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Karen shuffles towards her front door, the tight swaddle of two blankets around her shoulders slowing her movements to an awkward wobble. “Coming, coming,” she shouts at the closed door, but with her blocked nostrils only the vowels are audible. A shudder wracks her body as she slides the deadbolt and wedges herself into the open door. “Did I forget the tip—”
“What?” says Hen, bewildered and bemused. Brows going up, half-smile hanging on her lips.
Karen says, “You’re not my pad thai delivery guy.”
“Uh-huh, sweetheart, let’s check that fever.” Hen moves as she speaks, gently nudging into Karen’s apartment like Karen forgot to invite her in and she doesn’t want to make her feel impolite, but—
“Hen, I’m sick,” —’en mm sigg— Karen pauses to sneeze once, twice, thrice into her blanketed elbow, locking the door behind her to penguin shuffle after Hen, who is unloading big brown paper bags on her kitchen countertop, right next to the still sealed containers of noodles and bean sprouts.
“Yeah,” says Hen, “why do you think I’m here?”
Karen balks, eyes wide, mouth trying to formulate a response as her dizzy brain replays this whole interaction. She just texted Hen this morning to cancel dinner plans due to her, y’know, disgusting flu. Nowhere was there a discussion of this.
The paper bags are folded and tucked into Karen’s recycling bin, an assortment of over the counter fever and pain relief drugs, nasal sprays, boxes of tea and powdered vitamins sorted on the counter. Hen is warming a dish in the microwave, and when it beeps, she places it on a handled tray, portions Karen’s steaming take-out onto it, and adds the perfect ratio of scallions, chili paste, and lime wedges on the side.
She seems to notice Karen still standing, staring. “Baby, go sit. I’ll bring it over.”
Helpless, Karen does. She plops dead center on her couch and feels impossibly fragile as Hen fluffs a pillow to balance her tray of food on top of, placing it carefully on Karen’s lap before she reaches over to turn the TV on. Hen reclines next to her, one arm spread over the back of her lumpy blanketed shoulders, the other pulling up the guilty pleasure reality show she teased Karen for liking relentlessly just two weeks ago, and Karen just…gives into the unbearable sweetness of her girlfriend, who treats the whole event so casually. So obviously. As though there’s nowhere else in the universe she’d rather be.
The food is warm and, though Karen’s nose is clogged and taste buds muted, it’s perfect. And afterward, when Hen stares at the thermometer while pressing two firm fingers against Karen’s wrist, having already cleared the dishes and steeped a peppermint-lemongrass tea in Karen’s favorite mug, cooling now on the coffee table in front of them, a little pinch between her bridge of her glasses as she details when Karen can take another Tylenol, well. Karen thinks, privately, feverish, that she wouldn’t mind giving into this woman forever.
-
“Ow!”
“Karen?”
“Mm’good!” The words are mumbled, lip caught in between her teeth as she bites down to breathe through the pain. She rushes to the tap, running her forearm under the cool stream.
Hen pokes her head into the kitchen, Denny tucked under one arm. It only takes a moment for her to put the pieces together: Karen’s wince at the sink, the scattered tray of cookies thrown on the counter, oven hanging open. Denny is deposited in his highchair, oven door slammed closed, tap flicked off.
“Hurts.” Karen sucks in a sharp breath. The pain settles and squirms below her skin, burning a continuous demand on her attention. Tears prick as an automatic response, she blinks rapidly to clear them.
Hen guides her to the table, where Denny is clapping a fistful of cheerios left on his tray table, mashing them between his little fingers. Hen cleans the oven coil’s searing kiss and wraps it in a loose hold of clean gauze. She kisses Karen’s pout.
“How bout some ice cream to go with momma’s cookies?”
“Ice cream!” Denny cheers, flinging cereal with his excitement.
Karen sighs into her hands, embarrassment warming her face. “Tell me why I can calculate the dispersion of light in fused silica but I can't take cookies out of the oven without incident.”
Three bowls of vanilla bean with a half-moon of chocolate chip cookie garnish are distributed. Karen wipes her thumb over the immediate glob of melty ice cream that smears across Denny’s chin as he feeds himself, though it’s a losing battle.
