MEMORIES EXIST EVERYWHERE
She felt a rush of excitement as she stood in front of the large guide map and tried to locate the terminal of her departure gate. She was going back home today! It had been nearly five days, two hours, and approximately twelve minutes since she had seen them last. Now she was only a few short hours from seeing their smiling faces again. There was no denying that she'd missed the kids: missed being there to fix them breakfast, shuttling them to and from school, helping them with homework and projects, and pretty much everything else in between. But she'd especially missed him. After spending four lonely nights in a hotel room bed alone—comfortable as the plush king-sized bed had been—she'd missed being in those warm arms and waking up to that handsome face each and every morning that they had been apart.
She identified her departure gate and started to head in that direction with her luggage when she caught sight of a tiny illustration on the top right side corner of the sign. It was a black circle with an overlapping cross and four letters marked at each end. The 'N' at the top was especially bolded and designed to stand out. She smiled warmly as she was reminded of what it symbolized to her.
"Carly, what are we doing here?" he asked, as she dragged him by the hand down the riverbank.
She ignored him until they came to a stop near the edge of the water a few steps later and turned to face him.
"We're going to find our compass," she said.
He sighed, a little more dramatically than usual.
"The compass is gone," he said tiredly. "It's probably been washed away by now or maybe one of the fish was hungry and…"
He stopped mid-sentence when he caught her unamused glare.
"Carly, you're talking about searching for a needle in a haystack here," he attempted to reason.
She looked at him with that signature stubbornness.
"Jack Snyder, I don't care if we have to drain this entire pond dry, we are not leaving here until we find that compass!"
He sighed again.
"I told you, we don't need signs and symbols to direct our future any longer. We've already found our way back to each other…forever."
She paused, clearly as affected by his reasoning today as she had been on their wedding day; but then, like a slideshow transition, the look of sheer determination was replaced in her eyes.
"I still want it, Jack," she said. "I've had it for nearly nineteen years. It's a part of me, a part of you; a part of our love."
He smiled tenderly at her words and she reflected it back with one of her own.
"Okay, so let's do this," she said, getting down on the grass near the water's edge.
He immediately lifted her back up.
"Oh, no you don't!" he exclaimed. "The baby, honey. Think about the baby."
He led her by the hand and had her sit on one of the nearby rocks. She smiled up at him in gratitude. He then crossed his arms and firmly planted his feet in place, a nonchalant expression on his face as he looked out at the water. She watched him in confusion.
"Well?" she asked.
"'Well?' What?" he asked obliviously.
"The compass…" she reminded, picking up on his peculiar demeanor.
He reached into his jeans pocket.
"You mean this compass?" he asked casually and handed it to her.
She stared down at the round, gold-plated object in her hand. Other than a few superficial scratches, it looked exactly as she had remembered it—with one distinct alteration. The needle steadily pointed north. She followed its trajectory and met his smiling eyes.
"When? How?" she fumbled, as he let the discovery sink in. "You found it and had it fixed?" she asked, her watery eyes shining.
He nodded as his smile grew wider.
"Let me just say that the excavation wasn't exactly easy…or pretty," he said, wincing at the messy memory.
"Was this the day you supposedly went fishing with Holden and came home looking and smelling like you'd been wandering around in the wilderness for a week? And without any fish, I might add!"
He laughed heartily.
"Yup."
She softly touched her chest, moved by his actions.
"Oh Jack, thank you so much," she said.
He knelt down in front of her.
"You're never going to need to use it again," he said gently. "But I know what it means to you; what it means to us; and I couldn't just let it sit and erode away at the bottom of a pond."
She wiped a tear from her cheek.
"I love you," she whispered, her voice overwrought with emotion.
He reached out and wiped the tear from her other cheek.
"And I love you," he said, his eyes reflecting the sincerity of his words.
Their lips embraced passionately as a shimmer of gold glinted against a ray of sunlight.
The lobby area connected to her gate was rather crowded when she made her way to an empty seat with her carry-on luggage. She'd stopped by a Duty-free store further down the terminal and picked up a couple of magazines and some chocolate to snack on while she awaited boarding the flight. She reached into the plastic bag and fished out a fashion magazine.
Suddenly, the background noise of the surrounding zone was almost entirely drowned out by the sharp shrieks of a newly awakened infant. The mother of the child looked extremely embarrassed as she tried in vain to pacify the cranky little boy. Having been in the young mother's position all too recently, she sat in her seat and silently sympathized with the poor woman. Still, she knew that a crying baby was just as much a part of the joys of motherhood as one who was soundly asleep.
