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“Yeah, but a man can't have everything – Lee is running everything at work, but I bet his home life is out of control, because a man can't have everything.”
Col. H.F. Lee, his hearing leaving police headquarters where he was a captain moonlighting as acting chief slower than his body was leaving it, almost broke out laughing because he already knew how wrong and yet how right the gentlemen behind him were in their envy of him. Most people did not have eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow as a neighbor and cousin.
“We're just gonna hafta sacrifice the lettuce!” she was saying in the backyard just as soon as his hearing picked up what was going on there, followed by the beautiful sound of Mrs. Maggie M.T. Lee falling out laughing.
“The context was they had salad and crackers and cheese for lunch and Gracie was talking about how in New York there are these restaurants where there are cabbage wraps and others with lettuce wraps – and this is where you stepped in on Edwina's comment!” she explained later.
“Thank you, because I was just trying to work out in my head what kind of tactical situation our favorite warrior princess was going to use the lettuce in, and reminding myself never to let her know about daisy cutters, because … .”
Col. Lee grinned as Mrs. Lee fell out again laughing … this was one of the ways they communicated about how differently his mind worked in a lighthearted way, and also extended understanding to fellow PTSD sufferer, that same Edwina, who had terrible experiences in foster care that had roused up the warrior spirit that she inherited from her grandfather, Capt. R.E. Ludlow. The world did look different to both she and her colonel cousin because of what they had been through … but both were healing, and Mrs. Lee was a big, loving, joyful help to them both.
Later on, Edwina came and found her two Lee cousins.
“We saved you both a lettuce wrap!” she announced, and then took their hands and dragged them out of their house to the Ludlow house for dinner.
Still later, Col. Lee told his wife what he heard leaving work in the context of Edwina's hi-jinks of the day, and she started laughing again.
“Yep, your colleagues are right – I mean, we're solid but the neighborhood is outta control – people just coming up in your house and dragging you out and would be out there if the door were locked alerting all of Tinyville that, 'Hey, Cousin Harry and Maggie – your door's broke 'cuz I can't get in!'”
Col. Lee rolled so hard laughing he fell out of bed, because –.
“That is a very specific hypothetical, Maggie!” he said.
“And then she called Cousin Ironwood,” Mrs. Lee said, “talking about 'Our cousins need help – they have locked themselves in their own house and I can't get in there to help them or do my jigsaw puzzle!”
“Her jigsaw puzzle – in our house!” Col. Lee said as he got back into bed. “Grandee Leedlow strikes again – you know she owns all these houses and everything in them – if this child does not stop trying to be Hilda Lee her great-grandmother!”
“Cousin Robert [Capt. R.E. Ludlow, Edwina's grandfather and adoptive father] came and collected her, of course, and I came and explained that I was mopping the floor and so locked the back door until it dried so she and the other kids wouldn't slip. So she thought about it, and then said, 'Thank you for caring about us, Cousin Maggie – that's actually really sweet, and so, because you're so sweet you could be perfect, put a sign up next time.'
“So let it be written, so let it be done!” Col. Lee said.
“I know, right?” Mrs. Lee said as she and he fell back laughing again before she continued. “So of course, Cousin Robert explained that Edwina will not be giving orders in anyone's home until she is grown and has her own, and she settled right down after that and apologized and called Cousin Ironwood and said she was sorry and it was a big misunderstanding and he could call off the county S.W.A.T. team … .”
“Wait, what?” Col. Lee said.
“And this is when Cousin Robert found out that Edwina's foster parents were letting her watch S.W.A.T. reruns at six years old and so she knows that if a lock isn't working, you can always shoot it out,” Mrs. Lee said. “That sweet-faced girl with those big brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and those pigtails today explained all this, and her grandfather just kept it together and said, 'Good thing we got all this sorted out, Edwina, so we have fewer misunderstandings.'”
“So, we went from mopping the floor to locking the door to calling the Tinyville Police Department and its three-man crew to have them call Sheriff Alexander for the S.W.A.T. team – that escalated quickly!” Col. Lee said.
“Cousin Robert said that they have some things to discuss with the family therapist,” Mrs. Lee said. “It's hilarious but actually sad, too – no eight-year-old should have to think like that, but, some people are in a war just to get to a safe childhood. But Edwina is safe and it is getting better, even if we might not be safe if I don't post a sign next time!”
“Well, like they were saying at my job, a man and his wife can't have everything,” Col. Lee said and smiled as Mrs. Lee started laughing again, “but we and Edwina are getting there, together.”
Then he became serious, and embraced his wife.
“Thank you for loving me, and my Ludlow cousins, and making it safe for us to express the world as we see it, so we can make corrections and heal. I went from sacrificing the lettuce all the way to a daisy cutter earlier in my mind – but I am a grown man who has learned to manage that side of my mind. Edwina can't yet, but your love as much as that of our big Ludlow cousins gives her space to get there, as it gives me space to work on myself. We have only been married nine months and been together a year … we did not expect to become part of the Ludlow experience … but your heart has embraced it all with me, and I will forever be grateful to you, Maggie. You have been more wonderful to me than I could have ever dreamed, and I thank you.”
“Everything around you has been a blessing to me, like you are,” she said. “It hasn't all been easy, but it's never been hard to be loving in the midst of so much love from you, and yours.”
“You are worth every blessing and more, my love … so much more … oh, my darling!”
The next morning, Col. Lee walked into police headquarters as captain moonlighting as chief, utterly radiant still with the glow of the love and passion he and his wife had shared – and everybody knew that the only place he had gone was home, so it was obvious how things were there.
“Well, you know, a man can't have everything – Lee pulling these 12-hour shifts when he had all that furlough time and they still don't really pay anything around here means his finances have to be in trouble.”
Meanwhile, back in Tinyville, Mrs. Maggie Lee was eating the first of six dark chocolate-dipped plums that had been custom made to order that morning and delivered to her with three dozen red roses and a note: “Not as sweet as your kisses to me, but I was thinking of you all the same, my love, as I passed Chocolate Love Art this morning.” Her husband had also bought up all the fruit the sweet shop had not used the day before, and she had shared with the Ludlows and the Trents.
“This is why we gotta protect Cousin Maggie,” Edwina said to her ten-year-old brother Andrew. “Not everybody out here thinks about spreading the blessing around, but she's just a good person and what I really need is a key to her door just in case of emergency.”
“There are people who do and have those things, like Papa, and Grandma,” Andrew said.
“Oh, yeah – I forgot,” Edwina said. “Glad somebody is actually on top of keeping us all safe, because you know I will do it if folks don't step up, because –.”
“Here's another nice plum, Eddie,” Andrew said
“Thanks, Andy,” she said, and received both the plum and a big, calming hug from her big brother.