Author's Note:

Vacation time is officially over and it's back to work tomorrow. That means, I won't have nearly as much time on my hands in order to push this story forward. I have about three or four more chapters written already but in order to not leave too big a gap between updates I will change my schedule to a weekly update. This should hopefully give me enough time to write and have a chapter waiting every week. I hope you all understand and respect that.

Once again thanks for the feedback on the last chapter. I'm happy to see such a positive response to the story.

Anyways, I'm off to nurse my sunburn from recent days with even more sun. Does that even make sense? No. But I want to catch the last rays of sunshine and heat before the predicted heavy storms that most likely will take away any feelings of summer again.

Enjoy chapter nine!

Present

They ate lunch in a small fancy restaurant in a less frequented part of town not too far away from the cemetery. During lunch they caught up on recent developments in their lives. While they did call each other on a regular basis, they both had tight work schedules and rarely found the time for long in-depth conversations.

After lunch Eric and Emma headed in the direction of the cemetery where their mother was buried. They stopped about two blocks from there at a flower shop called 'Francis Flowers'. They usually bought the flowers for their mother grave here. Francis Fletcher, the owner of the shop, was a sweet old lady with short white hair, small but sturdily built. Knowing all her customers by heart she already expected them and smiled at them warmly. Their usual order, a bouquet of white lilies and pink carnations, was already waiting on the cash desk for them. It wasn't exactly a creative choice in flowers as those types of flowers were kind of stereotype for funerals, but they were their mothers' favorites, so Emma always preordered an arrangement with them.

"Here you go," Francis smiled at them warmly. "That would be 25 dollars." Emma pulled out her wallet since Eric had paid lunch for both of them and paid the lady. As she took the bouquet she noticed that Eric was facing the flower stands. Her brother wasn't exactly the type to buy flowers for himself and he usually didn't stay in the shop longer than necessary, so Emma was slightly curious.

"Eric?" she called.

"Wait a sec," Eric said absentmindedly and strolled along the flower stands..

"Excuse me," Emma said to Francis and left the bouquet for their mother on the cash desk for the time being, turning to her brother. "Why Eric, you want to decorate your apartment?" she asked him, slightly amused by this. She had never seen any flowers in his place. The only plant he possessed was a palm tree he had kept from their childhood home and which miraculously hadn't died under his watch in the last years.

"Not exactly," Eric answered and came to a stop in front of a flower called bird of paradise.

"Good. Because as much as some floral décor would pretty up your place I wouldn't wanna come to their funeral in a few days," Emma teased.

Eric turned towards her and gave her a self-ironic crooked smile. "Very funny, Emma." He turned back to the flower stands. "Actually, I was thinking about getting my partner some."

It was a simple statement but Emma was taken off-guard. "Partner?"

Eric winced inwardly at the slip of tongue. He never talked about work or the people associated with it, so Emma didn't know about his colleagues, much less about a female one. Ignoring the heat rising in his cheeks, he clarified, "Partner as in coworker."

"A female coworker?" She looked at him mischievously, but Eric didn't even turn around.

"Um, yeah," he answered hesitantly, not comfortable at all with where this conversation was going.

"And she's just a coworker?" Curiosity got the better of her now but she couldn't help it. This was getting better and better.

"Probably my best friend as well, but she's not my girlfriend if that's what you're thinking." Eric gave his sister an annoyed look. She always bugged him about his love life or lack thereof. Even though she didn't know what he actually did she knew that he was working a tight schedule.

"Really?" she stated, unconvinced. "So why exactly would you get her flowers then?"

Eric turned around with a sigh and glanced at her defeated. "We had an argument this morning. No, actually it wasn't even an argument. It was just… Well, I lost my temper with her for no reason really."

She raised her eyebrows at him and snorted. "You? Lost your temper? I find that hard to believe."

He rolled his eyes in annoyance. "May I continue?" Emma shrugged her shoulders and nodded. "My partner… she said something about our mom. I took it kind of personal, even though I know she didn't mean any harm by it. And now I feel bad for blowing up in her face and want to apologize to her."

"Oh, okay." Emma joined him at the flower stand. "Well, I happen to know a little about flower 101 and this" she pointed at the bird of paradise he'd been eying for a while now, "is not the right flower to tell someone you're sorry."

"Um, what does it mean exactly?" Eric asked confused.

Emma grimaced. "I don't know exactly. But what I do know is that when you want to apologize to someone you should go for a combination of daffodils, white chrysanthemums and violet hyacinths." *

Eric raised his eyebrows at her and opened his mouth looking at her strangely. "And you know this how?"

