrylic things you buy at the photo center counter at the supermarket—what was special was what she’d placed inside.

On each side of the small frame there was a different selfie of the two of them. The first was a picture she’d taken of them at East Rock a couple of weeks before. They were about to start running and she’d hugged him around the neck, and snapped the picture with her phone. She was smiling beautifully at the camera while he was looking down at her and laughing. The second image was also an iPhone shot, but he had been the one to take it during her last visit to New York. They had just left the Met and were sitting on his bike, getting ready to go home. She’d loved the museum so much that she’d kissed his cheek after a hushed thank you close to his ear. Her hair was flowing in the wind, her eyes were closed, and her lips were pressed against his cheek. His face was pure joy.

There was no hiding the happiness he felt looking at the pictures. They were almost as good as the key itself. Returning his eyes back to her face, he noticed that, as expected, she was anxious.

“Waiting to know what I think of all this?” he asked, shaking the key and key ring in his hand.

Her answer was a simple roll of her eyes that had him chuckling. “It’s perfect, Ems. So perfect, it’s hard to know if I’m happier about the key or the pictures. Thank you.”

Despite the relief in her eyes, her voice was shy. “Glad you liked it. I thought it was about time you had your own key, especially since you’re staying with me every weekend. And even though it’s a crappy two-dollar key ring, I thought it was kind of perfect for you.”

Her words made his smile grow wider. Not knowing how to express his emotions, Taylor wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to his lap, where he delivered a kiss to the tip of her nose.

“It is, in fact—”

Resting against his chest, Emily watched the arms that circled her remove all the keys from his old key ring and add them on the one she’d just given him. When the keys to his apartment and gallery hung along with the silver key to her home, he tossed the old London ring to the side and admired his handiwork.

“Much, much better!” he said.

It was hard to name all the emotions Emily felt, but if she had to describe them, she’d say it was the happiest she’d ever been in her life.

When their long night at Old Joe’s was over and Taylor insisted on opening the apartment door with his own keys and a smug smile, her joy grew a little more.