The Grin

 I wrote this story a few years back, one of my favorites about my husband :)

  

There's a big White Bengal Tiger that lies on the floor at the end of my bed. He's been there for 18 years. Odd against my light oak furniture, the huge sleigh bed, and towering Chest of Drawers. But he sits there and he guards my room.  And the children want to play on him.
 I always shoo them off. He needs peace. He's majestic and solemn, a permanent sereneness on his face. Sometimes he gets dusty and I have to wipe him down, otherwise I don't touch him. I smile at him and he almost smiles back, but not quite.
My husband won him at an amusement park, early in our marriage. He's not great at those games, and always spends too much money on them.  I would stand two little ones tugging at me, "The carousel mommy." "No the ROLLER COASTER!" Sweaty and aggravated as he ignored us, tossing rings, or throwing balls, or darts.  No luck, he'd plop more money down. "We have to save some for drinks." I would mutter through clinched teeth, he would wink at me. "I've got this one."
Usually he didn't.  That day it was late, we were heading out, and he just had to try once more. I was tired, sun blistered and not in a charitable mood.  I groused, and sighed and flopped down on a bench with two sleepy, also blistered children. He smiled his oblivious smile and off to the game he went.
 I remember the smothering hotness of the day, the children's sweaty heads rubbing against  my arms, and my frustration, but they settled, and a light breeze blew cooling our skins, and my eyes drifted to him.
He would line it up, bring his labor muscled arm back and throw. Shake his head, pick up another ball, his face was determined, brow furrowed.  Concentrating, he would line it up again. 
He'd always been determined. 18 years old and faced with responsibility bigger than both of us, he had shouldered it, took night classes to get out of high school early and joined the service.
Marriage, you've heard said, is hard. I never made it easier, young, spoiled and far from home, but he was determined we would make it work. And we did, sometimes not happily, or lovingly, but on that hot sweaty day we'd been married for 6 years, and found our steady rhythm. 
And I watched him, and remembered the first time he kissed me, and that sweet grin he had, and how my stomach flipped over whenever I caught sight of him.
I caught sight of him now, coming back to us, that familiar grin and in his arms was a giant White Bengal Tiger, bigger than him.  He leaned down, kissed me on the cheek. "I told ya babe."
"I want it! I WANT IT." Two voices cried out!
"No, this one is for your mother." He lifted his little girl on his shoulder,and then grasped his son's hand "but I bet I can get each of you one now!" They went off happily with him. I sat on the bench by myself and looked over at the Bengal Tiger.  He almost smiled at me.