A/N: Hey all! Here's something I've been wanting to toy around with a bit since seeing some social media posts about what "love is" according to kids.
Hope you enjoy!
"Alison says she's thirsty," Henry mumbles, coming down the creaking stairs slowly as he looks onward past Elizabeth, heading toward the fridge and grabbing a glass.
She rolls her eyes. Always giving in, she thinks to herself, but she doesn't say anything else. They've already had their words—they've both been wounded by each other enough the last few weeks.
Christmas had taken a toll on them. They went to the McCords house, Patrick and Elaine's, on Christmas Eve. Both of them were off work, of course, but Henry had writing to do up until December 23rd because he waited too long and was almost past his publisher's deadline. So on Christmas Eve, they arrived in Pittsburgh with the three kids in tow just to find his parents bickering nonstop.
Elizabeth isn't new to this. She's been in this family for thirteen years, she's aware of the bickering and the benders that Patrick occasionally goes on. She's seen them firsthand even before she and Henry were married, yet she still believed that Henry wasn't like his father. If Henry drank at all, it was a glass of wine or a beer with some friends, and that was his limit. He never did anything past that, and she's always been sure it's because he's seen the way his father has acted.
They shuffled the kids away from Elaine and Patrick in the kitchen just in time before Patrick went to raise a hand on her, and Elaine grabbed his wrist and yelled something about him being a drunk old man in front of his grandkids, and Elizabeth heard the back door slam as she ushered the kids upstairs with Henry. They'd gotten the kids settled in the room with their cousins just in time for Maureen to come up. She'd jabbed about how they were just hiding away from the family, and Elizabeth tried to stay silent for as long as she could, and finally she brushed past Maureen and exited the room to go lock herself in the bathroom. Henry had just stood by silently, watching it all happen, and didn't speak one word of defense for Elizabeth.
That night, they wrapped presents in silence together, and they put the rest of the "Santa" presents under the tree for their kids. Henry took a bite of the cookies like he always does. They went to bed without addressing any of the drama, mostly hungry since Elaine and Patrick—all Patrick, with Elaine defending herself—made the dinner so unbearable. She'd mumbled goodnight to him, he'd mumbled goodnight to her, and that was it for this Christmas Eve of 2006.
After the disaster of a Christmas, Henry and Elizabeth had bickered almost the entire way home, too.
Finances.
"I can't justify spending that much money, Henry, not when the house payment comes out next week."
His parents.
"Elizabeth, you know my parents mean well."
And finally, the big one: the disrespect.
"You just stood by and didn't say anything when Maureen was saying those things, Henry! You always let your family just say things about me and we all know what they call me behind our backs," the kids had been asleep for about thirty minutes, "Queen Elizabeth is so hilarious—just so funny." She said sarcastically.
"What was I supposed to say?"
"Anything!"
"You act like I have some kind of control over my family."
"You could at least defend your wife!"
They'd woken Stevie up from being too loud—and when she started asking questions, they shut up the entire rest of the way home.
And now, other than little things like "Alison says she's thirsty" or "Jason needs a towel" or "Don't forget the kids go back to school tomorrow," they haven't spoken a word to each other.
She picks up Alison's backpack and zips everything back up, setting it over to the side with Stevie's. She gathers the papers together and piles them up neater into two piles before grabbing Jason's backpack, knowing that he and Stevie are the two who always have the most random junk in their bags from school.
She'd been kicking herself that she hadn't gotten Stevie to do her own bag before bed, but she'd forgotten all about it. She's been tutoring some high schoolers in math a few times a week since they'd gotten home from Pittsburgh, something to bring in extra income while she and Henry are both off for the holidays. It wasn't much, but it was a little bit of a cushion for their otherwise emaciated bank account after buying presents and traveling and helping with Christmas dinner.
It also took almost everything in her to not look at the notes in Stevie's backpack. She's unfolded everything of Alison's, checking to see what's trash and what's something she possibly needs to be keeping, but with Stevie she's just tried to keep everything folded. She remembers being twelve—the little "love letters" and best friend notes that she would've died if she knew her mom read. And maybe she did read them, but Elizabeth told herself a long time ago she wouldn't do that to her kids unless she felt they were unsafe.
