Chapter 97

Sarah was quite comfortable on the couch in her husband's arms. His arm draped around her, his hand on her waist and she leaned against his side, happily watching Daniel was kept busy as they watched a little TV. Just being able to relax on their days off.

Joan happily played with her grandson from her chair. Daniel brought her the toys he wanted to play with and drove his cars around on the carpet as she watched him.

"I've got that lovely birthday cake ready for him as soon as we're ready to give him some presents." Joan reminded them gently, dinner had been a while ago and soon enough it'd be bedtime.
"Sounds good ma, after this show?" He asked, his thoughts were elsewhere as he watched Sarah's thumb moving over his hand.

She made small strokes with her thumb over the small tattoo on his hand. The little star being hidden and peeking out again as her thumb moved over it slowly.

Sarah's unconscious gesture was making him think about the tattoo. It was his first, small, to see how much it hurt before he decided he wanted more tattoos. Besides that, he liked stars. A star on his hand, stars on a guitar, stars on baby clothes. Stars were a good design for many things.

A small tattoo was easy enough to start out with and it hadn't hurt nearly as much as people made out it would, so others were added soon enough. Perhaps it was time to add another one. Or maybe three. It wasn't long after Ava was born that he made the choice to ink her name onto his skin forever. It'd be there for just as long as he'd love her.

His thoughts left him when Sarah moved next to him as she sat up, looking at the birthday cake Joan carried over to the coffee table.

"Time for cake?" He asked happily, ready for something sweet. Dinner had been a while ago after all.
Joan passed him a box of matches. "If you'd light the candle." She said, having her own memories of a first birthday cake. "He looks so much like you did at this age."
Richie looked up at her. "Yeah?" He was a little curious but he had seen pictures to make the comparison. He knew she was right but he would gladly indulge her.
"Oh yes," Joan said as she sat down again, "the brown eyes, the way they get that little sparkle when he's happy."
Sarah chuckled, listening to Joan as Richie reached over to light the candle. "I love that sparkle." She simply said, having seen it in both sets of eyes just as well.
"And those soft brown hairs on his head, the little face just like yours." She said as she compared her grandson to her son.

The commotion at the coffee table caught Daniel's interest enough to make him crawl over and check everything out. As he pulled himself up on the table to hold on to it's surface, his eyes sparkled as he looked at the small birthday cake, a single candle standing in the middle of it. He looked up as dad got up from the couch and walked around to come join him on the other side of the coffee table.

Richie crouched down as he held on to Daniel's waist, instructing him to blow towards the candle but not getting much effort out of Daniel. When he did blow, the hair on top of his head moved in the little breeze he created, making his dad laugh out loud, leaving Daniel confused in return.

"You've got to blow at the candle not up." Richie pointed for him, to show him where he had to blow, although he knew his son was most likely too little to really understand him.
"Need some help?" Sarah asked as she leaned forward on the couch.
Richie looked up, smiling. "Yeah, I think so." He said, then looking to his left. "Help us out here, ma."

They waited for Joan to join them around the coffee table before counting down to blow again.

"Three, two," Richie counted down, still pointing his instruction for Daniel. "one."

The four of them finally blew out the half gone candle.

"Does this mean we all get to make a wish?" Sarah asked.
His eyebrow raised in thought. "I think so, as long as we wish for Daniel." He answered. "Seems fair to me."

He reached over and started cutting the cake, ready for a taste of it. The first piece went to his mom, then a piece for Sarah and a tiny piece for Daniel before he took his own slice of cake. Not hesitating to finally take that bite.

"Ready for birthday presents?" Joan asked as she placed her empty plate back onto the coffee table.
Richie looked up, mid-bite. "You got him presents?"
"Of course I got him presents." She said as she got up from her chair to go grab them.

Sarah and Richie became curious when Joan walked out of the living room to retrieve the gifts she had gotten for Daniel.

As soon as she walked back into the room, Richie got up to help her out. He lifted the smaller boxes off of the largest one she was carrying, putting them down before taking the large box as well.

"We're going to need an extra suitcase for just gifts." Richie joked as he sat down on the floor with Daniel.
"I couldn't help myself." Joan said. "If you can't take it, I can always just mail it or keep it here for when he visits."
"We'll see." Richie said, reaching for one of the smaller gifts first and passing it to Daniel. "Let's open them first."

He helped Daniel to unwrap his first present, revealing new clothes. Surely that would still come in handy on the road.

"I did try to get gifts you could use while you were away from home." Joan explained as Sarah thanked her for the clothes.
"Next one." Richie said excitedly as he helped Daniel again with his next gift.

A few minutes later Daniel had some new bath toys and a large collection of children's bedtime stories and his last present left to be opened up. The biggest gift to finish off all his birthday gifts.

"This is huge, ma, I think he's going to love this one."

Daniel caught on to the gift opening and helped ripping the paper off of the box, excited when he started to reveal what it was.

Richie watched him reveal his gift, excited for him. "Mom, that's awesome." He said as Daniel ripped the last pieces of paper off of the cart.
"I thought it was so cute." Joan said as Richie reached to unbox it for Daniel. "There's building blocks underneath the seat and the back is high enough so he can walk with it or just ride it."
"That's pretty cool." Richie said again as he finally got it out of the cardboard so Daniel could explore it.
"I think he likes it, thanks Joan." Sarah said, happily watching her son enjoy his present.
"You're welcome. I know, you can't take it on the road but really, I'll just mail it. I couldn't leave it when I saw it at the store."
"Oh no, this is going on the road." Richie said surely. "This is awesome."
Sarah looked over at Joan with a smile. "I think he likes it too."