32 Flavors

Prompt:

January 10

32 Flavors

Vanilla, Chocolate, or something else entirely

‘For my birthday, I would like to have ice cream in 32 flavors’ she said weakly, as he sat by her hospital bed. He watched the nurse give her a shot of insulin and waited for her to leave the room.

‘Only 32 flavors eh?’ He said and pulled her cheek. ‘Yup. Only. I could take a spoon of each and tell you which one you should never try’ She said with a little excitement in her voice. ‘Yeah? And who says your taste is my taste?’ he raised a brow. ‘Haha… Honey, I AM your taste.’ She snickered. And they both laughed.

He knew that they both knew that the whole conversation was a joke. Diabetes, however, was not a joke. She was already looking in her ‘afar off’ place, so he pulled her cheek one more time and said, ‘Hey… don’t have such little hopes in me. I’ll make it happen in the safest way. Trust me’ And he winked.

On her birthday, he walked into the hospital room with a stalk of rose, his laptop and speakers and a sealed note. He set down the laptop and speaker, gave her the rose with a peck on her cheek and said, ‘Now I present to you your 32 flavors’

‘My Choco Cherry, I would bake you a Birthday Cake and would love you from here to the Blue Moon and back if only I had the slightest idea on how to bake or how to stay awake to witness a blue moon. I could Peach the idea to a baker or an insomniac but I cannot risk some Mexican Chocolate or French Vanilla stealing the heart of my baby. It’s your birthday today and I woke up this morning, had some Coffee and just thought to myself how really happy I am to be your husband. I remember your last birthday when I made you such Salty Caramel cake and messed up to the kitchen floor to the point where it looked like a Fudge Marble and you came into the kitchen looking all beautiful in your Lemon Chiffon dress. You laughed, shook your head, sat at the table and ate almost all of the nonsense I had made.

Since then, we have had a sort of Rocky Road with the doctor’s diagnosis and the dramatic health issues but Pumpkin, you and your Sweet Coconut head have been perfect all through.

Now it’s a new year for you, and you desire Chocolate and Vanilla and Strawberry ice cream but they say you can’t have any of that so I simply got you a stalk of Rose. Who needs their ice cream anyway, you are a thousand flavors on your own… sweeter than any ice cream.

I cannot wait for when we have children- hopefully, they would be as amazing as you are- just the right Chocolate Chip off the old block. I close my eyes and imagine a time when we’d bake them Chocolate Brownies and make then Chocolate Custard, and then console ourselves that we aren’t the worst parents in the world when we let them eat of the Cookie Dough or feed them Rum Raisins.

My mind also wanders to the time when you would come home and bath in that Lavender Honey body wash and fill the whole house (and my head) with that awesome scent. I think also, of the past, when we tried flavors that sounded strange to us like the Garlic Ice Cream, Caramel Praline, Crab Ice Cream, No Tell Ahh! and Coffee Molasses Chip flavors or more sensible ones like Egg Nog, Black Raspberry Crunch and Peppermint Chip.

I’m thinking about the past and the future but they are not as important as the now. In the now, you are mine and I am yours and any other thing in between matters not. And now, today, I would stay by your bedside and play all your best songs just to hear you say in your fake gangsta voice, ‘That’s My Jam’