what we can. We’re lucky Mom and Dad are happy to lend a hand and in fact they've been asking when we’re having another.
I shut my laptop and glance over at the clock. My parents stopped by earlier to pick up our youngest and then asked if they could pick the other three up from school. They wanted to take them out for ice cream at some new place in town and I know they’re just going to spoil them rotten. I don’t recall being able to get half the crap out of Mom when I was their age. I guess it’s the joys of getting to be the grandparent. I push back from my desk and go to find my wife.
One of her favorite things is our family dinner and I know she’s probably in the kitchen prepping for it. My parents will likely join us, too. They do most nights. Since we built our house next to theirs, it’s made life easy. This land holds too many good memories to leave it. I never spent time here when she was gone because I couldn't bear it. I felt like I was suffocating when she wasn’t here, but when I brought her back we both knew without saying a word this was where we would spend our lives. We’d always call this home and we’ve make our family here.
When I enter the kitchen I lean up against the wall and watch her move about the kitchen. She hums to herself as she cuts vegetables and immediately my eyes go to her hand. Her ring is missing and I stand up and walk over to her.
“Where’s your ring?”
She always has it on, but if she doesn’t she places it on the windowsill. I already looked over there and didn’t see it. I don't like seeing her finger bare. I’m a possessive bastard and like to see it on her. I know she’s mine, but this lets everyone else know without a word spoken.
She looks up at me and her eyes widen in surprise as her eyebrows furrow together. I know this isn't good.
“I can’t find it,” she admits. The small, sad hitch in her voice is like a kick in the stomach. “I looked everywhere and I, I—”
“Calm down,” I tell her as I pick her up and sit her on the kitchen counter. I move between her thighs and I lean down to give her a quick kiss. That normally does the trick when she starts to get worked up.
“It has to be here somewhere. You had it on yesterday and I took the kids to school today. You haven't gone anywhere.” She nods in agreement.
Worry still lingers in her eyes and I know it’s not about the ring itself. We could buy that ring a million times over. It’s about what that ring symbolizes. The thought has me thinking back to the other night when my oldest son asked me about the ring that was always on Cami’s hand. The same as I’d done my own dad.
“Oh no,” I say and can’t help but smile. “You don’t think Jase took it, do you?” I ask her, and she thinks for a minute before her mouth falls open.
“Daisy.”
That’s the little girl Jase is always talking about. The two of them have been best friends since our friend Sam adopted her. Daisy was four when we’d found her after she’d been kidnapped by her father. We located her quickly and got her back to her mother. Sam was with us at the time and he hadn't only fallen in love with the little girl who now calls him Dad but he’d fallen hard for her mother, too.
It didn't take Sam long before he got a ring on Mary’s finger and legally adopted Daisy as his own. I knew our son was smitten with Daisy, but I just didn't know how deep it was. It looks like he’s following in my footsteps.
“Could you imagine? Mary is going to die when I tell her.” Cami beams up at me. It took Cami all of half a second to become best friends with Sam’s wife. It only took Sam another second to move down the street from us. “She’s the sweetest little thing and you Sanders men can’t seem to make girls,” she scolds me like I can control the sex of our babies. Four boys over the last eight years had her thinking the day of having a little girl herself would