It's the darndest thing - 3

Still, this looked like it might be an all nighter for him. And with only four hours of sleep. . . so I asked if he'd eaten - yes - everything he could get his hands on from the snack machine. . . I offered to bring him dinner, but he said "Hell no. I'm sending this draft off within the next few hours and then I'm coming home."

I tried to contact the travel agent some more. But mostly, I just sat still and looked at the trees.

He got home at 6:30. . . fifteen minutes before our flight would have left. We stood halfway between the kitchen and the sunroom table, and hugged each other tight.

He had a couple of glasses of wine; I had a vodka gimlet. He sat in the big red chair. I thought that other than the many degrees of shading; the chair and the wine were the same color.

It was really hard to look him in the eyes. I couldn't stand to see the eyes of my family in the pictures in the hall. I thought all the pictures and mirrors should be covered in black. The clocks too. At dinner, I hated the waitress for catching my eye and smiling at me. I just kept my head down. I tried again and again to have eye contact with Rolf, but my head just kept falling. Rolf cried when he saw that I couldn't look at him. I was so ashamed when I said something bitter and accusitory, that I started crying again.

_________

I thought I'd stay in bed on Friday. Why not? No one would be home, who cares. But the dog needed feeding.

I made a cup of tea. Then another, and then another, but with vodka in it. . . and I sat there and drank tea and vodka all day in silence. Oh, except that Bemmy called at 2:15.

"Oh, how I was hoping you wouldn't answer the phone," he said
"yeah, I know. We hope that we can leave by Sunday, or Wednesday maybe."
"Well, I was thinking that my unemployment check might be there, and I could come and keep you company."
"That would be nice," I said. "Could you bring me some stamps? Rolf asked me to put stamps on these bills and send them out, but if you'll bring me the stamps I won't have to go out."
"Stamps? um, sure I guess I have some stamps around . . . "
"Ok, great. Thanks."

He showed up at 5:15. Grabbed his unemployment check and said he had to rush to the bank before they closed at 5:45, but he'd be right back. And that's all I heard from him.

Rolf says "well, you know how he is. He probably got distracted by some porn on his computer and couldn't pull himself away."

I had made fried mushroom ravoli for lunch. When Rolf called and said he was coming home, I fried some more for him. And I fried up some green tomatoes too. That's all we had for dinner. He brought home meatloaf and mashed potatoes, as I had asked him too, but we didn't have that.

Plans were taking shape to get our vacation going. Even though Rolf said "How do you think I feel? Our vacation is ruined, our anniversary is ruined, and even though we will be in Italy next week, or maybe in the Spring; God knows I know that it doesn't count unless it's on the exact date. I'm going to hear about this forever, aren't I."

I think we went downstairs and we watched "Madea's Homecoming." He asked me what I was going to do on Saturday. "I'm going to try and stay in bed," I said. "Is that so you can hide?" he said. "No, it's so I don't feel."

I think he got out of bed on Saturday at 11. This response to the client's threat, once drafted by him get's sent out to a bunch of people, they send comments back, and then it goes out again to a higher level of people. The sequence continues until all the comments are in the document, and then it goes to the president and vice presedent levels. So, he got up and was working on the comments that came in overnight.

At one, he comes in and asks me how long I intend to stay in bed. "Oh, I think I can make it a couple of more hours" I said. I put on a face mask to hide the light, ear plugs to block the noise, and got into a fetal position - because that's the only position where my back didn't hurt. It took some effort to stay comfortable, but I did make it a couple of more hours. When he came in a shoved me saying "It's 3:30. Get out of bed, you're being childish." I screamed "I DON'T WANT TOO, AND I DON'T HAVE TOO." All I left off was "AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME." Then, what was it he said?, he was very irritated, I was groggy and he said "I guess it's too late to make an appointment with you to talk about going to Italy." I don't know, something like that. He say's I sat up saying "I want to go to Italy."

_________