This is our life now. This kitchen, this house, these Saturday morning moments that are chaotic and imperfect and exactly what I'd dreamed of for so many years.
The house is a modest three-bedroom on a quiet street, with a backyard big enough for Owen's play set and the garden Ruby tends with almost religious devotion. We'd looked at bigger places when Cade first moved back, but he'd wanted to start small, to make sure he could handle being back in this town before we committed to anything permanent.
That first year was hard. Harder than either of us had anticipated.
Cade got his job back with the fire department—his old chief, Bill, welcomed him back with open arms and no questions asked. The rest of the crew was more skeptical at first, remembering the young man who'd fled town without warning eight years earlier. But Cade showed up every day, did his work, faced his demons head-on, and slowly, they came around.
The town itself was trickier. People remembered the warehouse fire, remembered the seven people who died, remembered Cade as one of the firefighters who'd been there. Some were kind, understanding. Others weren't. There were whispers, sidelong glances, a few people who made their disapproval known.
But Cade weathered it all. With therapy twice a week, with me and Ruby by his side, with his old crew from Blackwater Falls visiting every month without fail, he faced down every demon and came out the other side stronger.
The nightmares still come sometimes. I'll wake in the middle of the night to find him sitting on the edge of our bed, his head in his hands, trying to breathe through a panic attack. But he doesn't run anymore. He lets me help, talks through what he's feeling instead of bottling it up until it destroys him.
We got married two years ago, a small ceremony in my parents' backyard with just family and both fire crews in attendance. Ruby was our flower girl, taking her duties so seriously that she practiced her walk for weeks beforehand. Dallas cried during his speech as Cade's best man, which made all the other Blackwater Falls guys give him shit for months.
Owen came along a year later—a surprise, but a welcome one. Cade had been terrified he'd miss something, that his schedule at the firehouse would mean missing important moments. Buthe's been there for everything, every doctor's appointment, every milestone, every middle-of-the-night feeding.
"Mom, how do you spell 'congratulations'?" Ruby asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
"Congratulations for what?"
"Dad's been back at the department for four years this month," she says. "That seems like something to celebrate."
She's right. I hadn't even thought about it, but it's been four years almost to the day since Cade walked back into the fire station he'd fled from eight years earlier. Four years of proving to himself and everyone else that he could face his past and build a future anyway.
"C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S," I spell out, watching as Ruby forms each letter in her neat handwriting.
The pancakes are done, and I'm plating them when I hear the familiar rumble of Cade's truck in the driveway. Owen hears it too, his whole face lighting up.
"Dada! Dada home!"
The front door opens, and Cade appears, still in his uniform, looking exhausted but breaking into a smile when he sees all of us in the kitchen.
"What's all this?" he asks, taking in the scene: the pancakes, the poster, Owen bouncing in his high chair.
"Welcome home celebration," Ruby announces, holding up her sign. "And congratulations on four years back."
Cade crosses the kitchen in three strides and pulls Ruby into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
"You remembered," he says softly.
"Of course I remembered." Ruby hugs him back fiercely. "It's a big deal, Dad."
"Not as big a deal as you three," he murmurs, then releases Ruby to scoop Owen out of his high chair. "Morning, buddy. Were you good for Mom?"
"Good," Owen agrees, even though he absolutely had a meltdown about his diaper change. "Pa? Cake?"
"In a minute." Cade moves to me, wrapping his free arm around my waist and pulling me in for a kiss that's probably more thorough than it should be with our kids watching. "Morning, beautiful."
"Morning, yourself." I brush a smudge of soot from his cheek. "Rough night?"
"Couple of calls. Nothing major. A smoke detector going off again because the woman refuses to stop cooking bacon at two in the morning."
"That woman is going to give someone a heart attack," I mutter, but I'm smiling.
We settle around the table, Cade still in his uniform because he's too tired to go change yet. Owen climbs into his lap, getting syrup all over Cade's shirt, but Cade doesn't even flinch. Ruby tells him about her plans for the day—baseball practice at ten, then hanging out with her best friend Mia this afternoon.
It's mundane. Normal. The kind of Saturday morning that probably happens in thousands of households across the country.