She stood in the doorway and watched the tiny chest rise and fall in a peaceful slumber in the soft glow of the room. Her heart swelled with love and pride as she marveled at the newborn wrapped in a soft pink blanket with a teddy bear resting against the railing of the crib. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close to him. She smiled instinctively.
"She looks like an angel," he remarked, his eyes transfixed on the sleeping child.
"Yeah," she said. "Now she does. But if you count the past half hour I just spent getting her to stop screaming and fall asleep, then not so much."
He chuckled softly and pressed a tender kiss to her temple.
"This is what I wanted," he whispered into her ear. "A beautiful baby girl with blonde curls and a bad temper…just like her mommy."
She rested her head against his chest.
"But at the end of the day: she'll always be Daddy's little girl."
They continued holding each other, swaying slightly from side to side as they watched their youngest daughter sleep blissfully through a starry, moonlit night.
One magazine down, two to go. She pulled out the latest edition of Cosmopolitan as her next selection. None of the content on the first dozen pages held her interest, so she continued skimming until she came to one particular full-page, color print ad endorsed by Acura. She froze when her eyes landed on the attractively crafted body of the silver SUV with a shiny steel grill accenting the front space between the headlights. Normally she wouldn't give a car ad a second glance, but when the vehicle staring back at her resembled hers in nearly every way, she just had to pause and remember those moments she still freshly recalled.
She walked up and plunked down next to him on the couch.
"I swear, one of these days I just might be tempted enough to grab a crowbar and go to town on that car!" she groused.
She caught him stifle a laugh.
"I thought you loved that car," he said.
She sighed in exhaustion.
"I do. I do. But it's beyond embarrassing when you're pulling into the drive-in window at McDonalds and the cashier gives you a weird look because your car is making more noise than a nineteenth century steam engine. Hell, I miss that tinking noise to this newly evolved crunking noise. Not to mention the damn thing has died on me twice over the last three months."
This time he actually laughed. She glared at him and swatted his arm.
"Is my misery amusing to you?" she asked in frustration. "Maybe we can switch cars for a while and you can see how you like it."
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Mm-hmm," she replied immediately.
"You're sure you want to trade?"
"Yes!"
"Okay, well, I was actually feeling a little envious of you what with you getting to drive the new car and all but…"
He purposely trailed off when he saw her eyes perk up at the mention of the words: 'new car.'
She watched his face closely as his mouth burst into a huge grin.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, her curiosity piqued to the max.
"Well," he said slowly. "I was just thinking. New marriage. New baby. New car. I don't know…it just seemed to fit."
"Are you serious?" she asked, needing additional clarification.
He simply nodded, grin still pasted in place.
"Yeah. I mean, I've attempted to fix it a couple of times, I've taken it down to the mechanic twice more than that, and it's still being a pain in the butt. So I thought maybe it was time for a new car."
She smiled.
"Do you remember the last new car we bought?" she asked.
"You mean the last new car you bought for me," he corrected.
"Oh yeah," she said.
"That was one hot looking corvette," he recalled.
"See, I don't know," she said, her voice turning playfully coy. "My attention was always on the hot driver."
"Really?" he asked, his eyebrow flickering suggestively as he moved closer to her.
Him…Her…The couch. Enough said.
The P.A. system crinkled briefly before the voice of a flight attendant emerged to make an announcement.
"Ladies and Gentleman: may I have your attention, please? We regret to inform you that Flight 1010 from New York City to Oakdale, Illinois, will be delayed by approximately thirty minutes due to unfavorable flying conditions. We will keep you updated on the status of the newly calculated departure time as we receive further information from air control. We very much apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for choosing to fly with Virgin Atlantic. We wish you all 'Happy Holidays.'"
She sighed dejectedly at the news of the delay. She tried to reach him on his cell phone to notify him of the setback, but realized that she was out of reception. In any case, she knew him well enough to know that he was likely already aware of this little climatic glitch. He always did his homework. Well, unless she found a way to distract him…
She walked into the Oakdale Police Department with two cups of up hot coffee in her hands only to find that he wasn't at his desk. She flagged down one of the passing officers to inquire about his whereabouts.
"Hi Steve. Do you know where Jack is?"
"Hi Mrs. Snyder. Detective Snyder is down in lockup. He should be back up in a couple of minutes."
She thanked the officer and walked over to her husband's desk. A huge smile crossed her face as she looked down at a framed picture of them from their wedding. Next to it was a picture of the two of them with all four of their kids. Their family was now whole again. Whole and happy and slightly larger.
"Hey babe, what are you doing here," he asked as he walked over to join her at his desk.
