“Shh!” I told my giggling three-year-old daughter. “You’ll wake Mommy up. We need this to be a surprise.” I pantomimed zipping my lips. She did, too. I thanked my lucky stars that this was not a threenager day.
I had a big tray of homemade breakfast in my hand. I had done the eggs, but I let Vanessa help me with stirring up the pancake batter. I was a waffle man, but Amelia loved pancakes, so that’s what our household ate.
I sliced up fresh strawberries to put on top. I’d included the whipped cream on the tray, too. I had plans for it, plans that had nothing to do with the ripe strawberries and everything to do with my wife’s delectable body.
“Quietly!” I whispered to my little girl at the door. “Open the door quietly.”
My little girl muffled a giggle, and she slowly turned the doorknob to my room.
My wife was laying in bed on her stomach, hair everywhere, tucked into the blankets that she stole from me every night.
I put the tray down on my nightstand.
I counted down with my daughter and mouthed the numbers.
One.
Two.
Three.
“SURPRISE!” we shouted.
My wife jumped a foot in the air from the bed. We giggled, and Vanessa and I began to tickle her. I was a little better than little Nessa at it, but what she lacked in accuracy, Nessa made up in ferocity, though she was tickling her mother over the white bedspread.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart.” I smiled at her. “Nessa and I brought you breakfast in bed. We made it ourselves.”
She sniffed. “Are those pancakes I smell?”
“Yup! I made them, Mommy!” Nessa pounced into her mother’s arms. Amelia kissed her little head.
“That’s very good of you, baby girl.” She met my eyes. I winked.
“Guess what else we have planned for today?”
“What is it, baby?”
“Uncle Drew is going to take me to the newest IMAX movie so I can see all the pandas!”
“Oh, is that so?” I never got tired of watching my wife smile. Never. It was like watching the best sunrise on Earth.
“Yup! Uncle Drew says that I can buy all the pandas I want after.”
“Uncle Drew spoils you rotten, almost as much as your grandfather does.” After the cancer, Mr. Boyd had tried to spend a lot more time with his daughter, his new granddaughter, and his new son-in-law. We built him his own annex to the house for him to stay in when he was with us. He was in DC right now. She shook her head. “I’m going to have to have a talk with that boy.”
“Don’t! He’ll stop feeding me chocolate.”
“That means I need to do it even more.”
“Noooo!!!” Our little girl howled, the beginning of a tantrum. “Doooon’t!”
A car horn honked outside.
“I think Drew’s here.”
Our little girl had been up since 4 AM, bouncing around. I had helped her get dressed in orange leggings with a yellow dress, like lemon and orange together. Tantrum over, she ran down to the door, and I watched her put on her Velcro sneakers all by herself. Soon, she’d be able to do everything on her own. It seemed like yesterday that we had brought her home from the hospital after Amelia went through labor for 5 hours, but Vanessa had shot up like a weed since then. I felt like she shot up when I wasn’t looking. She was so inquisitive, and she had boundless energy, which I loved. I was very glad that Drew had agreed to take her for a little while on Amelia’s birthday, though.
I ran up the stairs, already excited about what I could give my wife for her birthday.