By INGRID McCLEARY
Perhaps it should have been longer. We both said we didn't miss the kids yet. We laughed then because neither one of us felt guilty in admitting it.
Our vacation in Maui was all we hoped it would be. Once there, it was glorious to sneak a glance in my husband's direction and witness a man at rest.
The whole week was so easy.
We'd been there before for our honeymoon and had enjoyed it immensely, but in the way of new couples, we took it as our due that time was ours to spend--we were the focus of our energy.
Children refocus that energy, and it's easy to lose yourself in that love, easy to postpone being lovers when you're so busy being parents, but when you do, somewhere between the going and returning, you become a couple again.
We spent our days playing hooky from a world where time was chopped into hours and where every minute was held accountable. It was winter back in Sunnyvale, frost glistening on our lawn, but we, ah well, we had suntan oil glistening on our limbs, feeling like God had slipped us a taste of summer in the middle of winter.
Each day brought new adventures, and the possibilities seemed endless.
When the sun blinked into view, we rose and supped coffee on the secluded patio of our rented condominiums, watching rainbows form and dissipate. We spent the day exploring and returned in time to toast the watermelon sky and the pulsating sun as it dipped past the ocean's edge.
We showered together, lounged together, then stepped lively to dine and explore the nighttime lights. Full and drowsy, we boomeranged home and fell asleep to the rhythmic rush of waves breaking upon the shore
We felt we had forever and thus it was a rude awakening to discover it was time to pack for home. My throat constricted when he closed the door to the condominium for the last time. Each checkout point seemed to slam doors behind us. We kept looking at each other. I reached for his hand and held it firmly most of the way home.
The plane landed and we exited. Our children dashed over to meet us and at the moment of contact, their unique brand of love enveloped us. Yet as I hugged my daughter, my eye caught his, and the look we exchanged was the look of two people who shared a secret.
I kept that secret close by me. When the entire family came down with colds shortly after our return, I wrapped the Maui memories around my shoulders like a warm blanket. The first day he returned from work with stress lines etched in the corners of his mouth, I ran up and planted the secret upon his lips. He responded and I tripped away, triumphant, marveling at the power of our secret.
And the first time I cried because I thought the rekindled tenderness from our vacation had finally worn off, he reached for me, nuzzled my neck, and whispered, "Remember the time you found the hermit crab still inside its shell and you made me run down six flights of stairs at 2 a.m. just so I could return it to the ocean even though I insisted it could survive the toss from our balcony onto the sand below?"
I nodded, then laughed, because it had been the only disagreement of our entire trip. But his remembering it made my remembering sweeter because he remembered it with a smile.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 3, 1996
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.