Page 95 of Maybe in Another Life

Gabby huffs. “I’ll say.”

“I couldn’t do any of this without you.”

“Ditto,” she says.

“I kind of want to just feel sorry for myself and cry,” I tell her. “Maybe for the foreseeable future.”

She nods. “Honestly, that sounds great.”

We both slump down on the couch. Charlemagne joins us.

The two of us quietly cry on and off for the rest of the night, taking turns being the one crying and the one consoling.

I think that through our wallowing, we are able to release some of our fear and pain, because when we wake up the next day, we both feel stronger, better, more ready to take on the world, no matter what it throws at us.

We go out for breakfast and try to make jokes. Gabby reminds me to take my prenatal vitamins. We walk Charlemagne and then go buy her a dog bed and some chew toys. We begin to potty train her by bringing her to the front door when she pees. Every time she looks as if she has to pee, we pick her up and bring her to the front door, where we have a wee-wee pad. Gabby and I high-five each other with an unmatched level of excitement when Charlemagne goes straight to the wee-wee pad on her own.

When Mark calls that night, Gabby answers. She calmly listens to what he has to say. I don’t eavesdrop. I try to give her space.

It’s hours until she comes to find me in my room.

“He apologized a million times. He says he never meant to hurt me. He says he hates himself for what he’s done.”

“OK,” I say.

“He says he was going to tell me. That he was working up the courage to tell me.”

“OK...” Her voice is shaky, and it’s making me nervous.

“He loves her. And he wants a divorce.”

I sit up straight in bed. “Hewants a divorce?”

She nods her head, just as stunned as I am. “He says I can keep the house. He won’t fight me on a settlement. He says I deserve everything he can give me. He says he loves me, but he’s not sure he was ever in love with me. And that he’s sorry he wasn’t brave enough to face that fact earlier.”

My mouth is agape.

“He says, looking back on it, he should have handled it differently, but he knows this is right for both of us.”

“I’m going to kill him,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I’m kind of OK.”

“What?”

“Well, I think I’m in shock, first of all,” she says. “So take this with a grain of salt.”

“OK...”

“But I always just had this feeling that maybe there was someone better out there.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I mean, we’ve been together since we were in college, and then we both went on to more school, and who has time to really focus on dating then? Right? So I stayed with him because... I didn’t really see a reason not to. We were comfortable around each other. We were happy enough. And then, you know, I got to the age where I felt I should get married. And things have been fine between us. Always fine.”

“But just fine?”

“Right,” she says.

---