Loose Ends

Chapter 22: Parties and Plans

At the nursery Amy was pleasantly surprised at how much the kids had seemed to grow in the month she'd been away and she enjoyed getting reacquainted with them, even though it was pretty tiring trying to corral a small group of toddlers, her own included. Back at the butcher shop Ricky decided to call his mom on his break.

"Hi, Ricky. How are you?"

"Good, mom. I wanna ask you something."

"Oh?"

"So Amy came over last night and we talked about a lot of things and she mentioned that she'd had dinner with you and dad on Saturday."

"She did." Margaret didn't elaborate, not willing to reveal exactly what Amy had talked to her and Shakur about without Amy's permission.

"She told me the three of you were gonna hang out and talk more and I was wondering when you planned to do that." Margaret and Shakur had talked about it quite a bit the past couple of days and she saw no reason not to tell her son about their plans.

"We were thinking of asking Amy to come over for dinner once a week or at least a couple of times a month so the three of us could spend some time together and I planned on asking Amy to have lunch or go out somewhere with me a couple of Saturdays a month for some girl time. Why do you ask?" Ricky chuckled.

"I guess we all had the same idea."

"What do you mean?"

"Last night Amy and I decided we needed to spend more time together as a family with John and have dinner together once a week and do some sort of family activity on the weekends so we can get to know each other better too." Margaret could hear the smile in Ricky's voice and he could hear her's in her response.

"That sounds like a good idea. Why don't you or Amy give us a call after you've decided what night of the week you two will eat together and then we'll go from there."

"Ok, mom; sounds good. I'll talk to you later."

"OK. Talk to you later, Ricky." After ending the call Ricky took a deep breath before making his next one. He dialed the number and waited.

"Hi, Ricky. Didn't expect to hear from you anytime soon."

"Hi, Adrian. I need to talk to you. Are you free tomorrow tonight?"

"Yeah. What do you wanna talk about?"

"Us. I'll come over about 7:00. See you tomorrow." Adrian didn't get a chance to respond because Ricky ended the call. Wonder what's going on? Maybe Amy's confronted Ricky like she confronted my dad! I wonder what she told him? Adrian started to feel nervous, remembering what Amy had revealed to her dad already. If Amy told the same things to Ricky they were bound to get into a fight tomorrow night.

At the end of her shift Amy happily headed home, remembering tonight was her belated birthday dinner. Traffic was still pretty light, rush hour having not quite started yet, so she got home a little early. Amy couldn't help but laugh when she walked in the kitchen door and saw her dad heading into the dining room very slowly, his way blocked by a rather large quantity of birthday balloons. He turned when he saw her standing there.

"No peaking. Go up to your room and wait until we call you down, and put on something nice." George blocked her view of the dining room so Amy couldn't see anything. She continued to laugh as she took John upstairs to play in her room before dinner. She only had to wait ten minutes before Ashley came upstairs to get her. Ashley had dressed up in a dark green dress with a matching dark green sweater that stopped just below her bust line. Amy had chosen the same black dress she wore when she and Anne had gone out to dinner Sunday night and she dressed john up in khaki pants and a light blue button-up shirt. Amy walked into the dining room and smiled. A Happy Birthday banner hung across one wall and balloons were tied to the backs of all the dining room chairs and even John and Robbie's high chairs. The room was lit by candlelight and the table was set with her mom's china and the fancy silverware. Her mom had prepared a salad, chicken parmesan, garlic roasted potatoes, asparagus, and garlic bread and each of their glasses was filled with sparkling grape juice. George was wearing a handsome charcoal grey suit and Anne was wearing a dark blue cocktail dress that stopped just below her knees. Even Robbie was dressed up in a nice pair of khaki pants and a red button-up shirt. Amy placed John in his high chair next to Robbie and everyone took a seat. They ate their meal and chatted about their day like a normal family that actually got along, for once, and Amy enjoyed it immensely. As they were finishing up their meal, George went around the table and refilled everyone's glasses and the boys' sippie cups.