Isabel & Leo - Short Stories

Introduction - Who Are Isabel & Leo

Early in our relationship, my husband and I had a fight that ended with a broken television. We were arguing about cleaning—he didn't mind the house being a total mess, and I hated anything being disorganized. How we've survived almost twenty years together is a mystery.

The broken television? That was an accident. I meant to demolish my husband's Xbox, but when I kicked it to the ground, I didn't think the television would follow. The thick AV wire connecting the two devices proved its strength and durability—the television, not so much.

Why would I do such a thing, you ask? Well, my outburst was a reaction to my husband's action just seconds prior. We were having an argument about cleaning the house, which eventually crescendoed to cursing, name-calling and personal insults. In a spontaneous fit of frustration, my husband grabbed the first thing he saw—my laundry baskets filled with four loads of folded laundry—and tossed it across the dirty, unfinished portion of our basement.

Four loads.

That's three hours of my Saturday afternoon folding tiny clothes for my 2-year-old daughter, blankets, towels, a million socks, my work clothes, his clothes . . . three hours gone. Vanished. I would never get that time back, nor the time it would take to rewash and fold everything. Three hours was a big deal back then when I worked nights and weekends in addition to regular working hours.

I was stunned, paralyzed, but only for two seconds before it kicked in—the lightning urge to retaliate, to get even because we are 50/50 in this relationship, and if he's allowed to go crazy like that, then bonkers it is! In what I consider a rage-induced spasm, my foot kicked my husband's Xbox console right off its stand. The television tumbled after it.

My husband was flabbergasted, just as I was when he tossed the clothes. I inconvenienced him as he inconvenienced me. I saw it as justice—fair play in this illogical game we call love. Incoherent accusations flooded from him as he examined the Xbox for damages. I collected the laundry strewn across the basement floor. Both of us grumbling, cursing, claiming it was the last straw . . .

You could say we were both hot-blooded back then, in our twenties, still newbies at balancing our professional life, family life, personal life, and sanity.

Later that evening, as my husband fed our daughter in the kitchen and I put away the last load of laundry, I brought up our argument. I was melancholy and dispirited about our relationship—we had been arguing quite a bit back then. I expressed my concern that we might be too incompatible for the long run. "It's like we're from two different worlds," I said to him, "unable to communicate because we speak two different languages."

My husband replied, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm from planet Earth, and I speak English. What planet are you from?"

He waited for a second to pass and then tried to hold back his smile. I rolled my eyes and chuckled. Apologies soon followed.

Although it infuriated me that he was able to make me laugh when I was trying to have a serious discussion about the state of our relationship, I could acknowledge that his tactic worked. Humor diffused the bomb we had both created.

Before going to sleep that night, I documented the whole thing in my journal. More than a decade later, I unearthed that journal during a renovation project. I read the story, along with a handful of other fights that had funny endings. It triggered something in me.

I started thinking about all the new, undocumented situations we've experienced since, and all the tales my friends and I shared about our marriages, kids, work, and everything else that comes with having a few decades under your belt. The stories in this collection are all created from thin air, made-up, but are greatly influenced by real events and real characters. None of the stories are real, yet they could be.

So, getting back to the question at hand . . . who are Isabel and Leo?

They are two people who have been together for decades, who use humor as a fire extinguisher to their madness. They love each other with such passion that hate often becomes an equally charged emotion that requires skill in taming, as demonstrated in "After the Storm." They outsmart one another equally, as they do in "A Game of Trust," and they prove that all couples struggle with keeping the romance alive in "Crests and Troughs." Isabel and Leo are dedicated to their careers, their personal interest and well-being, and their families. They drink beer and smoke, blow up about spilled milk, snap at each other for being sassy, and shoot Nerf guns with pinpoint accuracy.

Their children—a rambunctious six-year-old named Jay and ten-year-old Lia who is too wise for her young age—are the honest, unbiased witnesses to their actions. Kids learn from their parents' behavior, and this is most evident in "Pillars of Smoke" where Lia uses her father's weakness against him. In "Taking Sides," Jay and Lia team up and prove that actions speak louder than words.

Isabel and Leo are a couple trying to make things work with people they love while laughing at the troubles that get in their way. Humor is the glue that keeps them together, and they apply thick coats whenever necessary.

These are their stories.