Love for Scale (33 page)

Dave mistook my silence for contemplation. “You are such a warm and caring person; I see you with your sister’s kids and I know you’d be a great mom.”

I had my own serious doubts. I also suspected he was full of shit, grasping at straws just to further his case. “Dave, Ruby’s kids go home. And it’s easy to be a cool aunt. Being a cool mom is another story.”

“But if it was your own baby, your own flesh…” His tears were flowing freely now.

I turned away, afraid the tiny droplets of salty water coming from my husband would erode my resolve.

If it was my own, I’m so afraid I’d resent you forever. And I just can’t bear the thought of hating you.

“Dave, there are just no guarantees. I’m not bringing a child into this world if I am not a hundred percent sure I want it. I wouldn’t do that to you or a kid.” I shook my head, silently cursing my own tears. “Would you want me to have a baby just because
you
wanted it, even if I didn’t?”

His silence answered my question.

“I can’t do it, Dave. I just can’t.”

He took a deep breath and chewed on the inside of his cheek before he finally spoke. “Then I want out. I want a divorce.”

My lungs froze, my breath halting as I tried to process his words.

“I’m sorry, Vicky, but if we can’t be on the same page with this, I think we need to be with other people.”

I forced air into my lungs. “Is there someone else?” I almost choked on the words.

Dave shook his head vehemently. “No. No, of course not. How could you even ask that?” He looked at me, a pained expression on his face. “I’m just saying that we want such different things. This isn’t as simple as choosing where to go on this year’s holiday, or whether to have red or white wine with fish…this is a big deal, Vic. I thought when we got married we were on the same page.”

And we had been. Or at least, I thought we had. But I’d obviously been kidding myself and lying to Dave when I said I wanted kids. Looking back now, it was easy to see that I should have known, but the allure of being married to Dave had clouded my judgment on matters of my reproductive future. But he’d been such a catch; a good student who knew where he was going and exactly how he was going to get there, throw in handsome and sensitive and how could I not snap him up? Although he’d always told his friends that he’d been the lucky one, I always knew I’d married up. I guess the only thing that ever gave me pause was knowing he wanted to open a pediatric practice. The thought of working with kids all day (crying, unhappy and in-pain kids to boot) had never really appealed to me, but I made that sacrifice.

Yeah, I really should have known better.

“I can’t be without you, Dave,” I croaked, my life suddenly crashing in on me.

“I can’t imagine life without you either, Vic. But if this is how it’s going to be, no matter which one of us gives in, they’re going to resent the other.” He stood up and came over to my couch, sitting down beside me. I threw my arms around him, squeezing him hard, trying to hold on to him as long as I could.

“I feel just horrible about this,” he said into my neck.

“Why do
you
feel bad?” I asked, feeling guilty that
he
felt guilty.

“I should have known you didn’t want kids. All the signs were there and I guess I knew deep down. I guess I’ve been in denial.”

I sniffled. “So why…?”

He squeezed me tighter. “I love you so much, Vic.” He hiccupped. “I guess I hoped you’d come around.”

No words came. And even if they had, they would have been choked by the tightness of my throat.

We sat there, crying in each other’s arms long past the end of the
The Big Bang Theory
episode. Finally, when I couldn’t imagine either of us having any tears left, we slowly pulled apart.

“Dave, I love you so much, I can’t let it end over this.”

“I love you so much, too, Vicky. I almost wish I didn’t: it would make it so much easier to do this.”

I swallowed and tried to take deep breaths. “Is that it then?”

He nodded before he hugged me again.

That night we slept in each other’s arms, both of us trying to gain comfort from the other. Both of us knowing that as close as we were physically, we were still a million miles apart.

Chapter 2

It was six a.m. when my eyes blinked open; I knew it was, because the shower was running and if Dave was anything, he was a creature of habit. The events of the evening before came rushing back to me in a cruel wave of grief and horror. Unable to convince myself it had been just a terrible nightmare, I reached to the nightstand for a Kleenex.

The plumbing whined when Dave turned off the shower and I frantically wiped my face, not wanting him to see me cry again. But my red and swollen eyes would betray me, so I rolled over with my back toward the ensuite bathroom, pretending to sleep.

