It was the end of my shift and I was packing my things before going home to Audrey and Amy.
We had a relaxing family weekend ahead and actually I couldn't tell which was the one more excited among us; we've been making plans for tonight including crappy food, a family movie, cuddles and everything in between, then tomorrow we would have spent the day at the zoo before going visit Gabi on our way home.
While approaching to the elevator, I gave a call home.
"Hi! What are my girls doing?"
"Hey! We're just getting ready for tonight. Are you done?"
"Yep…heading to the car, right now. Thirty minutes and we can kickoff our weekend"
"Perfect, see you in a while then. Love you"
"Love you too".
About half an hour later I was parking in our driveway.
Before actually getting into the house, my little girl rushed to hug me.
"Daddy!"
"Hi hermosa!" I greeted while holding Amy and throwing kisses upon her.
"Stop daddy, you're tickling me!" she said giggling.
"Where's mommy?" I asked
"I'm here! Setting the table…" Audrey answered from the other room.
"What a great smell! What have you cooked for dinner?"
"Tonight's selection, sir: yan su ji with stir-fried water spinach" illustrated Audrey.
"Mmmh…delicious! Did you make it all on your own?" I asked feigning surprise already knowing what the answer was.
"I just helped. We have the best chef in town here, Miss Amy Melendez. Haven't you heard of her?"
"Of course I have! She's my favorite!"
Amy was chuckling.
"Mommy, you forgot the special dish..." she said winking.
"Right! We have made also stinky tofu...to eat with the TV."
"Eeeew! I'm not going to eat it…you know that?" I said with a stink face.
They both laughed, clearly expecting my reaction would be exactly that.
"Daddy, we prepared also nachos for you!"
"Really? I'm so spoiled!" I said kissing both mom and daughter.
"Let's have dinner now! Go, wash your hands!"
Once done cleaning up the table, we moved in the family room and we lay down on the couch.
"Ready to pick the movie?" I asked
"Can we watch Frozen?" proposed Amy
"Honey, what about something different?" observed Audrey
"Yes, mommy's right! We have The Lion King, Zootopia, Mary Poppins, Despicable Me, The Little Mermaid, Mulan…here! What about Tangled?"
"Tangled is fine. She's a tomboy princess, just like mommy!" she said looking up to her mother.
In that precise moment, Audrey's phone rang and she stood up to answer the call.
I saw the look on her face and I knew there were problems.
"What's up?" I asked.
"It was Reznick. Multi-car collision, close to 50 victims, some critical…we need to go back to the hospital, they need us. I'll go change into something and call Joanna…"
"OK. I'll go tell Amy…"
That was the worst task. Ending our big night and explaining our girl that she would have spent the night with her babysitter, instead of mom and dad as it was planned.
"Why you have to go? I don't want you to go!" was her reaction, as predictable.
"Mija, I know…we would want to stay here with you but unfortunately a bad thing happened and there's a lot of people who needs us. You know mommy and I can save those people. Will you be so brave to help us in this? It would be very helpful if you could be a good girl and stay here at home with Joanna. we will do our best to come back as soon as possible, I promise." I told her, holding her tight and kissing her forehead.
"OK. Can you tell Johanna to let me sleep in your bed, though?" she said in a sad tone, with tears in her eyes.
"Of course nene. We'll tell her."
"Johanna will be here in five minutes", announced Audrey. She sat back near Amy and embraced her. She whispered some mandarin words and kissed her cheek while Amy hugged her as tight as she could.
On our way to the hospital we were feeling miserable: we left Amy crying on Johanna's lap and that was always so difficult to bear. Johanna was our neighbors' daughter and was in her first year of med school, but she was always willing to babysit for Amy.
"I feel so bad", said Audrey
"I know, I feel the same", I said, holding her hand
"What happened to the old Dr Lim and Dr Melendez? The ones who dive in every emergency situation, adrenaline pumping on full…" she asked with a sad smile on her face.
"They're still here…or at least, they'll be back as soon as we'll scrubbed in!" I smiled back, trying to reassure her.
"So now we're some sorts of superheroes leading a double life just like Bruce Wayne/Batman kind of thing?"
"Pretty much…I'd say something along the lines of Mister Incredible and Elasticgirl" we laughed, releasing our tension.
"Here we are", she said while approaching our parking.
"Let's do our best and we'll be back home in a breeze!"
We walked back to the house at 2am, Johanna was still awake sitting on the kitchen table and studying. After having thanked her and said goodbye, we went upstairs and finally get ready for the night.
Amy was already sleeping right in the middle of our bed, embracing her stuffed Olaf. We silently crawled into bed, took sometime to watch her sleep and after kissing each other goodnight we finally fell asleep.
The morning after I woke up at 8am, Amy was awake and was playing with her mother's hair.
"Ehi, let mommy get some sleep"
"Morning daddy" she whispered
"Did you sleep well in our bed?"
"Yes. Did you and mommy save those people?"
"Yes, yes we did…and thank you for your help. It means a lot to mommy and I knowing that you're always so good"
Meanwhile I realize Audrey was awake as well and I reached across the bed to take her hand.
We took a few minutes to snuggle each other and cherishing that precious moment.
"I didn't want you to go work last night. I wanted to watch Tangled with you" stated Amy suddenly.
"Well sweetheart, sometimes there might be some setbacks…you know stuff just happens and things don't go exactly how you figure it out, but there's always a way to fix it. We can watch the movie now…" I tried to explain.
"But it's not fair. We had a plan", she said. The good girl role was hard to play.
"Setbacks are a part of life, Ai", said Audrey "I will tell you something: a few years ago, daddy and I had a big plan…then a setback happened and we had to change it."
"What plan did you have?" Amy asked curiously.
"We had planned to get married in March..." I confessed…
"…but then a certain thing happened and we had to postpone the wedding." Aud said.
"Why?"
"Because we found out we were having you", Audrey continued.
"And you're the most blessed setback ever happened…" I assured her.
Amy smiled, she loved to know this little thing about us.
"See? Setbacks can be surprisingly good", I pointed out.
"Daddy's right. And then we get a new wedding date and this time we also had the most beautiful flower girl by our side." Audrey said to her.
"I was your flower girl!" Amy exclaimed.
"Yes you were! Now, let's get back on our track and focus on our plan for the weekend! Happy Hollow Park is waiting for us, c'mon!"