Work Text:
May 1997
“What letter sounds like mmm?” Mommy asks. They’re sitting at the table on the patio. The daffodils and tulips are blooming in the bed by the back door. But even in the sun, it’s not so warm that Mommy and he aren’t both wearing sweaters.
Kurt knows his letters; what he doesn’t understand is why there’s a ‘u’ in aunt. “That’s easy, Mmmommy.” he says and rises up to his knees to lean over the tabletop. He tightens his grip on the green crayon before making a tall, sharp peaked ’M’ on the card. He already knows how to spell words with ’M’. Mommy was the first word he learned to spell. And then Daddy and Kurt and Burt and Lizzie and Hummel and 357 Maple Lane; Lima, Ohio.
“What’s next? Sound it out.”
“Mm-ihll-duh-rreh-d,” he says, trying to isolate and enunciate each sound the way Mommy has taught him to do. “Mm-ih. Mih. 'I’?”
“Good boy, that’s right!”
Kurt makes a straight up-and-down line and then carefully draws perpendicular bars across its top and bottom. He’s writing a thank you letter to Aunt Mildred for the pajamas she sent him for his birthday. They’re shortie ones for the summer and have drawings of different colored birdhouses and birds and nests with eggs. He likes how colorful and soft they are.
The finished note takes so long, but Mommy brings him a plate of three chocolate chip cookies and a red Tupperware cup of grape juice when he’s done. He looks at the writing with pride. It’s the longest thing he’s ever written: “Dear Aunt Mildred, Thank you for the pajamas. I like them a lot. They’re pretty and soft. Love, Kurt.”
Mildred and pajamas were the hardest words, but he likes the way they look on the page in green crayon letters. He picks up his yellow, orange, and red crayons to draw tulips and daffodils around the edges of the note. He picks up his black crayon next and draws some ants along the bottom, because aunt and ant should be spelled the same way.
“Why does Aunt Mildred call you Betty?” he asks, carefully giving each ant exactly six legs. “But Dad calls you Lizzie?”
“Because they’re nicknames,” she explains. "Both are short for Elizabeth.”
Kurt frowns. “Your name is Elizabeth?”
She laughs. “Yes.”
“Like the Queen?” he asks, growing wide-eyed and incredulous.
“Yes, just like the Queen.”
“Mommy, that’s astounding. Do you have a crown?”
“Hmm. You know what? I think I still have my tiara from my wedding.”
“May I see it?” he asks. “Will you wear it? And…” He pauses to catch his breath with a hiccup. The complexity of the sounds in Elizabeth mystify his nascent intuition about spelling and letters. It’s bound to be the longest word yet, and that’s exciting. “Would you please teach me how to write your name?”
“Of course, sweetheart,” she says, and Kurt reaches for a new sheet of paper and the Vivid Violet crayon–it’s her favorite color.
For a few weeks after that, Kurt takes to calling his Mommy Elizabeth, because lots of children have Mommies, but he has an Elizabeth, and that means she’s like the Queen.