Fridge with a TV
October 9, 2008
originally written in June 2007
There’s a fridge with a television in the door. Amazing. That was a crazy day, I won’t deny that. We had both cried quite a bit. It was the consequence of a stupid decision made weeks before, we both knew it. It wasn’t even the first time this had happened either, but this time I can clearly remember it.
I’d never been so happy to hear her say it. So she skipped a month. So what? She’s young, these things happen. At least that’s what I was told. I knew better. I knew what it meant; what it could have meant. When she told me that it hadn’t, well, happened yet, I was optimistic. Maybe we’re assuming things. But no, she said, she was never this late.
Damn that word: late.
In my foolish attempts to comfort her, I remember saying that it would be okay and that we could even just keep it and make things work. I knew in my heart it wouldn’t be okay. We went out that day, into the grey hopelessness. I don’t know what drew us into that particular retailer, but we were just walking around aimlessly in there for what seemed like a decade.
They had a refrigerator with a television mounted into the front of the door. It was playing a scene from Star Wars (my favorite movie). In the midst of the turmoil of that day and that situation,
I was entranced.
She came out of the bathroom, tears rolling down her flushed pink cheeks. I wiped one away and asked what’s wrong? (A loaded question) It started! It started!! Disbelief, bliss. And yet, a subtle disappointment.
Guess I had already gotten used to the idea of being a father.
MSBQ
