Just To Have You Back Again

For Every Action, An Equal and Opposite Reaction

"Yaya Beth, what's that?" Lizzie asked her as she sat on one of the barstools, pointing to the big shining diamond on her ring finger, as they were making lemonade in the kitchen.

Beth instinctively pulled her hand away from Lizzie's line of sight, pretending to wipe her hand on her apron.

"It's nothing, just some jewelry I haven't worn in a while."

"It's pretty. Where did you get it?"

"I had it from before."

"It's shiny. I like it, yaya!"

"Thanks, sweet girl. Okay, we just need to chill our lemonade for later. So while we wait, you wanna make some cookies?"

"Yeah!" Lizzie exclaimed excitedly.

"What kind of cookies do you wanna make?"

"Sugar cookies! Can we cover it in pink icing and pink sugar?"

"Sure! Let's see if we have the icing and sugar, okay?"

Beth pulled out all of the ingredients they needed from the pantry and the fridge. She then rolled it out and grabbed the different shaped cookie cutters from a drawer. Lizzie picked out a star shaped cutter and a heart shaped cutter, and with Beth's assistance, began cutting six stars and six hearts from the cookie dough.

As the cookies baked and cooled, Beth cleaned up the kitchen while Lizzie began coloring in her coloring book in the play room. Beth looked down on her ringed finger again and brought it up to her face. It really was a beautiful ring, she admired. She contemplated taking it off, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. It looked right on her finger; it felt right. She didn't wear the band that Nick placed on her finger the day they got married because it didn't feel right, wearing a ring when it was all just pretend. But with Jake's ring, she didn't feel like she was playing, like she was desecrating something sacred. She felt like wearing this ring with pride.

Soon she called Lizzie back out and they decorated their cookies together. They then went to the patio and enjoyed their afternoon snack together. Lizzie was playing house with her dolls while Beth looked out on the beach below. She watched as a group of teenaged boys were playing a game of touch football. She heard one of them say heads up as someone on the other side caught the ball.

A flashback again. Her falling into the water after a football hit her on the head, Jake picking her up and carrying her, him holding a bottled water onto her head. The memory came and went so fast. She held onto her head and blinked a few times. That was the second flashback in less than 24 hours. She was excited that something else came back to her.

***

"So you decided to wear your ring again."

Beth looked up at Nick during dinner.

"Um...yeah. I've had a couple flashbacks since I put it on again last night."

"That's good. How was your talk with your mom?"

"Uplifting. We just had this soul connection. It was great to know her; she showed me what unconditional love meant last night."

"I'm happy for you, Beth. So the ring, are you and Jake..." Nick said, not sure how continue.

"No, no. Nothing like that. I was returning it to him after the video chat, but he told me to keep it and put it on me."

"And you haven't taken if off since," Nick said with finality.

"Nick, are you angry?" she said quickly taking the ring off and stuffing it in her jeans' pocket.

"Beth," he said softly, "I can never be mad at you."