Work Text:
THE CAT IN THE HAT
BY DR. SEUSS
the sun did not shine.
it was too wet to play.
so we sat in the house
all that cold, cold, wet day.
The rain beat against the roof like a malediction. It was hard to hear him read underneath the hammering. In the little bed she edged closer, close enough that the side of her cheek almost touched his hesitant lips.
His words came slowly, but they were perfectly, gracefully formed. They’d read this book together many times.
“Your turn,” he said when he was done, expecting her to read while he followed.
“You can read the rest of the book yourself. You’re ready.”
She believed in him. She believed in his recovery. He was wounded just as much as any other soldier who came to her, although his limbs were whole and he fought so demon-fast that only a few blades had ever drawn a mark across his smooth brown skin. Wounded all the same, because literacy was his birthright and this world had cut it from him.
“Are you sure?” he asked. Now that they were lovers she could read the language of his body, decode the curl of his lip, the tilt of his half-closed eyelid. So many other questions... did she understand their lack of a future? Would she grow to hate him for keeping her a secret?
“I’m sure," she said. She'd never been more sure in her life.
“Then I’ll go on by myself."
So he read on.
She knew she should edge upwards, get some distance, and crane her neck to follow along. Just to make sure he pronounced every syllable. But it was so much sweeter to hold him tight instead, wrap her arms around his chest, rest her cheek against his shoulder.
I have you. Whatever happens in the future, I have you now.
then our mother came in
and she said to us two,
'did you have any fun?
tell me. what did you do?'and sally and i did not know
what to say.
should we tell her
the things that went on there that day?