Chapter 2 - Mother's Day -2003
The house was bustling around him and Henry found it hard to believe Elizabeth could sleep through all of this noise. Jason was running around from the living room to the kitchen putting his truck on every piece of furniture making truck noises. While Stevie complained in the midst of making Mother's Day breakfast with him. She was all upset about losing her soccer game yesterday and not understanding why her mother couldn't coach now that she was home. Alison continued in her quiet manner just playing with her Barbie's on the floor of the playroom. It would take her a few more days to be back to her chatty self. Her mother's absence always made her quiet and Henry privately thought she definitely missed Elizabeth the most.
Elizabeth, his beautiful wife, was asleep upstairs still working off her jet lag from her trip to the Middle East. Henry knew about her intelligence work, in fact he was proud of her for it, but he worried would never know exactly what she was doing and what nightmares it brought her. She had waked him up the last two nights, since she had returned. Over the years, she never wanted to sleep in on Mother's Day, but he left her in bed today as she needed the rest.
He had woken up early with Jason and while the girls were asleep and wouldn't ask questions, taking her bag outside he shook the sand out of her desert camo pants and other clothes and threw them in the washing machine. He hand washed her head coverings in the utility sink and hung them to dry.
He grabbed the flowers he bought the day before out of their second refrigerator and headed back into the kitchen. Jason was still sitting on the floor, drinking from his sippy cup while watching Sesame Street. Henry set the table placing the pink and yellow flowers with white roses in the vase. A bowl of her favorite dark chocolates next to the vase.
A half hour later, Henry was flipping pancakes for the kids and scrambling eggs in a pan for Elizabeth. Stevie moved form one topic to another not stopping to take a breath while she set the table. Just then, Alison shrieked and ran into the kitchen. Henry looked up from the stove to find Jason's car stuck in her hair after he ran it over her head.
While he tried to calm Allie down and keep breakfast from burning Stevie was yelling "Great, now we have to cut a chunk out of her hair" as she inspected her brother's handiwork. Allie just kept crying and Henry thought, "How in the hell is she still sleeping?" He wondered if she was pulling one of those Mother's Day moves, faking she was sleeping when she really wasn't. With pancakes and eggs off the stove, he was now trying to finagle the car wheel out of a strand of hair on the top of Alison's head, but every move he made she screamed even more.
"How did that even happen?" the incredibly, sexy raspy voce of his wife filled he room. Elizabeth was staring at him as she made her way over to the child. "I was cooking and Jason was playing with his truck and he must have ran it over her head and the wheel got stuck."
"That's exactly what happened," cried the 4-year old, "because he's a dumb, stupid baby."
"Noodle, don't say that about your brother." Elizabeth took the car from Henry and said,"Here let me finish and do her hair. You go finish breakfast.
With the car out of Alison's hair and it now back in a French braid, to hide the chunk she had to cut out through screams and tears. They were finally all seated at the table. Henry watched as Elizabeth devoured her breakfast of eggs, pancakes and coffee. It always took her a day or so to adjust, once she did, food was always a priority.
They laughed as Stevie topped her pancakes with a giant mound of canned whipped cream and sprinkles. Jason's face and hands were covered with chocolate from his chocolate chip pancakes. Henry was showing Alison how to throw blueberries in the air and catch them in your mouth. As hard as she tried, they kept bouncing off her face, causing she and Stevie to break out into a fit of giggles.
For Elizabeth, she could not be happier. The last three weeks had been draining in Iraq, with a few tortures but also some key intelligence gathering that was successful. She knew she was ready to talk to Henry but hadn't had the time yet this morning.
Following breakfast, she opened her gifts from the kids. Alison gave her a Noodle necklace she made at school. Filled with all different painted pastas: rigatonis and wheels strung on a pink piece of yarn, Elizabeth held it up and inspected it. "Noodle, I love it," as she put it on. Henry smiled at her. Alison beamed at her, "I think it will go with your work clothes. Now, you can take me with you to work everyday and when you travel."
Elizabeth almost laughed, as she looked at Henry barely able to keep a straight face. "Well, I will absolutely do that."
"Open mine, Mommy," Stevie handed her a pink bag that felt incredibly light. Elizabeth pulled out a piece of paper painted was a light blue background and a grassy meadow. That part she could figure out. The taller skinnier figure with a lot of blonde hair was clearly her. Next to her was a smaller stick figure with slightly darker hair and bigger than the head blue eyes. That was clearly Stevie. In the middle were a large brown blob and a smaller black spot. Elizabeth thought to herself, "Maybe rocks, maybe something else?"
"Stevie this is such a beautiful painting of us. Thank you. Are these boulders over here?"
The child furrowed her brow back at her mother and said, "No, those are our horses. Why would you think they are rocks?"
"Well, I didn't see their legs so I thought," she looked at Henry for help but there was none as he was enjoying this exchange.
"Oh no, Mommy. I put them down for a nap like you do with Alison and Jason." Stevie answered her, smiling away, "Do you still love it?"
"Of course, I do. I am going to hang it up in my office," she looked back down at the painting and whispered "Napping horses. Who knew?"
Henry got up to hand her two other bags. "I definitely did not. But I thoroughly enjoyed watching you try to figure it out. " He laughed and handed her the blue bag before the silver one. "Here's Jason's and mine."
She reached into the blue bag and pulled out a toy blue Corvette. "A car just for Mommy," she leaned over and kissed her chocolate covered son who was finishing his fruit in his highchair oblivious to what was going on.
The silver bag was smaller and she eyed her husband in a flirtatious way, knowing that jewelry was coming. She reached into the bag and pulled out a small box. Opening it, shining back at her was an emerald, a diamond and a sapphire, the kids' birthstones.
