Prompt: Carousel, from the tumblr one-word prompts list.
Overhead, the sky was a vibrant, cloudless blue, and the district's cherry blossoms were in full bloom. Along the paths of the National Mall, they cast a pink hue in the spring sunshine, one that spread its rosy glow onto Elizabeth's skin. When the wind blew, not cold but cooler, it lifted a spray of loose petals into the air, where they spiraled into a dizzying swirl and then settled like confetti.
Uplifted. Uprooted.
Elizabeth wondered, what was the difference?
The ground was cold beneath her; it hovered a few steps behind the open air, not yet warmed to the lush green that spring and summer would soon herald.
In front of her, the carousel- a staple of the National Mall here between the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building. As she watched, it turned in seemingly endless circles, one carved animal giving way to the next on a loop.
It was a storybook Saturday. The sun was shining, a cardinal sang in the tree above her, the scent of cherry blossoms wafted through the air, and even as Elizabeth watched, her own happy family appeared on the carousel's circular path.
Henry held Jason in place on one of the carousel horses, and their two daughters sat side by side just in front of him. She looked on as Alison and Stevie twisted in their seats to look at Henry, smiling and laughing and carefree.
Her chest burned with the fierce ache of want.
She wanted to be with them; she did. She wanted to be standing, feet planted on the turning platform between her two daughters, laughing and looking at Henry. She wanted to be free.
Nearby, the fallen cherry blossom petals were whisked away in another stray breeze.
Uplifted, uprooted, carried on in their journey.
The carousel turned and turned.
Henry and their children disappeared from view again, and Elizabeth missed the sight of them.
Maybe, what Elizabeth really wanted was to want the things she knew she should.
Surely, she thought, there was something wrong with her for wanting to be behind a desk in a little office at Langley instead of here on a perfect spring morning, spending time with the family she had once longed for so desperately. She thought of Juliet.
Juliet wanted a family, too. Someday, she said.
In the recesses of her mind, tucked away in a little corner that Elizabeth refused to allow herself to access with consciousness, there was a voice. It whispered to her now, almost too quiet to hear.
It could have been you, if you'd waited for someday.
On the carousel, Henry and the children appeared again. Stevie and Alison were reaching out to one another, their hands clasped to bridge the space between their two carved wooden horses. Henry was laughing; though he was too far away for Elizabeth to hear, the sound echoed like church bells in her mind.
This time, when her lungs ached, it was with the sting of guilt.
Come and ride with us, Stevie had said.
You guys go ahead, Mama's going to watch.
Henry's voice rang in her head, on a long and torturous loop.
I don't know what it'll look like when you get back.
In the end, it had been her decision. She stepped down, she conceded, she went to Henry and told him that he was right. She apologized, she deferred, she offered her resignation. She typed it up. She printed it out. She walked herself to Dalton's office and handed it in. She pushed away the questions.
I need to focus on my family.
He told her that he understood, but Elizabeth still felt as if she herself did not. The subtle thrum of disappointment was not lost on her, even when he was trying so valiantly to mask it.
It won't be goodbye, I hope, Dalton had said when she left. The message was clear; he believed in her, the door was left cracked open, the book was open-ended.
But it felt like finality.
And as much as Elizabeth had wanted to be a mother- craved it, needed it, even- and as much as she loved her family, she found herself now sitting on the grass in her blue jeans and feeling utterly purposeless.
There was momentum in her work. There were goals, and marathons to run, and somewhere to reach.
Her desk at Langley had been cleared out on Thursday, and now it was Saturday, and she was just Elizabeth.
A week ago, she'd been on a path- winding, steep, narrow, dangerous- but still a path, one that would eventually emerge somewhere. Today, she felt like she was on a carousel herself. Not in the way that Henry and her children were.
More so, in the way the horses were. Welded. Stuck. Spiraling.
But she knew that she had to pick up her feet and walk on, shake off the bridle and break free.
She could not stay there, on the carousel forever.
She looked at the intricately carved horses; as the carousel turned, an empty one with a lacquered black mane passed by her. The horsehair was only wood, really, but somehow it was still lifted in an imaginary wind.
And that gave Elizabeth an idea.
The cherry blossoms rose up again, and this time their spinning and fluttering did not seem so aimless, suddenly. They were going somewhere, even in their contentment not to know it.
It was time to step down from the carousel.
"Mama!"
Jason had broken away from his father and big sisters and he raced ahead of them across the grass toward her, smiling, his little arms outstretched; Elizabeth's heart leapt against her ribs, straining for joyful freedom. She swept him up into her arms and spun him around, and he giggled and clutched her shirt in his hands.
When she looked up, Henry was there, and there was a tenderness in his hazel gaze that sent something swirling inside her chest.
Her own spray of petals, lifted in the warm breeze of the way Henry looked at her.
Briefly, it occurred to her that had she gone to Baghdad, he may never have looked at her like that again.
"Hi," she said; soft, warm, and just for Henry.
He smiled. He couldn't help it.
Elizabeth was not in Baghdad. She was here- close enough to touch, speaking to him with the familiar deepness that he loved. She might have still been angry with him, but Henry maintained that it was worth it, if he could save her from losing the sharp shimmer in her ocean gaze.
"Hi," he answered, and he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers.
When he drew back, he looked at her and found that something had shifted. Somehow, indescribably, Elizabeth was not quite the same woman he'd left on the grass near the carousel.
"Henry," she said, before he could ask. Her eyes sparkled like a fire had been lit within her. "I had an idea."
"Yeah?" he asked; reluctantly, instinctively, he pulled his gaze from her to check on their children. The three of them were already running circles around their parents in an impromptu game of tag.
He looked back up at Elizabeth, and suppressed a flash of surprise when she took his hand in hers and held on tightly.
"I want to buy a horse farm," she declared.
Henry stared at her for a moment, and just when Elizabeth was sure he was about to tell her she was crazy, his face broke into a wide and bright smile that made him instantly look just like their little boy.
The transformation took Elizabeth's breath away.
"Let's do it," Henry said. This was the moment he'd been searching for as he fumbled in the darkness, uncertain of his aptitude for guiding their family, but knowing that he could not sit back and do nothing.
"Really?" Elizabeth asked.
In her childlike excitement, she smiled in such a way that Henry suddenly saw their daughters reflected in her face.
"Really," he said.
"You're up for that?" she asked, like she couldn't quite grasp how easy it had been. "We've never-"
Henry shook his head, and took a step closer to her so that they were standing chest to chest and he could feel the heat that rolled off of her skin and smell the top notes of apple blossom in her perfume.
"With you?" he said. He looked down at her, and her heart skipped a beat at the dark certainty in his eyes. "I'm up for anything."
Elizabeth smiled, and kissed him like she meant it.
Behind them, the carousel was still.