So there I was. Sitting in my kitchen, watching the clock. (Bread in the oven, you see -- experimenting with flat-breads these days.) What a week to reflect on! I'd said "goodbye" to Miss Someone earlier in the week, after 6 fabulous days. Could not have asked for more.
Then the nastygram phone call, boundaries defended, mojo mojolated. Then a cool, if long-long-shot, job opportunity. Then the nice day with The Boy.
Then the almost-nearly-practically-a-success-right-up-to-the-cruel-punchline breakfast.
Then the boundary-crossing phone call, mojolated.
THEN The Crisis of The Boy.
Oy gevalt. What was I going to do? I was going to be making @Gypsy and @DanceQueen really mad, I knew that, and here I hadn't even been able to go waltzing (plus they both seem kind of hot and how am I ever going to get ahead in life making hotties angry with me?), but I knew that there was only way to attack the problem.
See the hill; take the hill.
Because I'd been an officer, dammit, a paratrooper -- I'd Been All That I Could Be and Did More Before 9 A.M. Than Most People Did All Day -- and even now I can't quit that officers-lead-from-the-front belief system. If anything was going to happen, it was going to happen because I made it happen.
So there he is, Smiley's Person Himself, in a kitchen redolent of sourdough and cedar chips, with a case of assorted wines to be sorted into the pantry, and a 'fridge full of various and sundry leftovers from various Weber-grill-related experimentations.
And if I knew STBXMRSSP, she hadn't eaten, because she doesn't eat when she's under stress; I knew that she had Themselves for 2 more days; I knew that she was already dreading the coming of the dawn and the day's misadventures of The Boy.
So I did the only thing I know how to do. I threw food at the problem. Rummaging around in the 'fridge, I put together a small platter of some tapas I'd been fooling with the past few days, along with some hunks of cheese I was sort of over; wrapped up the warm bread; grabbed a bottle of wine (label carefully selected -- "Irony Pinot Noir" from California); put them in one of the kajillion baskets she left in the house; and drove them over to her place (about 5 minutes away).
I texted her that I was at the door ("don't freak out, I'm unarmed"). She opened it carefully, and this is what went down:
SP: This is weird. I know. Blame it on the moon. Just go with The Weird. Can I come in? [Stepping inside] You're in distress, I can hear that in your voice, and there's not a lot I can do about that. I'm sort of breaking the Code of the Left-Behind Spouse here. But what I can do is cook, and so I'm bringing this....offering of Good Intent, if not of Good Will.
Is that fresh bread?
Yeah, just fooling around in the kitchen.
[To the ceiling] God almighty, he bakes bread.
Anyway. No Big Deal. I'll get out of your way here in a sec. But unless I miss my guess you're hungry. So eat a bit. Have a slurp of wine --
-- "Irony." Nice.
I do like my little jokes. And go to bed and tomorrow will be another chance at this parenting stuff. Now let's be clear, I didn't make this "for you" -- it's all stuff I've been experimenting with, so it's not like you're going to be beholden to me or anything. And I didn't take your call, and I didn't come over here, because you've tricked me into painting your fence. It's just that whatever it is that's going on with The Boy, we have to work it out, and we have to work it out together because he's ours.
How can we do that when you're pissed off at me 99.9% of the time?
We'll have to do it in the .1 percent. Or we'll have to do it in spite of the fact that I'm pissed off at you. Which I am. Make no mistake.
Oh I get it, but I don't know why, and --.
Stop. Enough. You know why, because you know what you're doing. And you know what you're doing when you pull your little bullsh*t stunts like you did this morning. Give me an ounce credit here, eh?
But all that is irrelevant where The Boy is concerned. I will work with you anyway I can for his sake. But know where the boundary is -- this is about his world. Once we're beyond that, the Old Rules apply.
And so, prepping a plate as I hectored her, I got a little snack-thing set up, and she asked if I was having any. I'd already eaten dinner -- a decent-sized catfish filet baked in this sort-of glaze I concocted with piquillo peppers, butter, and some dry seasoning with an artichoke salad beside it -- but I said I'd have a quarter-glass of the wine and a bit of the cheese, this nice (but dry) sheep's milk cheese from Navarra, and I let her kvetch about The Boy and child-rearing and that segued into lamentations about her job and her life (necessitating the repeated invocation of "Boundaries" when she tried to cross the DMZ into "it's frustrating trying to have a long-distance relationship with Signore"-land) which bled over into her Highlights Reel about the R and the D and how she knows now that having kids is what did the M in from her POV and, and, and....
And I smiled and waved and mojolated, and at the end of an hour she said, "Well?"
Fast-forward 30 minutes more -- minutes 1-20 were me basically laying down The Law on her getting Squared Away on the parenting (take a class, go to co-counseling with The Boy, whatever it takes -- whether you wanted to be or not "for real," you're The Mother now, and you need to Step Up your game) and minutes 20-30 were me laying down The Law on the nastygram phone calls, etc. (don't tilt your head at me like you don't know what I'm talking about -- you know you do these things, and it's going to stop).
Essentially I said I was there, laying it out there, taking a chance on her in Good Faith, doing what was Right for the sake of the children, so she'd better not squander it on the fleeting pleasures of a batsh*t-crazy-a-thon ("It's been a year -- you need to move on," he said, with no small amount of irony.
And there, at the end of Speaking My Piece for half-an-hour, I had the most astonishing realization, o ye fellow DB'ers.
After having been upbraided for her general sh*ttiness towards me she said something to the effect of, "Well, then you should be happy about all this. I can't imagine you'd want to be married to someone like me."
To which I replied, without even knowing the words were coming out of my mouth: I don't know what you're thinking you want or what you're wanting to think, but you're right about one thing -- I don't want to be married to you. The fact is, I don't feel any love for you.
And when I heard that come out of my mouth, though I kept the poker face, inside my head I was spinning: HOLY SH*T! Is that true? It IS true! Where in hell did that come from?
She gave me a look I'd pay a million bucks to see again, and I said, Don't get me wrong; I don't hate you. I don't Not-Love you. I'm just...neutral. I'm beige. I beige you.
And in spite of trying to maintain my poker face I laughed, which made her laugh, and minute 91 of the visit ticked away, and it was late, and I excused myself and got up and left. And she thanked me for the feed, and thanked me for the listening, and I said she was welcome and that she should sleep well and that she should should call me on the day with a report on The Boy.
And I went home and petted the dog and brushed my teeth and set the alarms and went to bed. And I slept well.
The basket stayed behind. Hell, I never wanted the dam things in the first place.
