An unforgettable Weekend.

Weekends. Weekends are the worst in the Green household. For Nickay, it means cleaning, cooking, washing, and grocery shopping. The sweet aroma of pancake and freshly roasted coffee whift through the half-open bedroom door and fill Nickay’s nose as she tries desperately to fall back asleep so she can get a little more rest before the crazy weekend begins.

She twists and turns for what seems like forever, then eventually gave up the fight after she saw that it was useless. “I hate weekends” she growls to herself as she sleepily dragged herself to the bathroom to get herself ready for the day ahead.

“I made coffee” she heard a voice saying as she made her way to the kitchen. Sitting at the table with a plate stocked with blueberry pancakes drenched in maple syrup and his favorite ‘I love New York’ mug was Orion, Nickay’s husband. Nickay smile when she saw the plate of pancakes in front of him knowing how much he loves blueberry pancakes. “Thank you for that” she shouted back at him as she stood on tiptoe to take a mug from the top shelf of the cupboard.

Nickay was all but five feet tall. Orion, on the other hand, was much taller at a little over 6ft 4inc. The kitchen was modern and updated with a lot of cupboards from one end of the wall to the next end and has a pantry on the left corner next to the refrigerator. One of the main reasons Nickay agreed to purchase that condo was because of the amount of storage the kitchen has. But with all that storage space available, Orion always packs the cups on the top shelf whenever he unloads the dishwasher. After talking about it for the first few months of moving in, Nickay gave up when she realized he was a creature of habit.

“These smell amazing” Nickay whispered to herself as she placed two blueberry pancakes on her plate with some scrambled eggs. She made her way to the dining table with her mug of steaming black coffee in one hand and her pancakes and eggs in the next and took a seat next to Orion who was now on his last pancake.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning. The sun was beaming in through the kitchen windows and the wind gently swing the window curtain back and forth. The birds were out chirping, and Mr. Miller the next-door neighbor with his dog could be seen in the distance walking up the street coming back from their early morning walk.

“What time are you going to work today?” Nickay asked Orion who is now reading something on his phone screen. He slowly turned away from his phone and gave her a puzzled look before responding that he took the day off.  Nickay was too caught up in her head thinking about all the things she had to get done that she did not question him. Orion works for himself, so he can choose whichever day to not go to work. Nickay did find it strange however that he would take a weekend off, especially a Saturday which is normally the busiest day at the garage, but she did not bother to question it.

After breakfast was over, Nickay got up and clear the table. Orion had already put his plate and cup in the sink and left the kitchen to take a call. Normally he would clean up after breakfast but be was on the call for more than fifteen minutes now, and Nickay did not want to leave the kitchen dirty, so she just went ahead and wash everything in the sink and the empty pots that were left on the stove.

Thirty minutes have now pass and Orion was still on the phone. Nickay does not normally get suspicious of his phone calls knowing he does business on his phone, but at that moment, she was starting to wonder why he had to leave the room which he does not normally do to take that particular call.

Orion was standing on the back porch with his back turned to the entrance door. Nickay walks closer to see if she could hear what he was saying but the moment she got close to the entrance door Orion turn around with a guilty look on his face and abruptly end the call. “Who was that?” Nickay asked. Orion still looking at her with wide eyes fumbled to put the phone in his pocket just stared at her for what seemed like an hour. At that point, Nickay is getting upset. He was acting suspiciously and was not answering her question. “Who was that?” she asked again in a much louder voice. When Orion saw that she was getting upset he mustered up a nervous grim and told her it was a business call.

Nickay could tell he was lying. They have been together for eight years and she could tell whenever he was lying. Orion hardly ever lies to Nickay. After going through a rough patch at the beginning of their relationship, they both promise each other total honestly no matter what. So why was he lying? Nickay thought to herself. Was he cheating on me? Did I walk in on him talking to another woman? All these questions were floating around in her head. Not wanting to start an argument and afraid of the answer she would get if she asked the questions, Nickay brushed it off and went upstairs to start cleaning up.

Being caught up in her thoughts and still thinking about Orion’s strange phone call, Nickay did not hear when Orion enter the room or hear him talking to her until he was touching her on the back snapping her out of her thoughts. “I said come with me I have something to show you” Orion repeated. “What is it?” she asked as she follows him out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Orion did not answer her but kept on walking as if he did not hear her talking. Nickay was still mad at him about that phone call earlier and was trying her best to not show it.

 As she walked down the stairs and got closer to the bottom, she heard chattering coming from the living room. Before she could make out the voices all she heard was chorus of voices shouting Surprise!

 Standing in front of her was her best friend Ava, Sisters Shawna and Nicole, and her cousin Nick holding up big gold inflated balloons that spell ‘Happy Birthday’. Nickay was so surprised that all she could do was stand there with her mouth hanging open. She looked over to Orion who was standing next to her with a big grin on his face. “Happy Birthday baby” he whispered loud enough for her to hear still grinning. 

“Oh my god, it is my birthday!” Nickay shouted now realizing what was going on. “It is my birthday” she repeated more to herself still in disbelief.  

Everyone walked over to her and hugged her and told her happy birthday. “How could this happen?” she whispered to herself still in disbelief that she forgot her own birthday.

Everyone made their way to the living room and that’s when she saw it. By the fireplace was a beautiful floral arraignment made out of rose that spell ‘Happy Birthday’. On the table, there were at least six pizza boxes and an ice bucket with four bottles of what looks like wine and champagne. On the coffee table was a box with cupcakes, and next to it was a beautiful birthday cake with her name written on it. On the dining room table were containers with food and plastic plates.

Nickay just stood there observing the room still cannot believe what was happing in front of her. After the reality of what was happing settled in, Nickay walked over to Orion and asked when he got time to do all of this. Orion feeling very proud of himself turns to her smiling and whispered, “this was what I was planning this morning with Ava when you caught me on the phone”.  At that moment all the questions Nickay was stressing about instantly vanished.

It has been many years since she celebrated her birthday. Ever since her accident on her 23rd birthday which resulted in the death of her cousin Rob, Nickay swore off celebrating her birthday ever since. Since it was her 30th birthday, and Orion wanted it to be special and know she would not want to go out to celebrate, it was very thoughtful of him to bring the celebration to her in the comfort of her home with the people she loves the most.

Forget all the stress of the weekend and all the undone chores, because at that very moment Nickay was happy, happiest Orion has seen her in a while. And Nickay knows there and then that she was lucky to have a husband like Orion who went above and beyond to make her birthday special, for having a best friend like Ava to help with the plans and to have sisters and cousin who would take the weekend off to celebrate with her.  Everything was perfect. Nickay had the best weekend of her adult life with the people she loves, and that for her was indeed a weekend she would always remember.