Hen tugs Karen out of her chair, sits, then pulls her back so Karen can resettle in her lap, arms wrapping warmly around Karen’s middle as Hen kisses her shoulder.
“We all have our strengths.” Hen’s laughter is held in her eyes. Denny has abandoned his froggy shaped spoon, using the cookie to scrape around the bowl instead. The mess is melting down his chubby chin, gooey chocolate and sugary crumbs bracketing his wide smile.
Karen scoops from her own bowl and paints a stripe of vanilla bean from Hen’s nose to her mouth as Denny shrieks with laughter. Before Hen can cry out in outrage, Karen leans into her arms and kisses her clean. Sweet, cold, smiling kisses and the music of their son’s delight numbs any residual pain.
-
“Don’t. Do not say anything.”
“Did it sound like I was talking?” Hen’s eyes glitter with amusement, but she dutifully keeps her comments to herself as she peels Karen off the asphalt. “If I was going to say anything—which I’m not—I might say this is what those kneepads were made for.”
Karen groans, “Shut up.” She tips her head back, fighting to keep hold of her annoyance as Hen leads her gently to the curb to sit. Hen kisses her head with a quiet, firm, stay, and runs back into the house.
Denny speeds past on his rollerblades with a whoop of joy. Karen lets the laughter bubble up and shouts her encouragement.
“You okay Momma?” He twists to a stop with ease, face adorably concerned beneath his helmet. Like a soda can crushed in a fist, Karen’s heart squeezes and dents with the force of love that overcomes her whole body. She knows everyone thinks this, but her son is indisputably the kindest, sweetest, best child ever. She is so lucky.
Denny’s face twists up, obviously sensing the rising sentimentality, which he has no interest in being wrapped up in. Karen huffs another laugh and grabs his hand, channeling all her love through her fingertips.
“Mom’s just grabbing me a band-aid, I’m all good. Go, go, keep having fun!”
He’s already off, blades carrying him in a flash down the sidewalk.
Hen rejoins Karen a few moments later, first aid kit unlatched on a patch of grass. Karen folds the hem of her dress up her thighs, allowing Hen to work on the raw, bloody scrapes over her knees.
“My daredevil.” Hen smiles as she works. Gentle, sure hands picking gravel out, working swiftly to disinfect, then smooths healing ointment over the skinned flesh and seals both kneecaps with large bandages. “Next time, let’s keep those skates pointed in the same direction as our eyes, huh?”
“They’re blades.” Hen raises both hands, oh, so sorry, barely containing her laugh as she sorts her kit, setting the trash into a little pile. “And going backwards is perfectly safe, I just—who puts their trash can that far out on the curb! And they’re two days late bringing it back up, I should report them to the HOA.”
“You do that.”
She gives Hen a look and Hen mimes zipping her mouth closed with a smile.
"I may not be twenty anymore, but I can still teach my son to rollerblade. I still have moves, Mrs. Wilson."
"Oh, I know all about your moves, Mrs. Wilson." Hen mumbles directly into the hinge of Karen's jaw, lips moving slow enough to cause scandal on their front porch in this mid-afternoon sun. Karen moves away with a twitching smile, eyes that promise, later.
Karen holds out both hands and Hen hauls her upright. She wobbles for a second on her rollerblades, then settles. The aching, stinging pull at her knees is nothing compared to her son’s passing grin as he shouts, “Race you to the mailbox!”
She cups her wife’s cheeks in a quick kiss and tears off with Hen’s loud, beautiful laugh following behind her.
-
“Are you praying?” Karen keeps her voice low. Their bedroom curtains are drawn but only milky, morning light filters through, blue tinged from the early hour. She’s not sure what roused her—routine, maybe, her body anticipating a whirlwind despite not yet recovered enough to handle it. In the moments after blinking awake, propped up as she is against the pillows, the only comfortable way she’s been able to sleep in their bed post-appendectomy, she notices the light, the satiny catch of it on their patterned comforter, and the clasped hands of her wife dimpling the bed beside her.
Hen is kneeled at the edge, head bowed over her hands, wearing civvies, her work duffle collapsed on the ground next to her. Her head snaps up at Karen’s voice, tears shining bright behind the lens of her glasses.
