Tiny Love Stories: ‘Lenny Was Supposed to Fall for the Other Iris’

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Modern Love

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Three days into my coronavirus hellscape: It was 2 a.m. My sweet, sleep-deprived husband dozed in the living room of our Brooklyn apartment while I writhed in pain in our bed. As my temperature crept past 102 degrees, I couldn’t find the strength to get up for a cold compress. I called his name, hoping he was awake. I heard the floor creak under his footsteps. Relief washed over me. “I can’t believe you heard me,” I said. “Actually I didn’t,” he said. “The dog heard you.” My knights in shining armor. — Allie Ceccola

I grew up with bowls of cut fruit — soft mangoes, vibrant dragon fruit. In our Chinese-American household, my parents chopped up big issues to make them easier for us to swallow. Misunderstandings sometimes led to raised voices — arguments fueled by generational divides, boys, bikinis, teenage selfishness. Sometimes misunderstandings led to silence. But there was always a bowl of cut fruit waiting. No problem, no question was too big to be sliced apart to eventually reach a core of understanding. Amid the cultural complexities of our Asian immigrant family, love is unspoken but unconditional in a bowl of neatly cubed apples. — Maggie Chen

Inseparable for 73 years, my husband’s grandparents had a love I hope to emulate. They met on a double blind date. Lenny was supposed to fall for the other Iris, but fell for my husband’s grandmother Iris instead. When she died this April, we tried to soothe Lenny’s heartbreak with the only thing we had: Our six-foot gaze. Several weeks later, wanting to deliver cheer, we took our inflatable loungers to a patch of Park Avenue sidewalk. As we gossiped and grieved and greeted the passing neighbors, it felt like a modern version of Lenny’s Brooklyn stoop from long ago. — Lisa Sklar

Sitting behind the one-way mirror as our child performed for a series of clinicians, we answered questions from psychiatrist, physician, therapists. Eventually, the diagnosis: Our child is autistic. As this sunk in, a second, more surprising revelation: My husband is autistic. A lifetime of quirkiness and misunderstanding contextualized. Now, when I grow exasperated with his brusqueness, his laser focus on idiosyncratic interests, the chaotic disarray of paperwork in his wake, I think of all the love and acceptance that I hope our child finds in the world. And it is a little easier to extend that love to them both.— Amanda Cissner

See more Tiny Love Stories at nytimes.com/modernlove. Submit yours at nytimes.com/tinylovestories.

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