V-Day

Zoey and I ended up ordering a pizza for Valentine’s Day and watching the Jurassic Park trilogy. I told her about my last date with Kevin and she congratulated me.

“Took you long enough.” She said giggling and reaching across for more pizza.

“I know, but I think with all my reservations about Kevin, I really needed to wait, you know?”

“Yeah, I hear ya. Speaking of dates, I have one next week with a guy I met on in my apartment building.”

“You’re dating a neighbor?”

“No he was working on the power lines that connect to my building, they had to be replaced and he was making the rounds in the building to double-check that everyone’s power was on when he knocked on my door I practically swooned. He’s dreamy Fatih.”

“That’s cute, Zoey has a crush!”

I went to work the next day and had a bouquet of daisies delivered for Valentine’s Day. There wasn’t a card, but I knew they were from Kevin because he’d been so nervous about not celebrating Valentine’s Day and was trying to cover all of his bases, I guess. He was busy with a ton of meetings so I never got to thank him for them. We have a date later this week so I’m sure I’ll think of some way to thank him. With that thought in my head I stopped at a lingerie store on my way home and picked something up just for Kevin.

When I got home and put my flowers in a vase I decided call up Anna and see if she wanted to grab dinner, she sounded relieved to get out of the house and we met about an hour later at burger joint near her house.

“How are you doing, for real, Anna?” I asked as I put my tray down on the plastic table. She looked exhausted and had lost weight since the miscarriage. She looked at me with complete sadness in her eyes and began sobbing. We started getting looks from surprised diners around us and I was pulling napkins out of a dispenser as fast as I could when she started to recompose herself.

“I’m doing okay,” I looked at her with an absurd expression and waited for her to continue, “No really, the miscarriage…it was hard and I’m working through it…it’s just…it’s Theo….he hasn’t….he’s…” She gave up and I reached to touch her hand. She looked down for awhile and wiped her eyes with a napkin. “I think he blames me for it. We’ve been arguing a lot and I don’t know how to connect with him again, he hasn’t wanted to have sex since it happened and I don’t really think I want to yet either, but I feel like there’s this coldness between us that’s getting worse and not better with the grief courses he signed us up for.”

“Have you talked to the counselor about it?” I asked gently.

She shook her head, “No, I don’t feel comfortable bringing that up in front of him with someone we don’t even know.”

“Isn’t that what the counselor is there for, though?”

“I feel like they’re really just supposed to help us through the miscarriage and I feel like the problems I’m talking about should be discussed with…with a…”

“…a marriage counselor.” I saw the devastation in Anna’s face and I knew exactly why she felt that way. Anna has always prided herself on her marriage to Theo and truthfully, they have one of the strongest relationships I’ve ever observed, so the fact that she was admitting to needing to see a marriage counselor was really difficult for her and it was written all over her demeanor.

I tried to comfort Anna, “Seeing a marriage counselor doesn’t mean that your marriage has failed, Anna, it just means you need to work through some things like everybody does.”

She nodded and then changed the subject to work; eventually we finished eating and said our goodbyes. It broke my heart to say goodbye to Anna knowing how difficult things have been for her.