"My roommate at college. She seems to know all about the language of flowers," Emma stated wearily and it was plainly obvious to Eric that said friend had probably gone on his sisters' nerves a lot with this.

Eric snorted. "And you're absolutely sure about this?"

"Very much," Emma confirmed. "My roommate was annoying, but she was very into this so I believe her."

"Okay, I'm gonna role with it then. But if this turns out to be wrong and my partner hates me even more after this I'm so gonna blame this on you, missy!" He underlined his words with a finger accusingly pointed at her.

"I'll forward it to her," she laughed and Eric raised a brow at her, but didn't comment.

Eric walked over to Francis and asked her for the combination of flowers his sister had recommended and the older woman smiled at him knowingly. "Ah, I see. Someone wants to apologize for his wrong-doings." She twinkled at him and Eric blushed. "I'll see what I can do. Wait here, young man." The small lady wandered off in search of the requested flowers leaving Emma and Eric at the counter.

"See? Told you so," Emma mocked him and gave him a light punch in the shoulder. He just rolled his eyes in return and waited for the owner to come back with the bouquet, which she presented to them a moment later and Eric looked at the arrangement for a few seconds.

"This is beautiful," he stated. Hopefully Nell would think so as well. "What do I owe you?"

Francis told him the price and he gave her the requested amount tipping her off with five dollars extra. "Thank you, Francis." He smiled at her, took the bouquet and left the shop with Emma close on his heels.

Once outside his sister approached him, "So how do you know?"

"How do I know what?" he asked back, unsure what she was referring to.

Emma rolled her eyes at him. "How do you know that your friend didn't mean what she said about our mom," she laid out for him.

"Because I never told her that mom's dead," Eric stated bluntly and walked a little faster, as if that would keep the unpleasant thoughts at bay. He really didn't want to get into this. Not now, not ever.

"Why not? Didn't you just say she is your best friend?" Emma sounded genuinely surprised at his admission. She quickened her steps as well to keep up with her brother.

"So? Even best friends don't know everything about each other," he defended himself.

The answer obviously didn't satisfy his sister. "I get that. And I also get that it is painful to talk about. It's no different for me. But friends also talk about their families and I just think you would have mentioned it. It's not like you have to be ashamed of her."

Eric flinched involuntarily at her choice of words. "I'm not ashamed of this. It just never came up in our conversations," he said quietly.

Oblivious to his physical reaction, she replied doubtfully, "Family came never up in any conversation with your best friend? I find that hard to believe."

"Well, it didn't," Eric reinforced. He was beginning to feel irritated with his sisters' interrogation. "And I don't see why she or any of my coworkers for that matter would need to know about this."

Emma as well started to feel slightly annoyed, but by his efforts to cut the conversation short, but she couldn't bring herself to let this slide. "To explain why you take June 17 off of work every damn year for example."

Eric sighed loudly. "If they wanted an explanation to this, they would have asked me about it years ago," Eric reasoned. He winced though since Nell basically had shown interest this morning. He just hadn't let the conversation get far enough for her to ask the questions she most likely would have asked if he had been in a better mood. Shaking his head to abort the thoughts he added, "Maybe this comes up one day, maybe it doesn't. Either way, they don't really need to know."

Emma stopped walking, shocked by his words. "Wow."

Eric walked a few more steps, but stopped as well when he noticed that his sister didn't follow him any longer. "What?" He threw his arms up in the air.

The younger woman shook her head in disbelief. "That's just cold."

Eric furrowed his brows and scrunched his face in confusion. "What do you mean?" He clearly didn't follow her train of thoughts.

Emma took a deep breath and held it for a while before blowing it out slowly. "I really don't get you, Eric. You're denying moms' existence. Are you embarrassed of her or what?"

Eric blinked his eyes twice and opened his mouth, unable to follow how she had come to such an irrational conclusion. "Uh… no, I… I already told you I'm not ashamed of mom."

"Sounds like it to me."

"No! That's not the case and you know it, Emma!" He shuddered slightly at the coldness of his sisters' words. "I don't know what the big deal is. Just because I don't tell the whole office that my mother died seven years ago doesn't mean I don't still love her and honor her."

Emma deflated, sighing deeply. "I know that you love her," she offered. "Still, it doesn't seem right to not talk about someone just because she isn't alive anymore."

Eric gave her a long contemplating look. "I talk about her."

Emma raised her brows incredulously. "Let me guess: to me." There was a bitterness in her tone that Eric wasn't sure what to make off.

