Love for Scale

by Michaela Greene

  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 enoug
h 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.

  Of course, my parents weren’t home, both having already left for their respective jobs. Dad was a math teacher at the local high school and Mom worked at a local craft store where she was able to spend most of her days gossiping with her contemporaries while knitting afghan after afghan. I had been the recipient of countless beautiful afghans and had cheerily passed all but a few of them along to Goodwill where they would be put to much better use than attracting moths in my closet.

  I was happy they weren’t home: a few hours to myself to decompress was just what the shrink would order.

  Letting myself in with the key I had never returned upon moving out, I put my bags down in the tiled front hall. I filled my lungs with the sweet, heady air of my former home. Every time I returned, it still smelled good: a mixture of home cooking and lavender that was better than any aromatherapy concoction available on the market. Now if I could just bottle the fragrance, I’d never have to turn to Oreos for comfort again.

  I slipped out of my shoes and nudged them until they were neatly on the mat against the wall. Forget the Ten Commandments: disorganization and mess were at the top of the list of sins in my parents’ house.

  Retrieving my bags, I stepped deeper into the house, making a beeline for my old room which now doubled as my dad’s office. I passed by my sister Ruby’s old room and didn’t spare it a glance, knowing what would be inside: bolts of quilting fabric, skeins of yarn and assorted toolboxes and Rubbermaid containers containing various notions, threads, and knitting needles. Ruby hadn’t been married a week before my mother converted her room into craft supply central. My brother Steve’s room hadn’t suffered the same fate and stood untouched since the day he announced he was accepted to law school and was moving out. It was eerie how his room was fit to welcome Steve back at any time, with ever-fresh sheets and recently-dusted golf trophies even though the room hadn’t been utilized in almost a decade, other than to accept the odd visiting relative. And it didn’t matter that he was a successful lawyer who made decent money; until the day Steve walked down the aisle, Mom didn’t believe he wouldn’t be coming back home and so left his room ready for him.

  My room, however, had almost nothing left of my former life except my old bed dwarfed by the huge computer desk. Thanks to his profession, Dad was plugged into technology and prided himself on his technical aptitude. Not to mention that having a hopped-up computer made him very popular with Ruby’s kids when the family congregated for the holidays.

  I set my bags next to the bed and took a deep breath. I headed down to the basement to the rec room to work in some much needed ‘me time.’ Turning on the TV, I snuggled under one of the obligatory afghans and smiled as I found the Food Channel.

  * * *

  “Vicky? Honey are you here?” Mom’s voice interrupted my nap, reminding me immediately where I was.

  “Yeah, down here,” I hollered as I slid my legs to the floor. I yawned and stretched, the muscles across my shoulders and back protesting my spending the entire day channel-surfing and sleeping on the worn out old couch.

  Mom trudged down the stairs, her knitting bag still in hand. “What are you doing here? Are you feeling okay?” She dropped the bag and came at me, her palm automatically poised to land on my forehead.

  I waved her off. “I’m fine.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you’re here.” She sat down on the end of the couch facing me. “Not that I mind. It’s nice to see you, honey,” she added quickly.

  And there it was: I had to exp
lain. There was no way around it. She wasn’t budging until she got an answer out of me. “Dave and I…” the tears came quicker than I expected. “We’re having some problems.” I pulled up my legs and hugged my knees to my chest, fighting the urge to rock back and forth.

  My mother’s hand flew to her mouth, the shock still clearly visible in her wide eyes.

  “Oh, honey…” She leaned in, putting her arms around me.

  That’s precisely the moment when I lost it.

  In my mother’s arms, I wept like I hadn’t since the age of fifteen when my beloved dog, Sandy, didn’t wake up one morning. It was almost the same feeling now: my best friend leaving me, the void left behind painfully palpable.

  When the crying finally subsided to just annoying hiccups, Mom removed her arms and leaned back. She dug into her knitting bag and found a Kleenex, which she pushed into my hand.

  “Honey, I’m sure it will be okay, you and Dave will work everything out.”

  “I don’t think so, Mom.” I wiped at my eyes with the Kleenex before using it to blow my nose.

  “You want me to call the Rabbi?”

  I blinked at her. “What? Why would I need you to call the Rabbi?”

  She looked at me like I’d asked her who Barbra Streisand was. “The Rabbi. Maybe he could give you and Dave some advice. You know, marriage counseling.”

  The last thing I needed was marriage advice from a ninety-year-old Rabbi, who’d been widowed for three decades. “No thanks, Mom.”

  “Do you want to talk to me about it?” her eyes dropped from mine before she continued in a lower tone. “Is it about what happens in your bedroom?”

  “Ew, Mom, no. And I’m not really in the mood to talk about it right now. Is it okay if I crash here for a while?”

  She almost looked happy. “Of course, you can stay here as long as you like. Come on, you’ll help me with dinner.”

  Glad for something to do, I threw the afghan off and got up, stretching again. “Sure, what are we having?”