You thought this was about losing weight. These six stories are perfect for any Valentine’s Day.
“Is This What Romance Looks Like” created by featured short story authors at RedBook.
The happiest couples know that big romance lives in the smallest moments. So keep your champagne and caviar, your roses and candlelight. We’ll take the simple, sweet memories that breathe love into every day.
Six writers share theirs.
Sickness and Health
by Catherine Newman author of Waiting for Birdy.“Is that your husband?” The ER nurse is pointing to you, the fever-spiked lump who is snoring softly and muttering beside me. We’ve been here for hours, and for hours I’ve returned my lips over and over to your scalding forehead, as if to cool it, or, perhaps, to comfort myself.
“A few months ago, when my husband and I transitioned our son, Sawyer, into a big-boy bed, he refused to nap alone. We explained that we couldn’t sleep with him; there was no room in his bed. Of course, he found a loophole. “Sleep next to my bed,” he said. “There’s room on my rug.” Except he kept peeking over his guardrail to giggle at the sight of us. “Use my blanket and build a tent and you lie under it on the rug,” he said, “so I don’t see you.” From our hideout in the tent, we kept still, listening to our little boy rustling like a safari cub.”
“I’ve been married to Jason for over 17 years. Which means I’ve woken up beside him something like 46,225 times. That’s a really nice thing, easing into the new day with a person you dig. And whether one or both of us are rushing out the door with the kids during the week or we’re savoring the horizontal-friendly nature of the weekends, our mornings always kick off the same way: with coffee.”
Give and Take
by Amy Wilensky is the author of The Weight of It.“I actually remember the tie — a fairly gruesome paisley specimen from the only mall within driving distance of our college. I remember the morning light filtering in through the window, the sound of the shower running. I remember concentrating as I made the first fold: over, then under.”
“My husband and I both knew early on how high the stakes were for our relationship, but instead of liberating us, that knowledge made us nervous and polite. He held back; I obsessed, and I overdressed. It could have gone on like that forever, or ended in a stalemate, except that Alan persuaded me a few months in to join him at a bar to watch the opening match of the World Cup — a game that started at 3 in the morning. Something about waking up together at that hour of the night and walking down a desolate city boulevard made us feel, from the outset, that our every step was a little momentous.”
“Marriage squashes romance. Sex leads to children. Moisture can make rashes. That what I’ve become especially expert on — the rashes.
Am I a 40-something married (13 years!) woman missing the forest for the trees? Perhaps, but as a mother, I find myself obsessing not just over trees but over the actual leaves on the trees. I have to be sure those leaves aren’t oleander and that there’s no nearby stepladder my kids can push toward the leaves in order to pull them off and eat them. Recently I discovered my girls were cleaning out our kittens’ earwax with Q-tips. That knowledge filled me with…relief! So that’s what that snarl of Q-tips on my bed stand was! Not pretty, is family life.”
MikeZ – “makes me think about how lucky I am”
