On My Own

I just watched my husband drive away, headed for O’Hare.

His bags were packed last night, and for the first time in many weeks, we were able to just be a family for a few hours.

I remembered, in those moments, why it is that I married the man. His test is over, his presentations for his international conference are completed, the journal he edited this summer is published.

He was a different man, the one I fell in love with all those years ago. Eleven years, to be exact, on Aug. 10. The day before our second child is born, we will have been together for more than a decade.

I remember that first date. I placed a personal ad in our local alternative weekly newspaper, long before Internet dating made such antics socially acceptable.

I met 15 men, all in the same small coffeehouse that no longer exists.

Mr. Chicken was my first date out of all those men, and he was also the last.

He was younger than I, 24 to my oh-so-worldly-26. He is fond of telling new friends that I was a keeper – after all, I fell for him when he was unemployed and didn’t even have a car.

Balding, goatee – and a musician. Three strikes, I thought to myself, as we sat at the small metal table outside the cafe.

Later I would learn that he hates to eat outside. But he sat there, in the blazing August heat, and we talked and talked.

Or rather, I talked and talked and he listened.

I was nervous; he was attentive.

Our second date sealed the deal. A meal at a Mexican restaurant (he hates Mexican) and a viewing of CopLand, the first of many, many movies we’d see together over the next few years. Our love of film brought us together in many ways.

Now we’re married.

Last night I stood and watched him cuddle our daughter on the guest bed. He looked at me with serious eyes.

“I don’t want to go,” he said.

“I know,” I sighed. I took his hand. “It seems like we’re always saying, ‘this too shall pass.’ I’m waiting for the good stuff to get here so we can stop saying that.”

He rubbed my belly, and patted my hand.

“These are the good things,” he said. “We’re married. That’s a good thing.”

And so it is.

This morning as he prepared for his departure to a land across the sea, I watched with a heavy heart. I’m 36 weeks pregnant today, and I am alone here in Chambana for the next two days, before my MIL arrives to mind me while I continue gestating in her son’s absence.

We’ve had a tough summer, my husband and I. Tensions were high. Each believed the other to be withholding support. We tried to shield the other from the very real worries and concerns we carried in our hearts these past few months.

We argued. I felt a gap widening.

Strangely, today as I watched him drive away in the bright morning sun, the gap closed.

I miss my husband.