Kelly stirred at the sight of the bright yellow Florida sun filtering into the couple’s bedroom. She looked over at her snoozing husband whose hair was sticking out all over the place. Kelly propped herself up on her left arm and gently smothed out Nick’s hair with her right hand. She ran her fingers along his chest and curled against him. He stirred slightly and after a few moments blinked his eyes open. Seeing his wife lying beside of him, Nick placed his arm around her shoulders and rested his cheek against her soft, silky hair and breathed in the bittersweet smells of pears. Kelly lied there comforable and content when a thought came into her head.
“Honey?” she broke their comfortable silence.
“Hmm?” he mumbled, casting his eyes onto her hair, as if he could read her thoughts.
“Where did you go last night?” she questioned, her voice filled with curiousity.
“I had to pick up something,” Nick replied shortly. Kelly rolled over so her head would rest perfectly on his tummy.
“What did you pick up?” she asked searching his face for a reaction.
“These,” he smiled producing two plane tickets.
“Where are we going?!” Kelly exclaimed getting excited, sitting up beside of Nick.
“I just thought we could go away this weekend to our cabin in the North Carolina mountains. Ya know, just the two of us to get away from work and everything! How does that sound?” Nick asked taking his wife’s small, delicate hand into his much larger one.
“That sounds wonderful honey!” Kelly’s full lips spread into a wide grin exposing her perfectly straight, pearly white teeth.
“Wait! I almost forgot to give you your anniversary present!” Kelly shouted as the excitement mounted in her voice. She climbed out of their bed and after a few minutes of rummagin throught their oversized walk-in closet she returned holding a large book.
“What is that?” her husband asked curiously, stretching out his right arm to pull her in close to him.
“It’s a scrapbook of our life together so far. I’ve been working on it for a while and well…herre, just look at it. I hope you like it,” she said somewhat self-consciously placing the scrapbook into Nick’s hands.
Nick looked through the book in amazement as his wife studied his face carefully for a review of her work. With each page that Nick turned, their life together was unraveled. From the very first day that they met, to the day that they said “I do,” and every day after that for the next three years the scrapbook catalogued their love story. Pictures, poems, song lyrics, love letters, flower petals, and other momentos of their life together brought the magic of their memories alive once again. As the book came to a close and the memories faded, Nick was brought back to the present. The look of happiness and sheer delight upon his face sent a shiver up Kelly’s spine. No words were required to express how he felt about his wife and the present she had given him. He simply turned to her, gather her small body into his arms, and kissed her with a desire, love, and passion that Kelly had never known before.
