Lost In You

“Mom! Jayden stole my Barbie doll and he won’t give it back!” Claire screamed from her bedroom. Mom was upstairs getting ready for Jayden’s birthday party, actually, she was the only one getting ready for Jayden’s birthday party. “Jayden! Give your sister her doll back right now or Uncle Jonathan isn’t coming!” She screamed back. Meanwhile, Dad was sitting on the couch flipping his eyes back in forth between ESPN highlights and the sports section of the Chicago Sun. “Alright Mom.” He rolled his eyes just like his mother before tossing that blonde haired doll at his sister. She stuck her tongue out at him before she skipped back up to her room to play dolls again.

Mom was just putting the finishing touches on herself as she walked downstairs to find the chaos. “Pat really? Everyone is going to show up in about a half hour and you’re still sitting down her watching TV?” He snapped the newspaper down and ran and kissed her on the cheek before hustling upstairs but not before saying, “Sorry babe, lost track of time.” She rolled her eyes and rounded up the kids to get them ready. She had put Jayden in one of his nicer shirts, and Claire in one of her favorite dresses and put a bow in her curly hair that she got from her father. Just as she took a final look at the both of them the doorbell rang and they burst out of her room and down to get the door. “Mom! Uncle Jon is here with Aunt Bella!” Natalie hopped down the stairs and greeted them both. Jon was carrying his jersey because Jayden asked him to prove to his friends that he was related to both Patrick Kane and sorta Jonathan Toews.

Pat came down the stairs as fast as he could wearing what Natalie had placed on the bed right before she went downstairs. Before the party started Natalie sat on the couch with her children and her husband looking at old pictures from photo albums that the kids picked out. And guess which one they wanted to see first? The Nat and Pat Scrapbook, they flipped through the pages, asking who the other people were in the background (half of them being complete strangers that just ended up in the pictures) and what was going on when that photo was taken. “Mommy, what’s this one?” Claire pointed to one of the first pictures they took together. It was Halloween of 1997, Pat was batman for the trillionth time and Natalie was a pumpkin. Natalie leaned into Pat’s chest, “That was Mommy and Daddy’s first Halloween together, back when we first met.” Pat said taking control. “He was my best friend, and he still is.”