Eve and Lexie

“Lyddy! we’re going to be late! Hurry up!” Erika yells at her three year old daughter. Kaiden, her husband, is outside packing the car. She grabs the woven basket that sits on the kitchen counter, it’s full of sandwiches and snacks. Kaiden comes back in the house just as Lyddy comes running down the stairs. “I’m ready mommy! I was getting something to give to Eve and Lexie.” Her mom just smiles sadly. She never knew the two girls but she feels like she does for as much Kaiden talks about them. Kaiden hugs Erika from behind, grabbing the basket from her arm, “I’ll put this in the car, help Evelydra finish getting ready, hun.” Erika nods as Kaiden exits the house once again. “Come put your shoes on, and on the right feet this time please!” Erika yells as she hears her daughter at the front door where the shoes are kept. Erika goes to the front door, her daughter struggling to get her shoes on. She just sighs and helps her with the shoes. “We’re going to be late, Lyddy. we should have been on the road by now.” Lyddy just puffs her cheeks out in a huff, mumbling a small sorry. Erika sees what she was going to give them. The bracelet and necklace that was supposed to be given on Eve’s birthday. The bracelet has the birthstones of all three of them, emerald, amethyst and aquamarine. Kai decided to give it to their daughter instead for her second birthday. Kai peeks his head in the door, “ready to go?” Erika and Lyddy both say yeah at the same time. Kai just chuckles as they are identical to each other. Three years ago when Lyddy was born, she looked just like Erika. Her face, nose, eye shape, even her hair. The only feature she got from him was her blue eyes as Erika has green. It takes them a few hours to get to the graves. When Erika was pregnant, they moved a few hours away from where they originally met. Erika was a transfer student from Britain and Kai was the one to show her around. Kai looked dead inside as a few months back, his best friends who he grew up with died. Kai looks in the rearview mirror, looking at Lyddy, seeing she fell asleep during the car ride. He looks over at Erika who did the same. Kai shakes Erika's leg, attempting to wake her up. “Wake up, we’re here.” Erika takes a deep breath as she was in a deep sleep. She looks over at Kai groggily and rubs her eyes. “Already? I didn’t know I was sleeping for that long.” Silence ensues as they get out of the car to get Lyddy out of her carseat. As she was being moved to be picked up, she woke up. “Daddy, don’t forget about the presents I brought.” Lyddy says sleepily, barely keeping her eyes open as Kai puts her down to walk on her own. “I won’t, pumpkin. I have them right here,” he replies, patting his jean pocket. They walk for a couple minutes as they reach a growing tree that was planted behind their graves, right in the middle. Eve decided to plant the tree shortly after the funeral, when she was calm. Lexie meant everything to Eve. They were hard to seperate when they're together. Kaiden starts remembering all the times they had together and starts to tear up. Lyddy notices her father starting to cry and hugs his leg as she’s too short to hug anything else. After a while, Kai settles down and lays out a blanket. All three of them sit on the blanket that’s laid in front of the gravestones. Erika passes out the sandwiches and drinks and they eat. They talked about anything and everything. “Lyddy, have I told you about the story of these two girls?” Kai asked his daughter, knowing full well he hasn’t told her this story yet. In his mind, she is old enough to understand the basic information he gives her and water down other parts. “No, you haven’t daddy. I’ve been wanting to know but you never told me,” Lyddy huffs, wishing to know the story. Kai chuckles softly and nods. He picks his daughter up, placing her on his lap. “Well, this story starts on a Sunday. It was in March, the weather perfect. Eve and Lexie were in church.” He starts off. Everything he tells them of the story is a blur, as if he rehearsed this story a dozen times.