The Key of Life

One For The Team

Julia was exhausted, Nico could tell. She was still smiling, but her voice was terse when she spoke and stray hairs kept coming loose from her bun from where she kept running her fingers through her curls, forming a halo of dark hair that shone when the light hit it through the window. She looked paler than usual, or was that his imagination?

He was tired, too, of course. Who wouldn't be, stuck inside with four children for six weeks? But despite the strange situation, they had managed to keep their usual styles of parenting the same.

Julia was in charge. She ran the household, kept a routine, made sure homework was finished, and ensured that the children ate three god meals a day; all whilst remembering which child would eat peas but not corn (Carmen), which ate both but only if they didn't touch each other on the plate (Luis), who would only eat at all if they had their own special cutlery (Isabel, or was that Eva?). Nico didn't know how she did it. He was the "fun parent": the one who read the stories with silly voices, who came up with new games, who swung the children around in the air until they couldn't walk in a straight line. It worked. They were a team.

Still, the strain was now starting to show, on Nico, on Julia, and on the children. And it didn't matter how many games of "elephant golf" or "Houdini" he played with them (he was proud of the games he'd invented), they needed more. Which is why today was important. Today, for the first time since all this had begun, the family was going out.

Julia was at the front door with all four children, laying down the ground rules: no going close to other people, no touching fences, wash hands as soon as they get back in the house. Carmen was frowning, listening intently to her mother. Isabel was too busy struggling with the buckle of her bike helmet to listen, and although Luis was looking at Julia, he was fidgeting to the point that Nico doubted much information was going in. All the while little Eva held onto her mother's leg, one arm wrapped around Julia's knee, the other with a thumb firmly in her mouth.

"Let's go," Nico suggested.

It was like releasing greyhounds from the traps. The children ran, skipped, cycled onto the street. Others were doing the same from the neighbouring houses, and the town seemed to be alive with the sounds of singing and shouting, of skipping footsteps and turning bike wheels. The sounds of freedom. They made their way through the park, waltzing their way around others, with the sun reflecting on the scenery around them. Nico smiled to himself. It may have been a simple case of absence making the heart grow stronger, but he had forgotten how beautiful their neighbourhood was.

But before they reached their destination, a policeman approached and stood, at a respectable distance, on the path in front of them, blocking their route.

"You can't be here," he told them. "Children outside only."

"They're all under nine years old," Julia argued. "We can't leave them alone!"

"Unfortunately only one of you can stay to supervise the children. The other will have to go home."

Julia sighed. "Well, I suppose I could do with the time to get things sorted whilst you play with the children."

Nico looked at his wife. The breeze was playing with her hair, so that more strands worked their way out of the bun and danced as the wind lifted them. The sunlight, unburdened by glass panes, shone across her face, her features glowing in the light. Her dark eyes had never looked brighter.

"No," he said. "You stay out and have fun with them."

"But-"

"Stay," he repeated.

Julia smiled, and he could sense the tension lift from her shoulders.

"I'll take photos for you," she said, as she embraced him.

She followed the children across the park. Before Nico turned back, he took out his phone and took one photo himself: an image of Julia, framed by trees, her back turned to him, surrounded by their children, all of them aglow in the daylight.

Sometimes, he thought as he made his way back to the confines of the house, you have to take one for the team.