With an address.
Under that, a key.
“Go build a life there,” Quin told us, kissing Jules’ cheek, clamping a hand on my shoulder, then leading Aven out with him.
We both sat there in stunned silence as the rest of them congratulated us, told us to have a fun honeymoon, demanded we bring back souvenirs.
“They bought us a house,” Jules whispered, voice uncomprehending.
“Did you check the address?” Jules’ mother’s voice asked, making us both look up to see her and her husband standing there, eyes dancing.
Both our eyes moved down at the same time, finally taking it in.
The house across from theirs.
A colonial.
With black shutters.
And a big yard.
“This house wasn’t for sale,” Jules insisted, shaking her head, not believing it.
“Well,” her mom said, smiling warmly. “Edgar and Louise are up there. It’s a big house to try to maintain. When your friends told me about their plan, I asked if they would be interested in an offer. They were. It’s all yours. You can move in when you get back from your honeymoon.”
“I’ll hang a tire swing up while you two are away,” her father added, giving us a smile as he led his wife away.
Jules turned to me, eyes glistening, not quite overflowing, but getting there.
I guess I had one little surprise left that might push them over the edge.
See, I let Jules handle the wedding plans, knowing she was dying to get her hands on it, having absolutely no preferences when it came to it. But I demanded she let me handle the honeymoon. With no input at all for her.
I reached into my suit pocket, pulling out the plane tickets.
“You ready?” I asked, holding them out to her.
She took them with shaking hands, turning them to read.
And then the tears fell over.
“Ireland? You’re taking me to Ireland?”
“I’ll show you where I got you that snow globe. Maybe we will pick up another one.”
On a sweet little sniffle, her head pressed into my shoulder. “I love you,” she declared, the words steeped with feeling.
It didn’t matter how many times I’d heard it, it always landed with the wonder of that first time she’d said it.
“I love you too, Jules. Always.”
Jules – 8 years
“What is the point of a shoe rack if no one uses it?” I asked, letting out a sigh as I put them all back in their rightful places.
Kai’s shoes.
And our son’s.
Our daughter, bless her heart, always picked up after herself. She arranged her toys in her room every night before bed. There was so much of me in her.
Our son, well, he was all Kai. Warmth and light and this unstoppable need for new and inventive ways to get his adrenaline pumping.
After having walked in on him using a cardboard box to surf down our hardwood stairs, I pretty much decided that sons were the sole reason wine was invented.
“Where are you guys?” I called, dropping two overflowing canvas bags down on the counter from the farmer’s market Gemma and I went to every weekend, picking up all the healthy stuff I’d been raised on, having always wanted to give that to my children as well. With a smattering of junk in there every now and again. I reached for an empty sippy box on the counter, tossing it as I moved through our kitchen, huge, white, a place we spent so much time cooking, baking, creating memories.
We even had a junk drawer with birthday candles and wrenches and sticky notes.
All in their rightful drawer organizer compartments.
“Kai?” I called, moving through the living room, the one with huge windows that allowed me to have sills full of houseplants.
On a sigh, I saw the door open leading from the back porch. They’d leave the door open, then have fits when they found a fly or grasshopper in the house.
I moved in that direction, fanning the aforementioned fly until he found his way back outside, closing the door from the other side, standing on the back deck, looking out at our yard.
It always made me sigh in relief.
I had my gardens.
Kai had is manly grilling station.
The kids had space to run and play.
It was everything, everything I had ever wanted.
As if I had called their names, our children flew in and out of my gated vegetable garden, a place they knew they weren’t supposed to be unless they were helping me tend or harvest it.
I moved in that direction, wondering where Kai was that he hadn’t shooed them out, only to feel my hands grabbed on each side by the little ones of my son and daughter.
“Come on Mommy. We have a surprise.”
Oh, God.
Surprises, coming from kids, almost inevitably meant something was muddy, markered permanently, or broken onto to be reassembled. Badly.
Taking a breath to resign myself to one of those fates, I let them lead me down the rows of green beans, rounding at the end.