It taste good

"Surprise!" My family had held a not so surprise party for me, which I knew about it for a few days. I tried my best to act the part, but my love ones knew me well enough to know that. My wife came up to me hugging me as my two kids followed. "So how did you find out? Who spilled the beans?" I pointed to her grandmother who had texted me the invite by accident.

After everyone left I got my wife present, which was the cherry on top. We woke up Saturday to my kids, who had been in summer towards their first days of Highschool. They had excitedly made breakfast for me. I tried to share with their mother, but was rejected since it had been for me. I devoured the poorly made chocolate cake along side the sugarless coffee which upset my stomach pushing me toward the restroom only five minutes later.

Besides some upsetting stomach issue the day went by in a pretty good manner. We went to the movies to watch a film about a lost child in the eyes of that child, in the end the child was reunited with his parents before they woke up from their sleep. My daughters loved it as well as my wife, I was out number wanting to watch the new King of raider movie. Still watching them talk about the movie with excitement as the cheese dirty their faces filled me with a warmth that I wished would last forever. That was when I began to puke my guts out with out warning. It was bad enough to have the hospital called to pick me up.

Waking up to my wife crying as the doctor talked to her had me fearing the worse. "Hey guys I'm up. No need to cry Honey, it was not that serious. I hope." My wife ran out the room leaving me with the doctor and my own thoughts as it spawned a web of reason why she would leave like that. "Doctor what happened with her? Is there something wrong with me?" The doctor walked towards me with a grim look on his face. "You are going to be okay sir. There was traces of nutmeg in your body." He stopped talking thinking of ways to break the new to me, what ever been bothering him. "Doctor not only am I a grown man I have seen the nasty side of war. Do not worry about my feelings and tell me." "Let me ask you, not as a veteran, but as a parent what..." I jumped up almost knocking him to the floor as my mind had put the pieces together. Bursting out the front door searching for my wife to see her crying in the hall out side the room next to me. She saw me as she tried to stop me, but was unable to as I went in not prepared, nor with any clue why I needed to see what I knew to be fact. Now the only warmth left was that of my tears and my wife's embrace. "Doctor where did the nutmeg come from?" "It seems it came in this morning, perhaps something you three ate that your wife was not there for." The chocolate cake they made me was what caused this yet why did the guilt not lesson as we were left there as our daughters moved on?

That warmth slowly turned into a bitter cold which threaten to freeze my heart to a complete stop. The pictures we took that day was the last photos we would ever take of them. "My wife kept her distance for me since the funeral we held a month ago, I feared the worst and had not wanted to be completely alone. That was when her mother and father came to the house and being on guard was the only thing I could do. "Honey please! This can't be the only thing we can do. Just give it time, just don't leave me alone." I was just a broken man at this point with nothing to lose or hide. She slowly walked out the room covered my her parents. "I'm sorry baby. I made you think I was going to leave." "No. Just say you will never leave me and you won't have to apologize." As she walked out of front I saw what it was she was hiding. "My present kept on coming from your birthday and I was scared not knowing if you were going to freak out and leave..." I ran to her, held her close and refuse to let go. "What ever happens next we are here together."