Uncomplicated 2.30: Show Grim who's the boss

     Mandi and Anastasia are...talking...in the living room. At one point, Mandi whispers something in her ear. I can't help but wonder if it's about me, but I don't care if it is. My soul explodes with happiness. Even if I am a little jealous.
     Anastasia goes and gets some breakfast. I offer to let her stay home from school, but she says she needs a little time to adjust. Mandi doesn't look upset. Mandi looks...beautiful.

     Anastasia sits down with her cereal, and I quickly cross the room, jerk Mandi to me, and kiss her like I haven't seen her in fifteen years. Part of me worries this is nothing but a dream. If it is, I never want to wake up. Let this fantastic-ness never end. Mandi is back! She's alive again! I feel tears run down my cheeks, but I don't care to wipe them off or try to hide them.

     I can't stand it! I pull back and say, "I'm sorry it took me so long! I'm sorry! That recipe was the most difficult thing I've ever had to make, and the ingredients were close to impossible to find!"
     "Nick. Shh," she calmly says, and her hands reach up to stroke my cheeks, wiping away the lines the tears left.
     "And I couldn't devote all my time to it. I had to raise the girls. It was so hard without you! I missed you!" I can't stop apologizing, so she hushes me by making sure my lips are busy kissing her instead. It works. I like kissing her. She likes me kissing her. I relax, and how to do this: kissing and being in love, comes back to me like an old friend.
     While I kiss her neck, half wondering what Anastasia makes of this, she tells me, "It's strange, Nick. I mostly feel like no time at all has gone by, but there's proof it has. This time you tell me I spent as a ghost, it feels like a bad dream, a miserable dream I couldn't wait to wake up from. But it was real. You say there was an accident?"
      I lift up to look at her again. "Yes. You were walking into the hospital for your doctor's appointment, and a jerk was texting while driving. He ran the light and plowed right into you. Your body went into shock. They tell me the placenta started to detach, so they did an emergency C-section. They couldn't save you." I bury my face into her neck and squeeze her to me. Oh, my precious Mandi! I remember how I temporarily lost my mind, how I'd not even held Anastasia until she was two months old.

     Bonnie walks into the house. I'd not realized she'd been working out outside this entire time. "Mandi!" she exclaims and pushes me aside to hug her tightly. "You did it, Dad!"
     I hear Anastasia say, "Yeah. Daddy really showed ol' Grim who's the boss, huh?"

     Mandi and Bonnie laugh and talk some. My thoughts go elsewhere.
     Anastasia goes to school, and Bonnie goes upstairs to take a shower. And Mandi reads my mind. I grab her and practically carry her up the stairs.

(Ignore the fact that I changed into my everyday wear)

     She moans when we finally reach the bed, begging me to never stop kissing her. I don't plan to. Ever.

     Minutes turn to hours, and I worry I'm wearing her out. Every time I try to stop for a minute, she pulls me back to her. That's perfectly fine with me. I kissed her ghost, and I was more than grateful for that, but oh, how I missed kissing the real her.
     My lips don't leave hers as I ask, "Marry me."
     She tries to respond, and I try to let her. "I thought...we already...were...going to."
     "Mmm. I'm asking again."
     "Then I'm saying yes again. Now, shut up and kiss me." She pulls me back to her.
     I still manage to talk. "Mm-mm. I have a better idea." I pull her under the covers for some long-overdo woohoo.

     Afterwards, I hold her in my arms and watch her as she dozes.
     "You are...without a doubt...the most beautiful woman alive." So very alive.
     "Nick, I'm so sorry for leaving you. That must've been awful," she tells me sleepily.

     I roll us over so that I lie on top of her and listen to one of the most wonderful sounds in the world: her heartbeat. "It was terrible. I stopped eating. I didn't want reality. I could barely function. I went to see Anastasia in the NICU, but I could barely look at her. When I took her home, Bonnie held her. Bonnie did so much. Her Aunt Millie was a godsend. I was wasting away. I didn't want to live."
      "Oh, Nick! I'm so sorry!" she says.
      "Shh. I'm sorry for telling you. It's just that was the lowest point in my life: being without you. Now, you're back."
      She asks me how I did it, and I tell her about the psychic woman I went to see, how she sold me the recipe and gave me instructions, and how I spent the next fifteen years steadily working to get her back.
     "You should see me in the kitchen," I tell her and grin. "I can make anything."
     She smiles contentedly. "Yes, yes you can."

     We doze some more before finally deciding to get some real sleep. I hold her tightly to me, planning to never let her go.

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