All we could hear for two minutes was Millie happily screaming into the phone. “I can’t believe it!” she yelled.
“Congratulations!” Tom said.
“Thank you,” Anna and I said at the same time.
Her parents asked a bunch of questions and congratulated us a few more times before finally hanging up the phone.
“I love you, Anna,” I said to her.
“I love you too, Justin. And I love you, Margie,” she said to us.
“I love you too, mommy,” she said and threw her arms around her. “I can call you mommy now, right?”
Anna nodded her head. “Yes, yes. You can.”
“Let’s go celebrate,” I said to my girls.
“Where at?” Anna asked.
“The Italian restaurant we went to with your parents about a year ago,” I suggested.
Margie jumped up. “Yes! Let’s go there!”
“Okay, let me finish closing up for the day, first,” Anna said.
After fifteen minutes, Anna was finished and had locked up the studio. We walked out to my car where we got inside, and I drove to the restaurant. When we got there, I approached the hostess stand and said, “I have a 4:30 reservation for three under the name Justin.”
The hostess scanned a piece of paper with her eyes and placed her finger on something. “Yep, here it is. Have a seat, and we’ll get your table ready,” she said.
The three of us sat down, and Anna hit me on the arm.
“You already made reservations?” she asked with a smile.
“Yep.”
“And what if I had said no?”
I looked at her. “You wouldn’t have.”
“Oh, is that so? What makes you think that?” she asked with a sly grin.
“Because you love us too much,” Margie said, exaggerating the word “too.”
“That’s true,” Anna said.
Our table was ready within two minutes, and we were seated in a private area.
“You booked a whole room just for us three?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes, I’ve been planning this for a while.”
“Obviously,” she said, and amazement was evident on her face. “That sure is a big table for just the three of us.”
Just as she was about to sit down, people filed into the room.
“SURPRISE!” they all yelled in unison.
There was my mom, her parents, Ally, and Artie.