I've been putting off writing this one because I knew it would be a difficult one to write (note to my nine readers: I'm writing these about one month behind because doing it in the moment was too painful). And the reason I've been putting off writing this one is because, on the morning of my last appointment, we went to breakfast and it was there that everything went so well.
I met him a little after 9 a.m. at the clinic. He was late--again. Probably to make a statement--again. I let it slide because our last few encounters had been so testy and, instead, asked him how his volunteer shift had been the week before. He launched into a story about an old East Village punk rock guy who talk-stalked him all over Housing Works. I asked him if they let him use the cash register and teased him about it, letting him go on boyishly about his thrill at the till. Seeing I was no threat, he became much more at ease. He was always most comfortable when he was telling one of his stories. It was kind of like a performance. I could tell this one would become part of his repertoire, he would keep it on hand to tell again someday, to someone else.
The doctor called us into the examining room and told us everything was looking good. She said they would never know whether the pregnancy had miscarried or been ectopic but, either way, my blood levels indicated everything was on its way back to normal--physically, anyway. I asked her about my blood type and she told me I was Rh positive, which was good news for future pregnancies, and then she asked if I had any other questions. Apparently, #111 hadn't heard that second part because when I looked over at him as I tried to conjure another question for her, he said, "Why are you looking at me? I don't know your blood type."
"She already told me," I said. "I'm trying to think of other questions."
"Oh," he said. But the moment of hostility was pungent.
Then the doctor asked me if I wanted birth control.
I didn't even pause. "Yes," I said, in a way that, to #111, I (yes, childishly) hoped, sounded more like, "Yes, definitely, I will be needing that because I'm going to be sleeping with many men very soon."
Back outside, we'd seemed to have shaken off any pettiness. I said, "So how about we go to B&H for breakfast?" He was game. I knew he would be. On the walk over I talked about Shelagh, who was off on safari and said, "You never finished telling me your safari story about the elephants." It was a story he had started on our last date--almost two weeks earlier. He'd gotten cut off because the show started and then, well, we broke up.
As we walked, he finished telling me that when they were out on the plains in the jeep, they saw elephants and he started to cry. He said he didn't know what that was about.
"It's like that time I told you about where I saw my niece," I said, recalling the story I had told him at one of our Remedy breakfasts. The story was: A few years earlier, my parents picked me up from the bus station and my niece was in the car. I hadn't seen her in three years and she was almost five, a walking, talking, thinking human. I took one look at her and started to cry.
"It's the innocence, the pureness of it," I said to #111. "It's not messed up yet. It's simply life--uncomplicated, it just is what it is."
It was a beautiful day. Fall had set in and the sun was out. We got a table inside B&H and ordered. If you've ever been to B&H, you know it's old school. It's tiny, so they cook everything behind the counter and then hand it over to you. And the tables are so close you barely have to get up to reach for anything.
We sat there for two and half hours talking. I asked him how he was doing with all of this. He said he'd only told his roommate and therapist but was just trying to keep busy so as not to get depressed. "I take pregnancy very seriously," he said and added that he was trying not to think about it too much. I told him that I'd been in reaction mode when I found out and that if it had been a viable pregnancy, I might have regretted what I'd done. "I wouldn't have let that happen," he said. "If there had been a heartbeat or anything, I would have stopped everything and said, 'OK, let's talk about this.' But the priority was to make sure you were safe and when it looked like things weren't good, that was what was important." I leaned my head to the side, resting it against the wall, looked at him and said, "It made me realize that if I ever am in a committed relationship, I would like to have a child."
We went on talking and after finishing our omelets, I asked him if he wanted to split a piece cake. As always, he was amused at my unapologetic affection for sweets, which he also joined in on, though more apologetically. So we split a piece of carrot cake. He was clearly in no rush. We talked about writing and our plans for what to write in the future. He started to be discouraging about something I said I wanted to do but then caught himself and said he thought it sounded like a great idea. "You should send it to The Atlantic or The New Yorker," he said. At least he caught himself. He hadn't always.
Sitting across from him, I was waiting for the right moment to say something else I'd wished I'd said to him but was too afraid to say while we were dating... because it was about his ex... because I was so threatened by her, by their long relationship. "I'm really sorry you suffered so much at the end of your last relationship," I said. Because the truth was, no matter how stunted or unwilling to look at himself he is, it doesn't change the fact that he was in pain. I wanted to at least acknowledge that. Even though I didn't think it would change anything with him, it was practice for the next guy who tells me how his last relationship hurt him. At least I won't have to wait until that relationship is over for me to be able to show compassion. #111 appeared to appreciate it.
I was taken by the spirit of things and said, after we discussed books and movies and writing, "I would like us to be friends. Because I think we have a few things in common." It was a friendly jab at one of his retarded breakup comments.
"I would like that. Maybe I can send you a jazz song," he jabbed back.
It began to feel like we were maxing out our breakfast time and so I got the check (which he jabbed me about, too) and we got our stuff together to go. On the sidewalk, I gave him a hug and sort of patted him on the back at the end of it--that's what I do with friends. And as I began to turn around and walk away, I saw that same look on his face that I saw the day he came over to discuss my pregnant state. Again, the "intense" look was gone. Instead, his look was curious, almost baffled--open even--as if he could have been thinking, "What just happened here?"
Diagnosis: What just happened here? I held onto that look as well as the facts of the morning: two and half hours at breakfast together and it was clear there was nowhere else he'd rather be. Two and a half hours, I kept thinking. But I had no idea when I would hear from him again or if I even ever would. I still had to let him know about the bills, but that was a bookkeeping matter, so it didn't count. Even though I'd said I wanted to be friends--and meant it in the moment--I was truly holding onto this idea that he would realize what he'd done and "snap out of it," and I wanted to believe that that look was just the beginning of his "coming to." But I should have known that--just like it had already proven to be with him--the promise of good could vanish in an instant.
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