What a Difference a Night Makes

The continuation.

The next day he awoke as though from a coma, exhausted but ready to live again, and seeing the world for what seemed the first time. His usual morning headache was absent when he woke up. For the first time in a long time he turned off his alarm clock before it screamed at him. His wife’s side of the bed was empty.
    The thought that she could’ve left in the night, escaped to her mother’s, checked herself into a mental hospital, or worse, vanished when he heard her whistling in the kitchen. He remembered the song, The Beatles’ In My Life, had been one of her favorites during their courtship.
    When he came into the kitchen fully dressed for work, his wife was there to greet him with a kiss. “Sit down,” she said. “Your breakfast’s almost done.” Janie sat at the breakfast table eating oatmeal and strawberries.
    His smiling wife by the stove, his smiling daughter with oatmeal on her chin, and the cat licking its lips all seemed to look at him at the same time. “I was thinking we could take a trip for Janie’s spring break. It’s coming up in two weeks, right?” he said.
    “I think so,” said Janie. “I don’t know.”
    “Well, I’ve made up my mind and no one’s going to change my mind,” he said, looking down at the hot plate his wife was placing before him.
    “D’you want coffee or a glass of milk?” she said on the way to the cupboard.
    “Where are we going, Dad? To grandma’s? To Aunt Carly’s?” She was getting more excited with each wrong guess. “To the beach? Are we going to the beach? Are we?”
    “Way better. I’ll take coffee, Mary. Thanks. Way better than the beach or Grandma’s or Aunt Carly’s. Way, way, way better. But if you can’t guess then we might not be able to go.”
    “No!” she said with sudden seriousness. “That’s not fair! I’m only seven. I don’t know the whole world. Give me a hint. Please, please, please with sugar on top?” She smiled so that all her teeth showed and put her hands together as if in prayer. “Please!”
    “Somewhere in Florida.”
    “The beach!”
    “Nope. Where we’re going there’s a castle and there’s giraffes and elephants-”
    “The circus!”
    “…and princesses and talking teacups and beauties and beasts and goofy dogs and big mice-”
    “Disneyland!”