"Oh Henry" she sighed, tears forming in her eyes. "I love it."
"Look inside the ring," he said smiling back at her with a smitten look.
She spoke softly as she read the inscription, "two for sure, three if we're lucky."
She got up from her chair, her light pink pajama pants falling low on her hips since she lost weight on her trip. Her gray shirt pulled up from her waist, Henry was able to feel the warmth of her skin as he wrapped his arms around her.
With the girls watching Lizzie McGuire and Jason safely inside the gated playroom happily playing with cars. They got away from the kids for ten minutes. They had become masters of the quickie. Elizabeth showered as Henry called his mother to say "Happy Mother's Day."
When she came downstairs, they both noticed chocolates missing from the bowl. They questioned Stevie and she claimed she didn't have any. Elizabeth picked up Jason to go change them for their walk to the playground. She carried him upstairs and set him down on his changing table as he held a car up in the air in front of her face yelling "Vroom, Mommy. Vroom." "Yes. Vroom. Good job, Buddy, We will play cars later but now let's get you changed for the park."
"Park!" he repeated back to her.
"You want to go on the swings with your sisters?" Elizabeth asked, lifting him up to pull his sweats up. She sat him down and pulled a t-shirt over his head then scooped him up and placed him on the floor. He toddled around as she opened his curtains and the window. It was a beautiful sunny day and she couldn't wait to get the kids outside.
They took the ten-minute walk to the park. Henry pushed Jason in the stroller while Allie preferred to skip alongside holding Elizabeth's hand. Stevie was standing in front of Henry, riding on the big kid part of the stroller. Once at the park, the girls ran around with friends while Jason played in the sandbox. Elizabeth and Henry sat on a bench, never taking their eyes off all three kids while they talked about her trip.
"I think I want to write a dissent memo on the failure of torture. It is a violation of humanity and it never gets us anywhere. Worked my ass off to bring in this guy, we lost him during the waterboarding. I was furious at Hurst. We got nothing out of him. So, what's the point in that?" Elizabeth was leaned up on her knees talking quietly to him as she watched her children.
Henry rubbed her back, "Look, I don't disagree with you. How do you think Conrad will take it?"
"I'll probably get put on the Latvia desk or something." She glanced at him and they both laughed sitting there together.
Allie moved to the swings and was struggling to get up on one. Henry got up and ran over to help her. Elizabeth took Jason by the hand and walked over to the swings. She attempted to put him in the baby swing but he refused only wanting to be in his mother's arms. Not surprising considering she had just been gone for almost a month.
She found the empty swing next to Alison and she sat with Jason facing behind her his arms tight around her neck. Elizabeth swung slowly when the Rasmussen's came over to chat. They became engrossed in conversation and weren't paying much attention to Jason, who now had a strand of Elizabeth's hair in his hand and his mouth.
Henry glanced over and caught a glimpse of him and had just begun to say "Elizabeth" when Jason choked and threw up all down the back of her. Elizabeth made the mistake of pulling him back to her front so she could see him. They now knew who had eaten the chocolate while they were upstairs but that chocolate was now all over Elizabeth.
Henry grabbed Jason and stood him up. Dolly ran to her backpack and pulled out wipes and began trying to clean Jason off while he was crying. Elizabeth took off her sweater being very grateful she had thrown a cami on under it.
Allie sat in horror watching and eventually said, "Is he okay?"
Elizabeth told her, "He's fine. He just choked but we do have to get home to clean up. Can you run and go get your sister?"
Allie jumped off the swing and yelled, "Stevie, we have to go. Jason puked!" With that, the whole playground stopped and stared at them.
Elizabeth gave a bit of a smile and said, "Thanks, Noodle. But, I could have done that. I meant walk over and get your sister."
An hour later, Jason was bathed and asleep for a nap in his crib. Elizabeth had showered for the second time that day and washed her hair three times to get the stench out. She was now sprawled out on the couch with Allie lying in front of her while they watched "Beauty and the Beast." Stevie sat on the floor beneath them, while Elizabeth slowly ran her fingers through her hair.
She was so happy to be home. The trip to Iraq had been a long, tough one. They had conducted three raids on homes all filled with children. The look of horror on their eyes would never leave her, in particular, the eye contact she had made with one boy in Safir's home. This time it was hard to compartmentalize everything. The sadness she felt for those children while her own children lived safely here in the United States. Birth luck, they called it. But, she could never come to terms with that, when the forces that created horrible conditions for children were ones that could be prevented.
"I love this part! Don't you, Mommy!" Stevie brought Elizabeth out of her trance.
"I do! The way her dress twirls and sways. So pretty. And the Beast has learned all of his manners," she replied to her.
Later they ate dinner, of burgers and fries with ice cream for dessert. She bathed the girls while Henry put Jason down for the night. She climbed into Allie's bed with both girls and read three stories to them with Stevie's help. They begged her for one more and she easily obliged, even though it was a school night.
It wasn't long before the kids were all tucked in and she and Henry were in bed exploring each other once again. They always needed this after one of them traveled. A chance to reconnect. Later, she lay in Henry's arms.
"Did you have a good day, Babe?" he asked.
She laughed, "Well despite the chocolate explosion, I would call it a perfect Mother's Day."
"Ha. Years from now we will laugh at this day. Can't wait to see you in your suit tomorrow with your noodle necklace," he chuckled.
"Oh, I texted Conrad. Taking tomorrow at home. I am exhausted and I need another day to recuperate and think about where I want to go with this torture thing. Want to join me?"
"Absolutely," Henry answered and they both fell asleep.