I heard him shuffle in and could picture what he looked like in his bathrobe and tousled towel-dried hair. He would look cute as hell so it was just better not to look, it was just too hard. But he would go about his morning routine, leaving me to sleep for a bit the way he always did, even though most mornings I lay there awake, just listening as he made his way to and from the bathroom getting ready for work. I would steal peeks at him when I knew he wouldn’t see me and would sometimes get rewarded with a glimpse of him pulling on his Dockers or combing his hair, taking meticulous care to ensure every strand was in place.

But on this Tuesday morning from hell, Dave broke from routine when he sat on the edge of the bed, the weight of him causing me to roll ever so slightly towards him. “Hey, Babe,” he whispered.

I opened my eyes.

He stared down at me, his brow heavy over his eyes. “Why don’t you stay home today? Take the day to just relax, get a massage or something.”

“Dave,” I managed, before choking on my own saliva. I sat up to face him.

He took a breath, turning his head so he didn’t have to look at me.

“I still feel the same way as I did last night,” he said, his voice gentle and calm even as his words carved through my heart. 

“I can’t even think of my life without you.” I pulled the tissue out from under the covers and dabbed at my eyes.

“Neither can I,” he said, starting to cry.

I cleared my throat. “How is this going to work?” Maybe if he saw how hard it was going to be, he’d reconsider.

Dave wiped at the corners of his eyes with his thumb. “I don’t know.”

I thought about our lives, so completely entwined. We lived together, we worked together. Most of our friends were ‘couple’ friends. Would we just dissolve the marriage and continue along as co-workers and housemates? That couldn’t work: he was leaving me because I wouldn’t have his babies, ergo he would be looking for someone who would. I couldn’t hang around to watch him move on without me.

“I guess I’ll start looking for a place,” he offered.

How was I going to survive in the house alone? Even when he went to conferences I just about went out of my head and that was only a few days at a time, and he always came back.

“No rush,” I tried to sound nonchalant but was desperate for him to stay. I wasn’t ready to be alone and questioned whether I ever would be.

He tried a smile. “Thanks, Babe. I’d better get ready. You just take it easy today.”

I snorted, “Should I consider this a constructive dismissal?”

The way he looked at me made me realize it was the first time it had occurred to him that us working together may not be an ideal situation anymore. He just stared at me for several seconds, but I could see the gears turning.

I spoke first, letting him off the hook. “Let’s see how it goes, but I will take you up on your offer of my not coming in today.”

He gave me a hug and then got up off the bed to get ready. I tossed the damp Kleenex onto the nightstand and rolled over, willing myself to return to sleep, at least until Dave’s car rolled out of the garage leaving me alone to ponder the sudden one hundred and eighty-degree shift in my life.

I wanted desperately to blame him, to hate him for what was happening, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t hate him for wanting what he had always wanted. It had been me that reneged; I had made a promise I couldn’t keep.
He
should hate
me
, but Dave was incapable of hate, never saying a bad thing about anyone; one of his annoying quirks that drove me crazy and left me awestruck at the same time. No, Dave wouldn’t hate me, but that didn’t change the fact that he was still leaving me to pursue the life I wouldn’t give him.

I had to do something. I couldn’t just lie in bed all day and cry just to have him come home in nine hours and find me still here, red-eyed and surrounded by more wet tissues and a requisite empty bag of Oreos. I needed to get up and do something.

Launching my body out of bed, my brain turned to autopilot, I was out of the shower and dressed in twelve minutes. Before I realized what I was doing, I was on a step stool in the closet reaching for our luggage, a wedding gift from his Aunt Alice. After much reaching and stretching, I managed to pull two of the bags down and dragged them over to the bed. Filling them to maximum capacity, I realized I didn’t know where I was going or what I would even need.

It didn’t matter; I just needed to get away. Once my clothes were packed, I turned back to the bathroom to get all of my toiletries. I spent a good three minutes staring at our Sonicare toothbrush; it consisted of a rechargeable base and one interchangeable head for each of us. It was just one more way our lives were entwined. Suppressing my guilt, I took the base and my brush head; as of last inventory, he had twenty-four of these things just sitting in boxes in his office. He would manage; he would get a new toothbrush and eventually, he would get a new wife too. And suddenly, I felt like a toothbrush: a part of everyday life which was easy enough to replace when it didn’t fulfill your needs anymore.

