we loved with a love that was more than love // JENLISA

23

-Jennie-

Your kid is pouting, and it makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Parenting is weird.

Ella is slouched in her chair at the kitchen table with her legs kicked out in front of her, crossed at the ankle. There's a grass-stain on her knee and rhinestones on her socks, but you can see a hint of looming teenagedom in her posture. It's there, too, in the set of her jaw, and you smile to yourself because Lisa had the same look when you first met.

You always mean it when you say El takes after her Mum.

Waffles brushes up against your legs, bringing your thoughts back to the here and now. You push off the kitchen counter and start making a fresh batch of strawberry lemonade -- an after-school ritual that began when Ella first arrived and is still going strong. Every once in awhile she sighs and, though you can't help but glance over at her, you stay quiet. You've found it's best to give her time to process things on her own.

If only you had any idea what she's processing.

The chair creaks as El shifts, holding the letter so that it obscures her face from view. She must have read it ten times over by now -- you recognized Luca's handwriting on the envelope, and you know he's no wordsmith. He usually chews El's ear off during their weekly calls (which you used to refer to as "phone dates" until El blushed and asked that you didn't), saving drawings and magazine clippings for the mail. (Don't even get you started on how stupid precious that is.)

But this letter contains actual handwritten words -- paragraphs of them --and you can't help but run through worst-case scenarios. (Another joy of parenting.) You hope that things are still going well at his uncle's house and that he's getting along with his new group of friends at school.

Last month Luca sent a Polaroid of him and two other boys and a girl, all wild hair and goofy smiles. You wondered if El would feel conflicted about seeing her best friend so happy with kids she'd never met, but that night, after you tucked her into bed, you caught a glimpse of the photo wedged into the frame of her bedroom mirror.

Nudging your worries to the back of your mind, you open the freezer to get ice and see there's just one half-empty box of Twinkies left. You go to write it on the refrigerator whiteboard only to find it's already there, spelled out in Lisa's neat script. Above it, she's written one of the Halo Top flavors you've been dying to try.

When you were younger you thought the epitome of love was bold declarations expressed at the height of torrential rainstorms. Now you know the best love is hidden in the mundane, and it's here, bright and shiny, between the smudged lines of a grocery list.

You take your time finishing with the lemonade and arranging a few Fudge Stripes cookies on one of the plates El made in pottery class last summer. Somewhere along the way you must've started humming to yourself -- a fact you only realize when Ella joins in.

It takes you a moment to place the tune, but when you do you smile. Jisoo had given you her HBO login a few weeks back and you and Lisa quickly became obsessed with a show about everything your lives lack -- wealth and murder and the California coast.

The opening song is haunting and soulful and it only took you two episodes to notice that your wife sighed every time it ended. Later that night, when she was brushing her teeth, you downloaded the track to her phone, and when she came back to the bedroom it was playing, softly, so you wouldn't wake El. Lisa gave you one of those pained looks -- like she couldn't believe you thought of her -- and you were about to remind her of your well documented undying love and devotion when she reached for you.

You swayed together, in bare feet in the middle of the room, until Lisa's head grew heavy on your shoulder and you had to coax her into bed.

The song wound up in heavy rotation in the house, after that. And -- surprise, surprise -- El loved it. (See? Just like her Mum.)