“Oh, honey,” says Karen, reaching for her instantly. She strokes the back of her head while Hen forces a big smile.
“Good morning. I’m sorry, I, I didn’t want to wake you—just saying goodbye.”
It’s her first day back since the explosion. Hen wanted to take more PTO but Karen can get around by herself now, if slowly, and it just doesn’t make sense for them both to be trapped at home, crawling the walls with the inability to do much while Karen’s still recovering. There may have been a small fight about it, Karen may have put her foot down, used some emotional ammo she hasn’t had to draw for a while because what she didn’t want to say out loud was I love you baby but you won’t stop hovering and you’re going to drive me crazy if you stay home one more day. Because honestly, she loves Hen’s hovering, and she doesn’t want to make her self-conscious or discourage it, she just really needs to be able to get up to go pee without a chaperone.
“Hen,” she says, keeping her tone gentle. Her hand cups Hen’s cheek, thumb swiping at the tears that start to spill over. “I’m fine. I’m good. I’m going to watch trashy TV and drink soup. Denny’s carpooling to school with his friend, his lunch is already packed. Your mom’s coming over to help with dinner. We’re going to be fine without you for a day.”
“I know,” Hen says. She takes a big, shuddery breath. “I know you will.” Face turning into Karen’s touch, a shaky kiss gifted to her palm. “I just…I went to leave and I—when you left that morning, with Denny, I—I couldn’t remember what we said. What the last thing we said to each other was that morning. That’s all I could think of when you were—” She folds her lips over her teeth, gaze dropping for a second. “In the ambulance. I couldn’t remember.”
Karen remembers. She’d kissed Hen on the cheek and said, don’t forget to pick up the dry cleaning, love you , and Hen had grabbed her hips to kiss her full on the mouth, saying, yes, coolest mom ever, and they both laughed as Karen grabbed keys, purse, son, and hurried them out the door. Hen’s brain slips the little details. She’s got so much going on all the time, only the really important things can stick there, Karen gets it, although she’s always been the opposite. The more frenetic chaos, the more details crystallize for her, it’s why she always overloaded her semesters because without the stress she would forget. It’s an oft retread tease of their marriage. Big things, Hen’s got locked down. But what she had for breakfast, if she remembered to eat at all, especially in a busy season? The mind prioritizes. That’s why they make a good team. That’s why Karen hears what she isn’t saying, in the deep bruising fear of Hen’s voice—that Hen would forget something retrospectively vital, and Karen wouldn’t be there to remind her anymore.
A tiny, twisted pang of welcome to my world pants its breath on Karen’s ear. There is no making peace with kissing the love of your life goodbye in the morning, and then carrying around a pebble of distress in the center of your heart all day, all night long until they come home, safe and whole in front of you again. Karen will never be used to it, will never be without that dwelling inside herself where Hen’s love is hung up by the door and the day might come that she doesn’t return for it.
No day offers certainty to any person, but for Karen, for Maddie, for others like them—it is different, knowing that the dangerous happenstances of life might not just happen to them, but that they will spend the next twenty-four, forty-eight hours actively seeking them out. But you cope. You check the locks and you text check-ins every set amount of bearable hours and you turn off the radio, the TV, the coworkers talking about some crazy disaster unfolding right now, and then you fold and check anyways because the not knowing will always be worse.
Hen, though—Hen has no practice doing this for her. Karen puts on a blouse and keycard for work, not layers of protective material. Karen lives in the illusion of safety that all of the victims Hen spends her day responding to believe they do.
Karen says, “Oh,” and looks at the crazed worry in Hen’s eyes and thinks, not for the first time, I’ve never been loved like this before.
They kiss softly, Karen guiding her with fingertips to her chin, absorbing her concern and projecting love into every touch. And when Hen calls her at every break, she answers, and when Hen texts a heart, she responds, and when Hen comes home, still smelling smoky, sweaty, a hard day, she lets her wrap around Karen on the couch, face buried in Karen’s shoulder, says nothing of the tears that soak her shirt there. She just receives it, falls back, back, back into the downy softness of feeling safe surrounded by Hen’s love.