"You're the obvious choice. You knew her," Eric stated blatantly with a shrug of his shoulders. "What's the point in talking about her to someone who clearly never met her and can't relate to the feelings I have for her?" He winced at his own words since this didn't reflect on his thoughts at all.

Emma gaped at him, speechless for a split second. "The point is," she started, her tone wary and agitated at the same time, "that you share your feelings with someone else and let them know how much she meant and still means to you. That's how you keep her spirit alive. You share your memories, your experiences, your feelings regarding her and through that you basically give them a chance to get to know her. They didn't get a chance to meet her in person, but they get to see a picture of the person she was, that you got to know and learned to love. Through the stories you tell them."

Eric looked away from her and swallowed the lump in his throat. After a long pause he opened his mouth and quietly muttered, "I'd only be asking for pity then."

Shocked, Emma grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. She couldn't belief what she was hearing. "How is that asking for pity?" she blew out.

Erics' breath hitched slightly. "In case you don't remember, there haven't been too many fun and joyful experiences with mom throughout our childhood. The majority of the memories I have about mom are things I would rather forget about. I wouldn't wanna blab about those things to my coworkers and friends." There was a tinge of sadness and despair in his voice but Emma missed it in her rage.

"So you are ashamed of her," she bit out harshly.

"What? No!" Eric pressed out, voice strained. He was getting more and more frustrated with how this day turned out. Today was supposed to be an honorable day, for Emma, for him and most of all for their mother. They weren't supposed to fight like this. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, Emma. I really don't think this is the right time and the right place to discuss this. I want to enjoy this day, not spent it fighting with you."

Emma hunched her shoulders a little. "I don't want to fight either," she answered a lot calmer than before but there was still a strain to her tone that told she wouldn't be able to let the topic slide.

"Let's go then." Eric resumed walking down the street toward the graveyard that already came into view at the end of the road. Emma followed at a slower pace. Tense silence accompanied them and neither of the two felt comfortable with it. Knowing his sister and her stubborn streak Eric knew if he wanted to settle this he would have to be the one to calm the waves.

The problem was, the only way to explain this to her was to dive deep into the emotions that were carefully buried deep inside him. Truth was, he was afraid to tell people about his mother and not for one reason but for several of them.

He was afraid that people would pity him for having to step up at a young age. He was afraid that people would judge him and the decisions he had made. He was afraid that the shield that he had carefully built around his emotions would crumble and his heart would burst into a million pieces. He was afraid that he would lose it and break down in front of everyone he respected. He was afraid that their respect for him would be lost the moment he broke down. And he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to pick himself up after that.

Sighing, Eric halted his steps again and turned to his sister. "You know, I have been dealing with this whole thing on my own for so long that I just don't know how to share this with anyone else. There are so many memories of mom, but the few good times we had with her are overshadowed by all the events resolving around her illness. The mere thought of telling anyone about what happened scares me, because it would open all these old wounds and I'm afraid that if I open them up they will swallow the few good memories that I still have of her for good. So yeah, I rather chose not to tell anyone in order to savor those precious moments."

Eric let out a long breath at the end of the speech, drained by what he had just revealed.

Emma reached out and laid a hand on his forearm. "I didn't know you felt this way, Eric," she said quietly, taken aback by the raw emotion her older brother put on display. She wasn't used to him showing his feelings like that. He usually kept them safely hidden away as to appear strong and collected in front of her. This was a whole new side to Eric and she wasn't sure she liked his dark thoughts.

"I never told you before," Eric reminded her with a low chuckle.

Emma smiled sadly. "It seems like you are telling me a lot today that you never told me before. Is there a reason for that?" Eric looked away and that was all the answer she needed to know that she had hit a sore spot. "Mind telling me?"

He swallowed the lump in his throat and gave her a brief reassuring smile. "Matter of fact, I do," he answered and wanted to get going again, but she held him back.

"Hey!" she called forcefully. She waited for him to look at her. "Will you tell me eventually?" she asked quieter, compassionate.

He gave her another smile but it didn't reach his eyes. "I don't know yet." Disappointed by his answer Emma sighed and they got back on track. "That's mostly because I don't really know the answer, either."

She bumped his arm playfully. "Then make sure you find your answer soon, because I hate to see my big brother suffer." She looked dead serious, but Eric had schooled his feature and only gave a sheepish smile in return.

Once more I would like to remind you that alerts and favorites are a wonderful thing, but a comment would make me even happier.

- S.