He kissed her cheek when he reached touching distance.
"Hi. I was just getting some shopping done at Old Town and thought I'd drop in and see my husband and bring him some coffee," she explained.
She handed him a cup and he thanked her.
"I'm glad you're here," he said. "I've been sitting here working on my case reports all morning, so I could use a coffee break."
He attempted to massage away a crick from his neck as she watched him sympathetically. Suddenly a light bulb went off in her head. She grabbed the cup of coffee from his hands and set it down on the desk alongside hers. He watched her actions in bewilderment.
"Come on," she said, taking him by the hand and leading him into the interrogation room.
"Carly, what the..?" he started to say, as she gently gestured for him to lean against the table in the middle.
She then walked over to the door.
"You need to relax, Detective Snyder," she said, a seductive tone sneaking into her voice. "Why don't you help me do just that?" she finished with a mischievous smirk etched on her face.
He watched in amusement as she closed the door and turned around to look at him with steely eyes. His own eyes widened as realization of what was to follow sank in. They exchanged grins as she locked the door shut with a punctuated click. She walked down a few more steps and slowly turned the blinds down before walking back over to the door and gently flipped the light switch off. She nimbly made her way back over to him, their eyes locked on each other, filled with nothing but that same burning desire. Something that that very room itself was very well aware of when it came to these two.
"You really are very creative, Mrs. Snyder," he said in a low timbre as he pulled her into his arms.
"You make it very easy, G-man," she said with a naughty grin as he leaned his mouth down to hers.
He captured her lips in a zealous kiss that left her clinging to him as if her life depended on it. She threaded her fingers through his hair making him moan with pleasure. He began peeling off his jacket and she followed suit by shedding out of her coat; neither one breaking the liplock in the process. Her hands reached up to quickly undo the buttons of his shirt as he simultaneously contributed by untucking the rest of his shirt from his pants. The room was now fully ignited by the heat of passion and they both knew that they were at a point of no return.
The plane had been airborne for nearly fifteen minutes after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia airport en route to Oakdale Regional when the flight attendants began carting refreshments to passengers up and down the aisles. Carly politely declined any food or drink. All she cared about was getting back home to her husband and children. She then thought about Christmas: it was only two more weeks away and she had so much to get done before then! She pulled out a small notebook and a pen from her purse and began scribbling out a 'to do' list. Once she had completed it, she began jotting down the names of all the members of the extended Snyder family and began brainstorming possible gift ideas for each one of them.
It seemed like an eternity had gone by when she finally made her way out of the plane, down the tunnel, and headed through the gate. She immediately started scanning the faces in the crowd for the two she yearned to see the most. Seconds later she spotted them and her entire face lit up with delight. Her blue eyes locked with his brown ones across the distance and they wordlessly communicated their love for each other. Then, just as her eyes drifted to the little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl in his arms, he turned to look at the child and whispered something in her ears. The little girl's bright eyes immediately followed her father's pointing finger and she beamed and waved enthusiastically. Her heart filled with love as she watched him gently release their daughter from his arms and set her feet on the ground. She discarded her carry-on bag and crouched down with extended her arms.
"Mommy!" the little girl squealed with glee as she ran into her mother's welcoming embrace.
"Hi sweetheart!" she said, amidst tender laughter. "Ohhhhh, I missed you so much!"
She hugged her for a few moments until he had made his way over to the both of them.
"Hey you," she said, slowly getting back up on her feet.
"Well hello," he said, flashing her that brilliant smile that still made her heart flutter. "So, how was the party last night?"
"Amazing," she informed him. "One of the other clients there asked me if I'd be interested in designing a few pieces for their winter line. She said she'll get in contact with me sometime next week to get started on the process."
"Carly, that's fantastic!" he said, clearly excited for her.
"I know!" she exclaimed with an adorable happy hop.
"So…did you miss me too?" he asked, trying to imitate an expression of childlike innocence.
"Of course I missed you," she said, snaking an arm around his neck and giving him a peck on the lips. "I stopped by a Victoria's Secret store on the way to the airport to show you exactly how much when we're all alone tonight."
All feigned innocence disappeared from his face and a raw, honest stirring of lust darkened his eyes. She relished in those brief moments, knowing full well that there was a whole hell of a lot more to come later that evening.
"Let's get you home right away, Mrs. Snyder," he said; his voice low and husky.
He hoisted the little girl and perched her atop an arm and wound the other one around her back as she picked up her carry-on. They walked together amidst the bustling pool of wayward travelers zigzagging through the crowds in search of their own chartered journeys. Their destination as a family was home.