The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

You just hold on tight to them and you'll get through it. You already know how to do that. You've done it with Zach and Grace. Rachel and I know how to do that, too. We'll hold on tight. Have a little faith, okay?"
    She nodded.
    "Hey," he said, seeing something coming at him out of the corner of his eye. "Look at that!"
    Grace was up on her feet, in the middle of the room, holding on to nothing at all. Just standing there grinning and wobbling back and forth.
    "Careful." Emma held out a hand to her.
    Sam did the same thing. Grace raced toward them, three, four, five steps, more off balance with each one she took. She would run instead of walk. Sam barely managed to catch her before she hit the floor. It scared her a bit. She fussed as he pulled her close and looked bewildered and maybe a bit mad.
    "So you're really mobile now?" he asked. "And that's supposed to be a good thing? Because the way I see it, you'll move even faster now and get into even more things."
    She blinked up at him and frowned.
    Emma gave her a kiss on her soft cheek. Grace threw her little arms around both him and Emma and squeezed hard. Sam held on to them both and looked up to find Rachel and Zach standing in the doorway. Zach was grinning, and Rachel was about to cry. But she was smiling, too. These days, she smiled through her tears.
    They were going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.
    * * *
    Sam and Rachel finished taking down the tree that night. By tradition, it didn't come down until New Year's Day.
    Rachel worked so carefully, especially with the personalized ornaments. She wrapped them in specially made containers and stacked them in little boxes that would go on special shelves nearly at the ceiling in the basement, so they wouldn't get damaged from year to year.
    Sam watched her, thinking about Christmas after Christmas in this old house. Rachel's grandparents had lived here. Her mother. Now Rachel and him and the children. Someday Emma would stand here carefully wrapping the same ornaments after taking them off her tree, he imagined, and felt once again that unending sense of family, of connections that were never truly broken.
    A sense of place, of belonging.
    He felt rich beyond anything he'd ever imagined. Rich in memories and in people around him who loved him, rich in the possibilities the future held, and he knew he'd done a great disservice to his wife, that it was time to put that to right. He thought he knew how.
    There was some part of her that feared he'd remained here simply because of the three children asleep upstairs, and he didn't want there to be any doubts about that. Because he knew how painful those doubts could be. He didn't want her to live like that.
    He put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a tiny box wrapped in red. When her back was turned, he slid it amid the branches between the spot where his ornament and hers hung, then tried not to grin and ruin the surprise.
    She turned back around and reached for another ornament, finding the box and just staring at it for a moment. He waited through three heartbeats before she reached for it. The tentativeness of her movements, the way she studied the package and her name scrawled across the front of it, told him how unsure of the two of them she still was.
    "Find something?" he asked through an impossibly tight throat.
    She nodded and held it out to him with a trembling hand.
    "It has your name on it, Rachel. Open it."
    She did, being careful with the wrapping paper, as she always was. It took forever, as it always did. She finally opened the lid of the box and then nearly dropped it.
    Sam took it from her and pulled out the ring. He stuck it on the end of his index finger and held it out to her. She didn't say a word, just stared. He hadn't had the money to give her a diamond the first time around. It had been a plain gold band. A cheap one she'd treasured anyway.
    "Do you ever watch those sappy diamond commercials on TV?" he asked.
    "All women watch those, Sam."
    "Really?"
    She nodded.
    "Diamonds are amazing. So strong. They last forever. And this one..." He held it up in front of her, showing the simple beauty of the ring. A solid band of diamonds, a never-ending circle. "It's forever, Rachel. I know so much more about that now—about the commitment it takes and what it means to me—than I did the first time around. It means so much more to me now. You do. I'm sorry I ever doubted that."
    "Oh, Sam." She started to cry again. "I don't know what I'd do