I was quiet, I was tired, and I wanted you to bring me up.
I wanted you to make it stop; I wanted you to bring me up.
So I was wrong and you were right.
Bring me home...

- Lisa Loeb -

The quiet murmur of children's laughter brought me back.

I blinked, as if waking from sleep and stood from the cave floor. I looked around. Though it seemed bigger, this place was still the same; still sacred. His voice at the cave entrance brought me back fully to reality. It was 1968 and we were here as former valedictorians or more like he was here as former valedictorian.

"Rache?" Todd said.

I looked over at him and smiled. Liliana's arms were draped around his neck, her blonde curls obviously taking after her father. Our son held his hand, determined to walk on his own. Todd smiled. We had been married four years before and the twins were born two years later.

My boy looked up at me with his hazel eyes and grinned, holding out his arms. I smiled and picked him up.

"Why Neil Whitman Anderson," I said, bouncing him on my hip, "Did you walk up this way all by yourself."

"Not all the way," Todd answered, wrapping his free arm around my shoulders as we walked back through the woods and across the field.

Wellton had become a co-ed school in 1965. However, a gathering of former valedictorians still came together every other year in the name of academic excellence.

"Are you glad we came?" Todd asked simply, tightening his hold on my shoulders.

"Yes." I answered softly.

"They were all honored to have an award winning author attend," He gazed off into the sun.

"Even if she was just the wife of a valedictorian," I grinned and let out a soft laugh.

Todd kissed me on the head, "And what a lovely, intelligent wife she is."

I smiled. I was happy. We both were.

We had honored Neil's wish that we continue living though he wasn't. We had even named our son after him.

My life was nothing as I had imagined it all those years ago, but this was not a bad thing. I could not love more or be more loved.

After all, do our lives really turn out the way we envision them when we're sixteen?

"Home now, mommy?" Liliana said softly. She was the first of the twins to talk, her head resting on her daddy's chest.

"Yes," I replied, "Yes, baby, I think it's about time, don't you?"