1948
Stowe, VT

"Maria," Georg said softly, reaching out to his wife from his place in their messy, warm bed.

Maria turned from the window to look at her husband, smiling. "I was just admiring the moonlight while you slept," she explained. "It's so beautiful, tonight."

"You're beautiful always," Georg said, pulling back the covers as Maria moved back toward him and slipped into the bed to cuddle up against him.

"You try so hard to stay awake," Maria said some minutes later, nestled in the crook of one arm, a hand rubbing gently up and down the length of Georg's torso. "And once, you would until I fell to sleep. But I rather prefer this turning of the tables."

Eyes closed, Georg whispered, "Why is that, love?"

"It's such a gift, the moments I get to spend watching you shift from lover to merely a man in need of slumber. I understand why you like to do the same to me. I think the difference is that the years have chipped away your desire—no, your need—to be the one with the last word, so to speak."

Raising an eyebrow, Georg let a low chuckle rumble from deep in his chest. "Last word, with you?"

"What I mean to say is that… well, you've always been comfortable with me, and sometimes still to my surprise, I with you. But your guard coming down entirely has been the work of years. I have seen glimpses of it, caught you unawares when least expected, but now… you don't even try to keep the pretense running that you must be the one to bid the night farewell. You make love to me, and if you need to, you'll fall asleep soon thereafter."

"I am getting old," Georg half-joked. "We have two young children, and seven others besides. Of course I'll go to sleep!"

"No, I remember many nights when Rosemary was tiny where you would stay awake and hold me after lovemaking even when I would beg you to simply close your eyes and grab what little sleep was to be had. And," she said with a pointed upward glance, "you are most certainly not old. Not after what we've just done."

"Maybe I no longer feel the need to be the strong one all the time," Georg teased.

"I see your vulnerability as plain as day now, without reservations. I have known it exists almost as long as I've known you, but the moments where I have been privy to it were, until more recently, quite sparse. As your wife, I get to discover you all over again every day, and with that comes a new level of comfort and understanding. What a blessed woman I am!"

Stifling a yawn, Georg asked, "Is this your pensive way of saying I never bore you?"

"Ooooh, you!" Maria cried, "Always impertinent, with that grin in place!"

And indeed, Georg was sporting a crooked grin as he dropped kisses on top of Maria's head and pulled the covers tight about their shoulders.

"Never fear, my love, my darling. I hear you. I hear your earnest entreaty. I know your love. It grows with each passing day. It makes me a better man. Ten years on, and you call yourself blessed. It is only a fraction of the amount to which I have been blessed by you."

"You'll never accept that we are equally blessed, will you?"

"With respect to our children, yes. With respect to you? No."

Maria sighed, looking at the clock over Georg's shoulder. "Goodness, it's nearly midnight."

"And you woke me!"

"I did not wake you, Georg," Maria said firmly. "You woke of your own accord."

"I woke because your side of the bed was empty."

"It isn't anymore."

"No."

There was a faint creaking noise from above as Georg said this, and both parents held their breath as their gazes moved from one another up to the ceiling. Little feet shuffled about, and eventually they heard a door clunk shut again.

"Thank God," Maria breathed, "I was afraid we'd have company… six is really too old. Her feet are so cold!"

"You complain about cold feet," Georg grumbled. "She has kicked me square in the groin enough to make me question my virility."

Maria giggled slightly at this, unapologetic. "She asked me today why Johannes can't have been a girl. I told her that it's because God wanted to bring some balance to our number, and she did not appreciate it."

"Could this possibly have anything to do with his having broken Rosemary's favourite China doll?"

Maria sighed, recalling the past day's events, and how absolutely incensed her daughter had been. "She said she hated him, and wished he had never been born. I got angry with her, angrier perhaps than I should have done, so once she cried her tears, she asked me why he can't have been a sister because she wanted someone to play with her and not break her things. I said that he broke her doll because he is still very little and does not know better, and we must be kind and patient and she has to set a proper example."

"Mmm," Georg agreed.

"I suppose we should have guessed that she would be a bit of a frightful child," Maria mused. "She's such a darling, but on her terms, and she was most certainly a fussy baby. I don't think I slept more than three consecutive hours until I fell pregnant with Johannes, and even then I only managed it because I was so completely drained."

Burrowing deeper under the covers, Maria looked up to see that her husband had fallen asleep stroking her hair, and that he had a slight smile playing at his lips. Pressing a kiss to his chin, Maria curled up snugly beside him and shut her eyes, filled with a warm sense of belonging as she listened to her husband's steady breathing and felt his heart beating beneath her hand.