As she glances over at the stack of notes from Stevie's bag, though, her fingers twitch. She busies them in another way by opening Jason's bag instead of invading any small piece of privacy.
She digs everything out and gags when her fingers brush something sticky, carefully moving her hand to keep from touching it again. She pries the pocket open and looks down inside to see a lollipop, unwrapped and possibly already partially eaten. Cautiously, she slides her hand down and grabs the end of the stick, having to tug on it to get it unstuck from the material inside his bag.
After she throws it away, she looks through his notes to see what's trash and what isn't. Mostly old math homework that she's helped him with, that he's already gotten graded on. She tucks those away in his binder and sifts through some more.
She unfolds a paper that is scribbled with five-year-old's handwriting, and she struggles to read it. At the top, though, the words are printed on. A slot for his name, and then a sentence that reads says, "What is love? Write five sentences." She can't tell what exactly the date was based on Jason's handwriting, but she can make out that it says December, so it was not long before they got out for Christmas.
She furrows her brows, wondering what prompted Mrs. Hoffman to ask them, but she likes Mrs. Hoffman a lot and decides it was probably within reason. She reads on to Jason's answer, struggling to get through his…penmanship.
"Love is when Dad breaks the cookie and gives it to Mommy. It makes them laugh a lot. Then they share it and eat it together. I like it when they are nice because it makes me feel warm inside. Love is sharing the last cookie so everyone is happy."
She re-reads it three, and by the second time, she has tears in her eyes. With the note in hand, still in front of her face, she walks over to the kitchen table and sits down, leaning her elbows on the table and reading again. "I like it when they are nice." The thought flashes through her mind about how it must make him feel when they've been acting like they have since Christmas.
She hears footsteps coming down the stairs again, the old, creaky farmhouse not letting anyone sneak by. Quickly, she swipes at her tears and folds the note up, standing up and leaving it there before going back to his bag and finishing her job.
Henry quietly walks to the sink and starts doing the dishes behind her, and she doesn't say anything to him.
After the dishes are finished, she's moved on to packing lunches for them tomorrow, and he's cleaning off the kitchen table. "What's this?" She hears him ask.
When she turns around, she sees the note in his hand, "Read it," she instructs cooly.
She waits for him to open it before turning her whole body toward him, facing him as he, too, struggles to make it through Jason's handwriting, even with just five sentences. I really should work on that with him more, she thinks to herself, leaning against the countertop.
He turns around and looks at her, and they just stare for a moment. Neither of them can manage to say anything, but she hopes he says something first. When he folds the note back up, she simply holds her breath, waiting, but he turns away and continues cleaning off the table after he tosses the note over on the countertop. She watches him clean for a moment, then sighs and turns back to close their lunchboxes before shoving them into the fridge wherever she can find a spot.
When he says nothing else, she just walks up the stairs and takes herself to bed, leaving him down there to finish whatever else he was doing. She didn't care, she didn't want to know what else he was doing. There was more for her to clean, more for her to do, but she didn't want to bother with it right now.
By the time she's brushed her teeth and changed into her pajamas, he's making his way up the stairs. He shuts the door behind him and they make a brief eye contact, and she crawls into the bed and plops backwards, angrily pulling her lamp chain and sliding her book from the table.
She settles into her book, but she can't read anything. She just re-reads the same sentence over and over as he makes noise in the bathroom, brushing his teeth now and dropping things. Her cheeks feel red, and she realizes her jaw is clenched on one side. She tries to loosen it, but ultimately, she just shoots him a look across the bed.
Jason's handwriting flashes into her mind again. "I like when they are nice…"
She loosens her jaw finally and slams her book shut, sitting up in the bed and tossing her book onto her pillow. "We need to talk, Henry."
He looks over at her from the bathroom, his expression blank as his toothbrush is in his mouth. He shrugs, and she takes it to be a little passive aggressive, but she just keeps thinking of those words Jason wrote.
"This isn't us." She says, "We let the stress get to us."
"It isn't us," he says, his words garbled from the toothpaste before he spits it out and rinses his brush off.
She watches him and hopes for him to say something else, her heart feeling like it's beating way too fast for its own good. She clenches her fingers together tightly, "Did you read his note?"
