I bit my lip as I stared at her. She was so beautiful. The years had been too kind to Eden. She and Lilith looked more like nearly identical twin sisters than mother and daughter. They both had their newly colored, red hair piled on top of their heads in messy buns. Lilith was just taller and slimmer than her mother and she had my eyes. She was the daughter I’d dreamt about.
Eden rolled her eyes at me before speaking to our daughter. “I wish he would stop bringing this story up, every birthday it’s the same story.”
I shook my head. I would never. After being shot in the chest, Eden didn’t wake up for nearly nine months. Going into labor brought her out of her coma.
“It’s her birthday story, we tell the story on her birthday.”
Lilith made her way to the table, she sat in the middle; she looked at me then my mother.
“Y’all story might be easier to swallow if one of you told me why Mother shot you.”
Eden waved in my direction. “Tell her.” She dared me.
I shrugged. I didn’t care if she knew. I trusted her. She had more of me in her than her mother. She could handle the truth.
“Granny and your mother’s first husband really didn’t die of Covid-19. I paid a medical examiner a lot of money to say they did, then I had them burned. I flushed their ashes down the toilet. I killed the husband; your mother killed her mother. Your mother shot me, because of all the fucked-up shit I did to her when we were younger, but she had her eyes closed when she did it, so the bullet only grazed me. My associates Warren and Jack, who are dead now shot her thinking they were protecting me. She died in my arms but was bought back by an EMT. You know for a fact that she was in a coma before you brought her out, you can look that up. What you don’t know is that the first two years of your life she barely spoke a word to me. She only forgave me after I spent years groveling. She still won’t agree to marry me.” I paused to take a breath before continuing “I also had to pay for her to go to law school and play stay at home dad while she got her degree.” Eden had been practicing law for fifteen years, Lilith was following her footsteps.
“She also told me once that she imagined everything that happened between us in the future, in book form, from both our points of view.”
Eden blinked rapidly at me. She shook her head.
Lilith mimicked her mother, then she stared at me hard for a moment “Something is wrong with you.” She said when she finally spoke.
“She’s the one that says she had premonitions, but I’m the one you say this to. You wound me, daughter.” I teased, with my hand held over my heart dramatically.
She turned to her mother, easily dismissing the truth she asked for and me. “Could you help me get ready for my birthday date?” She asked.
Her momma smiled at her. “Yes, baby. Go get started. I want to have a word with your father.’ She cut her eyes at me.
Lilith left the kitchen after rolling her eyes at me one final time.
Eden just sat across the table staring at me in disbelief.
“What?” I asked.
“Really, Ashford?”
“So, you’re mad I told her the truth?” I grinned.
She shook her head one final time before getting up. “If she even starts to think what you said is true, it’s me and you. Remember, I know how to shoot a gun the right way now. My eyes won’t be closed next time.”
I laughed, “You love me too much to shoot me again.”
“I don’t love you anymore now than I did when I shot you the first time.” She said sassily as she walked out of the kitchen.
The End.