A Love Story Just for Two
On Sundays, they set the children up with entertainment, full bowls of cereal, and a milk pitcher at their reach. They remind the bigs to help out the littles, acknowledging the multitude of spills that will await them upon their return, the pain they accept for their gain. And then they slowly tiptoe away, hot coffee in hand, cocoon under the down comforter of their quiet (for now) retreat to read the morning paper together.
He always starts with the front page, the headlines news, the dramatic reports, the detailed research. Show me the facts, he says.
She hunts for a different kind of drama—the Modern Love column. Tell me a story, she says. Writers have dream publications; this section is hers.
Yet, while she reads tales of hookups and breakups, new love and lost love, clandestine meetings and illicit affairs, she knows their story will never be here. Their love isn’t modern or front page news, dramatic or scintillating. Their story is a predictable one: college sweethearts meet in the cafeteria, decide they want to grow up together, and so they do. The end. Their conflict is quiet, resolved before bedtime. Their plot lines are unremarkable—no plans for Hallmark rights anytime soon. If you were to ask them about the greatest climax of their relationship, three children and 19 years later, they would probably tell you it is finally achieving this ritual of hot coffee and a Sunday paper.
But this doesn’t feel like a dream lost to her. She knows not every love story requires a publisher. Some stories are meant just for two, read slowly over a lifetime, quietly in bed, simply and beautifully together. The end.
Image created by @phoenixfeatherscalligraphy for C+C, 2021
This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series "280 words.”
PS. Have you signed up for the Raise & Shine Letter yet? It comes out mid month-ish, a love story of my days, sure to bring a bit more love to your own story.