He doesn't answer right away, instead he turns the bathroom light off and walks out, pushing his pajama pants off and crawling into bed in his boxers and tee. "Yes," he says, crawling under the blankets without making any eye contact with Elizabeth. "I remember that night clearly. I broke the cookie in half because you were going to complain about it otherwise."
She grits her teeth tighter, "Henry—" she cuts herself off, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Her fingernails dig into her palms. "I didn't mean to accuse you about everything going wrong on Christmas," she finally says, opening her eyes to stare at him heatedly. "You just…I hate it when you don't stick up for me. You don't ever defend me around them and…" she trails off for a moment, trying to take a deep breath as she looks down at the comforter.
"It's easier to keep the peace, Elizabeth." He says. "Aristotle says—"
"Damn what Aristotle says and thinks, Henry." She snaps, and she immediately regrets snapping when she says it. That's his entire livelihood, basically, and she just said damn it all. She licks her lips and prepares to dig herself out of the hole. "I'm your wife, why don't you stick up for me in front of them?"
"Because you don't need defending, Elizabeth." Henry says, finally looking over at her sharply. "You've never needed defending. You have a mind of your own and while, yes, maybe I should say something every once in a while, that's not who we are. I will defend you if I feel like you can't defend yourself. But I've never spoken for you, I've never stepped in front of you to defend you in a situation where you could defend yourself. It's not in your character to be defended like that."
She searches his eyes and buries her fingers into the comforter, tightening the material in her hands, "But it's your family. You know how they've always treated me."
"And you've always handled it."
"Just once I would like for you to stop Maureen when she's bitching at me for something I can't help." Elizabeth breaks, "Just once. Or when Patrick starts on his tirades about…about…God only knows what." She's too worked up to even think properly now, "I just want you to be there for me in front of your family."
"Imagine what that would look like, Elizabeth," he says, sitting up straight now, "To have me defend you every time they say something." She imagines it, and she hates the way it makes her feel. She feels like her body is trying to crumple in on itself to protect her very being. "It would make you small as a person, and that's the last thing I would ever want to do to you."
She looks at him and takes a deep breath, "I don't want to be small either, Henry," she whispers, shaking her head, "I just want you to stand next to me sometimes. Like the team we are supposed to be."
They're silent again, and she feels the weight in the air pressing down on each of her ribs. She almost gasps for air, feeling like she has forgotten to breathe, but she doesn't. She keeps it calm.
"It's not about being small," she adds, "It's about being supported."
She pokes her tongue into the side of her jaw and listens to the silence, letting it ring through her ears for a few moments longer. She looks down at her hands and loosens her grip on the comforter, taking a shaky breath as she thinks about the note Jason wrote.
"Do you know why I broke that cookie in half that night?" His words startle her from her thoughts, and she looks up at him to see him looking at her.
She thinks back to what he said just moments ago, that he broke it in half because she was going to complain about it if he didn't. So she just looks at him, feeling as though she probably looks like a beaten puppy, but she can't help it. Those words hurt her a little too much.
"I said it was because you were going to complain," he says, moving himself so that he's propped against their headboard now. "But really, it's because sharing the cookie with you—if I kept the whole cookie for myself, I would feel terrible. I would just feel like a selfish ass and wouldn't even be able to enjoy it. If I gave the entire cookie to you, I knew you would protest because that's who you are as a person—you wouldn't take something away from me just to have it all to yourself. So I broke it in half and shared it." He looks at her like she should be having an epiphany, but it just makes her cheeks get hot again.
"It's the same with defending you, Elizabeth," he says finally, "If I defended you every single time in every single space, I would just be…I feel like I'm reducing you as a person somehow. Like I'm just giving that whole cookie to you." He says, "Maybe it's wrong of me. Maybe I should defend you every single time," he says, "But I just…I don't think that's how you function."
She looks at him and swallows thick, getting his point even though it makes her feel annoyed. "Defending me once in front of them isn't going to be like giving me the entire cookie, Henry." She says quietly.
