2/6/12

All The Things That Love Are
By Linda M. Crate


Love, she knew, wasn’t all about the crescendos of cascading sun haloing the trees or rainbows — sometimes, it was conceding defeat after an argument so as not to arouse even further hard feelings; biting one’s tongue, cleaning up after someone when you didn’t really want to. Sometimes love was as dark as a thundercloud and as hard as stone, sometimes it stung like a bee, and yet through it all if one managed to hold on it was all worth it.

She looked over to her snoring husband Richard. Darla had never seen anyone quite as handsome even with his rapidly balding hair, his loud grunting, and his sarcastic sense of humor she still found him as attractive as he had been the first day he had met her. Even now when he wasn’t that skinny boy she had married thirty five years ago he still managed to take her breath away.

She knew that a lot of people couldn’t comprehend that, but not everyone had been blessed enough to feel the burgeoning blossoms of love in their life more beautiful and fragrant than magnolias pink.

She watched the cardinal on the wizened end of a tree branch for a few moments before she decided she ought to wake her husband up. If she didn’t, he’d be late for work, and that would just make him cranky. “Dick,” she remarked, tugging gently on his arm. “Wake up, honey.”

“Mmph,” was the only intelligible response she could make out.

“Come on, Dick, it’s time to get up,” she protested. When he swatted at her hands she went in for a tickle attack. “Come on, Richard.”

He half grumbled, half laughed when he woke up to see that his wife was tickling him. “Well, you’ve never done that before.”

“I was getting desperate,” she admitted. “You wouldn’t wake up. I just didn’t want you to be late for work, is all. Breakfast is on the table, it might need warming up in the microwave,” she informed him, gently placing a kiss on his cheek.

He smiled, kissing her gently on the lips. “Thank you, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Okay, dear,” she nodded. She then left the room, picking up the laundry basket of Richard’s clothing off the floor. Love wasn’t always the showy artificiality that pervaded some romance novels, it wasn’t always in the most splendorous moments spent in the sunshine times of life, love was looking past the flaws; cherishing every moment able to be spent together, and caring enough to try to get through the roughest storms that life threw out. Goodness knew that love wasn’t always easy, but without it she wouldn’t be the same.

Darla couldn’t be more grateful for the wonderful, caring man she snagged all those years ago. Smiling to herself, she walked downstairs with the basket, pausing only to straighten a picture of the family before she proceeded out into the kitchen and then into the laundry room.

“I’ll try to get home earlier tonight,” Richard called from the kitchen. “We’ve just been busy, that’s all.”

“No, that’s okay, I understand,” she smiled. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you tonight,” he agreed. He then departed, and she smiled as she noticed the bits of toast clinging to his beard.

She could have told him about them, but that would have just ruined the moment.


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Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.