Rose
Seven years later
“Don’t go chasing squirrels into the briar patch, okay little buddy?”
Jacob Little nods his head as his mother runs her hand through his hair.
“Thanks doc. How much do we owe you?” Laura Little asks.
“For some bandages and a little bit of life advice?” Cristiano pauses and pretends to calculate. “I’d say if you don’t mind letting me take your boy fishing this weekend we can call it even.”
“So you’re going to patch up Jacob then take him to do his favorite thing in the world for a day while his dad and I get some couple time and that’s our ‘payment,’” she says raising her fingers in the air putting air quotes around the word payment.
“That’s right. If you’re okay with those terms that is, or should I say if the boss here is okay with those terms.”
Cristiano looks down at Jacob who is now beaming from ear to ear. He’s our boy Joshua’s best friend in the whole world and there’s nothing these boys like more than going fishing. Okay, maybe trying to catch bullfrogs down by the river on a hot summer night or building snow forts in the winter could be in the running, but I still think fishing is their number one.
“You’ve got yourself a deal!” Laura says. She shakes hands with Cristiano before turning to me.
“I don’t know what angel brought you two here to Cedar Creek, but I’m glad it did.”
“You’re the angel,” I say to Laura. “And you too!” I say messing up Jacob’s hair with my palm. “He’s so cute!”
“And growing so fast,” Laura says.
“Joshua is the same way.”
“What’s Joshua doing?” Jacob asks.
“Right now? Well, I would guess he’s probably at home alllll by himself just wondering where his buddy Jacob is. Maybe you should go check on him and make sure he’s okay.”
I look up at Laura and Jacob soon does the same.
She nods and Jacob takes off like a bolt of lightning. “But stay out of those sticker patches! Or briar patches or anything that can cut you!” she yells, but it’s already too late.
The screen door bounces off the door jamb and comes to a rest.
Jacob’s out of our little family practice office and half way up to the house. We’ve got both situated on the same property here in Colorado, just as Cristiano had suggested in that moment he proposed to me.
And true to our word we made our family practice a real family practice.
Most of our so called doctor visits were easy fixes.
Joshua and his best buddy Jacob getting scratched up in the woods.
Our daughter Jessica and her bff Jovana, Kate and John’s little girl from down the street, poking their thumbs when they were practicing needlework. They were pretty young to be starting on crafts, but we saw it as a positive. We liked that our kids were out here in this part of the country. We were sure it made their minds more creative.
And of course there was Jerry and his little buddy Rick and their scrapes and slides from T-ball practice.
And once baby Julia got old enough we were sure she’d get a scrape here and a scratch here and mom and dad would rely on their “extensive expertise” and make everything better well before dinner time when we all gathered ‘round the table for a home cooked meal.
I liked nothing more than cooking for my family, and my man.
The man who showed me that you can take the girl out of the small town, but you can never take the small town out of the girl. I guess that’s why we moved back here after everything that went down in the big city.
The big city, huh?
The more I thought about it and everything that goes with it the more I thought it was overrated.
There’s no catching lightning bugs in a jar in the big city.
There’s no s’mores in the backyard around the fire while dad scares the bejesus out of you during a sleepover tent party in the big city.
And most importantly we’re not in the big city.
Because home isn’t where you live, it’s where your heart is. And my heart is with my family.
And when I found him I found the man who I’d make my family with.
And now that we had our family we both had our home.
Together. Forever.
Laura steps out of the doctor’s office and I switch the sign over that reads “The Doctor’s Always In” to read “The Doctor’s Always Out.”
Cristiano winks at me. “Jacob was our last one of the day right?”
“Unless we get a walk in.”
“How about we lock that door and we walk into the back room here together.”
“And why might that be?” I ask as I slide the deadbolt home.
“I’ve still got the operating table out. And you know I was just reminiscing to that time when…”
“Uh huh. Isn’t that how we got all these kids in the first time?”
“All these? You say it like it’s a lot.”
“You didn’t have to carry them for nine months and deliver them either.”
“Actually…” he says.
I laugh. He did deliver them. He insisted on being a part of their life from the first moment they saw the light of day. That and he said he never wanted another man to see my flower garden, as he called it.
He was as protective of me as he was with our children. And perfect every day since the first day we met.
The man who knew what he wanted all along.
And all he wanted was me and only me.
And all I ever wanted was him.
“Are you sure we have time before I have to start dinner?” I ask as he takes my hand.
“Beautiful, I’ve always got time for you. As long as I have you I don’t need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. You’re all those things for me. And that’s why I love you.”
He pulls me in close and we kiss.
And it doesn’t take a doctor to tell me this is how we made all those babies in the first place.
But I do know what this doctor will tell me tonight.
“Let’s have one more baby, baby.”
How do I know?
Because he’s been saying it every night for the last seven years.
Seven year itch?
Not with him. He says I’m that perfect tingling sensation that will never go away.
That sensation in his groin and more importantly in his heart.
Forever.