Lukas #4
My face heats. Even though I knew this tattoo would raise questions, I hadn’t ever let myself think Magnolia would be the one asking.
Harper had her questions the day we got ink together.
My brothers have glanced at it when we’re working on the house and I strip off my shirt to get some sun.
They haven’t questioned it, but they don’t need to.
“It’s a tattoo,” I tell her. “The greenery is ivy, for my daughter.”
“Right,” she croaks. “And that flower?”
I keep my focus on her, and when my eyes start to blur, I tell myself it’s from the shower head and not from tears. “It’s a pink magnolia flower.”
She purses her lips together, running her tongue along her inner lip before her bottom one gives way. It starts to quiver, and her eyes glisten. I pull my phone from the shelf and step out of the spray to really focus on her. “Why are you crying, Mags?”
She scoffs, then laughs and drops the phone on the bed to use both hands to swipe the tears from her eyes.
“And why,” she sniffles once, “why do you have a tattoo of a magnolia flower on your arm? I don’t remember seeing that the last time—” A sob cracks through her words. “The last time we were together.”
“That’s because it wasn’t there.” I shut off the water, reaching for a towel to quickly dry off the droplets.
Wrapping it around my waist, I step out into the steamy bathroom and take a seat on the closed toilet lid.
“Right before Ivy was born, I wanted to get a tattoo for her.” Mags nods at that, lying down in her bed.
She props the phone up and pulls her blankets over her naked body, nuzzling in.
“I was looking at sample pictures at the tattoo shop. I found the ivy design, but it didn’t look complete on its own.
I thought about getting her name, but the word ivy over a bed of ivy leaves seemed a little unnecessary.
” I chuckle at that, and Magnolia does the same.
“Then I started to think about flowers or symbols that would look good with it. I looked at classic ones: a cross, a heart. I thought about something that represented me, or who I used to be, like a baseball, the Marine Corps insignia, something with the farm, but none of it fit.”
I trail off, and it takes me a minute to gather the courage to look right at her as I say my next piece.
“Then I came across a page of flowers, and I knew which one I wanted. I didn’t know if I would ever hear from you again, let alone get to where we are today, or where we might be again in the future.
This wasn’t some grand gesture to try to win you back—I’m not that crazy,” I tease, and it gets another laugh out of her.
I push out a heavy sigh, running one hand over the fraying edge of the towel.
“But I knew this tattoo had to have meaning. Ivy is the love of my life.” My eyes flick back to the phone screen.
“And you … I hope you know what you mean to me.” I don’t know if I can call her the other love of my life or my greatest loss.
She’s the other woman I love, I know that, but we’re still in fragile waters, and confessing my love while sitting in my parents’ bathroom after we just got off to one another doesn’t seem like the right move.
“Even if you spent the rest of your life hating me, and I spent mine always wondering how things could have been. No matter where we ended up, or if we ended up at all, I knew the memory of you would haunt me for the rest of my days. I wanted you marked on me, Mags. A reminder of someone I loved so much it hurt. A reminder of why I need to stay healthy, to stay me, so it didn’t become a permanent reminder of what I had lost. What better way to symbolize that than with a tattoo? A permanent reminder of love and loss.”
A single glistening tear rolls from the corner of her eye. And because she’s lying on her side, it moves toward the center, sliding over the bridge of her nose, before dripping onto her pillow.
I shrug my shoulders. “It was an easy choice. A magnolia flower tangled in a bed of ivy. Two things to represent the two women that I care about the most. And the spot…” I raise my arm to show her again. “Does the spot look familiar?”
She smiles wide, her eyes glistening but bright. “It’s where I sleep the best.”
I nod, my throat thick as I try to swallow.
“It’s your favorite spot, where you’d press your cheek to my skin and fall asleep.
It’s Ivy's now, too.” When she’s having a restless night, I’ll pull her from her crib and lay with her, tucking her into my side.
She wiggles up until her cheek rests on the soft skin of my inner bicep, and it’s like she melts into me, falling asleep on contact.
“The both of you love it so much, it made sense to get the tattoo there. Marks it as yours.”
When I get the courage to look back into the camera, she’s still smiling, albeit a little softer now.
But she’s quiet, too quiet, and my stomach starts to flutter, nerves squeezing tight.
I’m about to crack a joke, to find some way to make this moment less uncomfortable, when the corner of her mouth twitches, then widens, and soon, she’s fighting a full-fledged smile.
“It’s gorgeous, Lukas, and I can’t wait to see it in person.”