It’s almost midnight and I’m washing the dishes for the fourth time today. The hot, soapy water feels soul-soothing good and almost makes up for the shower I’ve longed for yet never got around to taking. Travis is standing dead on his feet with his back against the counter holding Eli, who at nine months, wants to be everywhere and taste everything all at once as long as I’m well within reach of his chubby, dimpled hands. His complicated need for open spaces and fences are traits, like his eyes, that he gets from his momma. Ada, our four-year-old, has them too and I know it must be exhausting for Travis, the steadiest person I’ve ever known, to live like he is king of all the wild things.

Other than the sloshing of dishes and Eli’s babbles and coos, it’s relatively quiet. It is a quiet that feels like exhaling; an unburdened sound we’ve longed for all day. I look at my husband and for half-a-second, consider starting a conversation. With the girl asleep, we could speak to each other without any major interruptions like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star being belted out at full volume or a tantrum thrown over her pants that are “too floppy” or just that mischievous-fueled need she has to speak whenever I speak. He could finish telling the story he heard on NPR that was cut short during dinner when Ada, who had refused a potty break as if she were morally opposed to such things, didn’t make it in time and stood in a big puddle in the kitchen. I pick up another kid plate, a Christmas one with a dancing penguin, and wash away the dried ketchup, a smell I hate almost as much as mildewed towels.  I want to talk to him; I do. I’m just tired and wordless and my ears have had enough.

“Is that everything you want to accomplish this weekend?” he says, staring at the list I started earlier on the chalk wall. “I thought we weren’t going to write our to-do list down anymore.”

“I know,” I say. “I thought that as soon as I wrote it. It does seem like everything goes to hell in a handbasket when we make a to-do list around here. My head was swimming with all of the projects and deadlines I have coming up next week. Ada erased it just as I wrote it, though. That’s why the list is almost to the ceiling. So she won’t erase it on me again.”

“Did you remember to call about the taxes?” he says.

“Shoot. No. Put that on the board, too.”

I hear him press the chalk to the wall and an impulse comes over me. His handwriting. It isn’t going to match and I’m going to have to rewrite the whole list now. It’s going to drive me crazy. I turn around to stop him but it’s too late. He steps back from the board, admires his work and smiles. I am stunned; he has copied my handwriting almost perfectly and in the same color chalk. I honestly can’t tell where my writing stops and his begins.

This is one of the most romantic moments of our nearly 15-year-long relationship. More romantic than the year he made it his goal to bring me more than 100 roses or the time he drove almost two hours after we had a fight over the phone just to bring me ice cream. It is more romantic than every Valentine’s Day, anniversary or Christmas morning.

In this very moment, standing at my kitchen sink with wet, soapy hands I see that I have married a truly remarkable man, my very best friend. He does not complete me, nor do I complete him but every day we are picking each other up, nourishing, cheering and nursing each other back to health to finish this long journey in becoming.

I kiss him on the cheek and press my head to his chest where I can hear his heart beating under his white, cotton t-shirt. This is my safe place, my husband’s chest, just under his collar bone. I close my eyes and for a moment, I am just his girl and the mess and noise and bills and fear and sound of puff cereal crunching underfoot fades. We are teenagers, watching stars and planning our life together over snow cones in a Walmart parking lot. We are naive enough to believe that anything can be planned. But then Eli gets a handful of my hair and jerks it to his mouth.

We laugh and I go back to washing the dishes for the fourth time today while he sways with the baby, who is getting impatient to return to my arms. Together we finish picking up the crayons and toys that are scattered across the living room. We turn off the lights and walk upstairs, him in front with the baby draped over his shoulder asleep now, his hand trailing behind him to grasp my hand. And this is love, the steadiness at the pit of all this madness. The reason for it all.