My toiletries case filled up quickly, so in the interest of space, I left some items behind: the massive bottle of bubble bath courtesy of Costco, the pack of contraceptive sponges I had just bought two days prior, and my bikini waxing kit. I could buy a more manageable bottle of bubble bath and the other items I wouldn’t need.

Returning to the bedroom, I took a deep breath and looked around. Nope, I’ve got everything, I thought, sweeping my eyes from dresser to closet to nightstand. Until my eyes rested on the framed picture on Dave’s nightstand. I walked over to it and picked it up. It was his favorite picture of us. We were on vacation, had taken a Caribbean cruise and were on a day trip in Mexico. We’d walked around the outdoor mall where locals tried to haggle and deal with us when we saw a man and his donkey standing against the wall. We approached and as I stroked the donkey’s soft, fuzzy muzzle, the man told Dave that Pedro, the donkey could give us a ride through the mall for just ten dollars. As if on cue, poor Pedro sighed. Dave and I giggled, but we felt bad for the poor old creature.

“How much just to sit on him and have you take our picture?”

“Five dollars,” the man said.

“Done.”

Dave heaved me up onto Pedro before climbing on behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. “I love you,” he said into my ear right before the man took the picture.

We climbed down from Pedro’s back and I scratched behind his ears as Dave dug into his pocket and pulled out a twenty, handing it to the man. “Keep the change,” he said, his smile wide. 

I put the picture down, wondering if Dave would leave it out on his nightstand when I was gone. He’d probably leave it there for a while, but eventually, it would get put in the drawer and someday make its way into a box in the garage.

My chest suddenly felt tight, my breathing becoming short and shallow. I sat down on the bed.

It had been years since I’d had a panic attack, but the symptoms were as familiar as if I’d just had one yesterday. Time to do some yoga breaths.

After several minutes of structured breathing, the tightness in my chest subsided: I had avoided a full-blown panic attack.

Not willing to sit around and wait for another, I grabbed my bags and headed downstairs towards the garage.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, I was still sitting in the car, wondering where the hell I was going. My first instinct was to go to a hotel and avoid having to tell anyone what had happened, but that wasn’t viable; there was no telling how long before I could get settled into my own place. Dave and I always did well financially, but now everything was going to change. There was no guarantee that I would even be employed anymore. Being a little prudent with money seemed like a good idea.

So I thought about my friends. Kendra Silver, a good friend since grade school, was not my best choice to bunk down with. She was a newlywed and she and her new husband Paul were consumed with trying to conceive. Kendra’s biological clock and kicked into high gear the second she said “I do,” and the subsequent seven months without a plus sign on the pregnancy test stick were starting to cause some stress in the Silver household. I didn’t need to add my own fuel to that fire.

Then there was Zoë, but she had a house already busting at the seams with her husband Alf, two kids, a dog and at least two cats. No chance I was knocking on that door.

That left party girl Jen. She lived alone but in a small one-bedroom apartment.  This would have been fine, as I’d never been above couch surfing, but Jen was almost never alone in the evenings between her on again off again boyfriend Aaron and the men that filled the gaps when Aaron was off again.

I agonized, trying to decide upon the lesser of many evils.

Instead, I ended up on the only doorstep where I was guaranteed comfort, solace and no risk of stepping on a used condom on the way to the bathroom in the morning.

I needed the kind of comforting that only parents could dish out. A meal of consolation as effective as a huge casserole of mac and cheese with an ice cream sundae chaser. The kind of meal I was looking for would have a first course of hugs and kisses, an entrée filled with
tsk tsks
and a side of ‘oh you poor thing’s. Dessert would be assurances that I could do much better and that I would come out of this ordeal a stronger person. Add to that an actual real home-cooked meal courtesy of my Jewish mother whose entire life revolved around her kitchen and I would be well on my way to healing my broken heart.