"Do you think that's all they ever say about you?" He asks, "Just in rooms that you are in? They only talk about you when you're there?" He asks, then shakes his head, "No. They find little ways to jab at you all the time, and I jab right back. But when you're there to defend yourself, no…I'm not going to do that." He says, "Unless you want me to, and then…" he laughs a little, shaking his head again, "That's just not who you are, Elizabeth. You don't need to have someone come and save you because you're not the damsel in distress."
"Sometimes I want to be, Henry," she breathes, looking at him again more pointedly, "Sometimes I don't want to do it. I want to be saved."
"And I save you, always, in every other situation." Henry assures, tilting his head just slightly, "What is it about them that makes you so insecure?" He asks, and it feels like it's pointed even though he's trying to ask it in a genuine way. She has to brush that thought off and gather herself. "You're not like that in any other situation."
She looks down again. Because I want to be perfect for you, for your family. I'm just the kid with no family still deep down, and I always will be. I want to keep the peace but I also am tired of being beaten down all the time by, specifically, Maureen. She doesn't say anything that she thinks. Instead, she just looks up at him, "They're the only family I have, Henry," she whispers, "I just have…I've always wanted them to accept me."
With that, there's another silence that weighs over the room, and he moves to her and takes her fingers in his hand, "I'm sorry if you felt like I wasn't defending you. I shouldn't have made you feel that way." He admits quietly, toying with the wedding ring on her finger, "I thought I was doing you a service by letting you defend yourself."
"Not always," she admits, swallowing thick and watching as he twists her ring around gently. "Sometimes breaking the cookie in half looks like you sharing that weight in front of me—right then and there you're taking half of the burden. I can't speak up against them, Henry, I can't do it." She admits, swallowing thick. "Breaking it in half looks like you speaking because I can't."
He looks up at her and rubs his finger across the back of her hand, then crawls closer to her and presses his lips against hers. "I'm sorry," he admits.
"I'm sorry too," she says, blinking a few times and taking a deep breath. "It wasn't all your fault."
"Christmas is hard with them," Henry admits.
"It always will be, won't it?"
He smiles sideways, twisting his lips around a bit, "I think so," he says, "It always has been hard, even before you."
She nods a little and lays down, putting her head in his lap. His hand rubs across her arm as she thinks again of Jason's note.
He swallows hard, "It's not that I didn't want to defend you," he adds suddenly, changing the subject back, "It's that I thought I would be diminishing your strength by letting you handle it alone."
"I am strong," she admits quietly, feeling his fingertips along her elbow, "But sometimes I just need you to share the weight of it all."
They let the silence settle around them, and Henry leans back into his pillow and is half-lying down, her head still resting around his abdomen.
"What is love?" She asks, no other context but referring back to Jason's note.
A long enough amount of time passes between them that makes her think he's fallen asleep, but his hand is still rubbing her arm. Finally, she feels his abdomen rise and he begins to speak, "Love is when I see you after a long day, and I feel like I can breathe again."
She smiles a little, her eyes batting slowly as she gets sleepier.
"What is love?" He asks her now, and she bites her lip as she thinks about it.
"Love is when our kids help me in the kitchen because they see you doing it," she whispers, rolling over to face him now, "Love is when you whisper in my ear and it send shivers down my spine, even if you whispered something about a grocery list."
They both snort at that, and she shimmies up to snuggle into the crook of his arm. He wraps it around her, his hand hovering over her chest and abdomen. "Maybe love is the way you fit perfectly in my arm," he says quietly. "How it feels like our bodies were made for each other."
"Because they were," she reminds playfully, rolling over slightly and sliding her hand up his shirt. She rests her forearm on his belly, her fingers toying with his chest hair, "Love…" she starts, smiling a little and slowly pecking his lips, "Is making up after a long few weeks of not speaking to each other." They laugh against each other's lips, little breathy spurts of air coming out of their nose as she continues to play in his chest hair.
His hand is up the back of her shirt, and now is sliding back downward into the waistband of her pants, "I wanna know what love is," he says, his voice almost sing-songy, "I want you to show me."
She snorts that time and pats him playfully on the chest, "Okay, Foreigner." She teases.
He kisses her again and she crawls on the top of his body, and yes—love is when their bodies fit perfectly like this, and any other way they try to fit them.