“Sidney, we need to talk.”

Those are words no partner wants to hear. This sounds ominous, he thinks. They’re seated
at the kitchen table and he braces himself. Sandy gently grabs his wrists and pulls them toward
her.

“Do you remember what you said to me six years ago, when they told me I had cancer?”

“Um, no. I don’t.”

“Well, I do. You said, ‘Let me help you.’ The four most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.
And you did. You were there in my room when I woke up from surgery and made the nurse’s
station wish they could file a restraining order against you. ‘She could use another pillow. Her
lunch is 15 minutes late. She hasn’t been able to get any continuous sleep, with all the doctor and
nurse visits.’

“That was real love, abiding love. More romantic than any love poem you could have
written for me. It was action, not talk. But more than that, I don’t know what. Something beyond
romance, greater even than love.

“We’ve been through a lot. There was that. Then the time I lost my job. And you wanted
a child, but I couldn’t get pregnant.”

Sidney studies his wife’s face, framed by her long blonde hair and delicate but the
slightest bit haggard, a record of where she has been. Sandy’s rescued existence was a purifying
act not only for her but him as well. It deepened his understanding of life. He still has her
alongside him on this spinning rock in an otherwise indifferent, incomprehensible universe.

The experience changed his tolerance of anything he sees as a distraction from the larger
truth. He is since irritated by references to “booty” in pop music, sometimes mumbling “we’re
more than colliding billiard balls” to no one at all.

To his surprise, Sandy begins tilting her head downward, expression grim, voice
shaking. “But things change,” he hears her saying. “I’ve changed. You’re so precious, and this is
so hard.” She pauses.”It hurts me to say this.”

It was not long ago Sidney’s friend was on the receiving end of a ‘Things change’ speech
from his significant other., informing Sidney’s expectation. Oh Sidney, we’ve grown apart, and
I’ve met someone. There was no plan. It just…happened, he imagines in his head before Sandy
utters another word.

C’mon, Sandy, you can do better than that, Sidney fancies. How about, you’re forty-five
and developing a paunch. I don’t love you anymore.

A wave of resentment surges within him, accompanying the dread he is feeling. I served
my purpose, so now you can cast me aside, he figures.

It is all he can do to remain silent, to hear her speak the words. Then she won’t be able to
backtrack, or claim he misunderstood what she said.

“Sidney, dear Sidney,” Sandy continues.

Now it’s his eyes that are downcast. He can’t face Sandy. Her betrayal aches. He still
loves her.

She gets up from her chair, walks over to him, and kneels to be in his line of sight, still
gazing straight ahead rather than up at him. “Sweetie, sometimes things just happen that we
don’t plan.”

Sidney holds his breath.

“I have news. I’ve been to the doctor.” She raises her head and smiles as brightly as the
sun. “You’ve given so much of yourself. Now I have something to give to you. A son. Your son.
Our son.”

Now that’s Sandy, the woman I love, he exhales and sighs, freezing as it all washes over
him, navigating between Sandy’s goodness and his own awfulness. My God. What an untrusting
insecure bastard I am! he rages. How could I have thought those things of her?

Only now has he the presence of mind to recall that day at Sandy’s bedside after her
cancer surgery. He was horrified when she told him they’d have to open her up again, finally
catching on when she explained the surgeon’s wedding ring had slipped off during the operation,
and he’d need to retrieve it before returning home to his wife.

By now I should have known better, he concedes inwardly, and smiles. She mustn’t know,
so he forces himself to recover quickly, shaking his fist at her in mock rage.

Sandy laughs, adding, “I can’t imagine two parents who will be more committed to a
child, and to each other.”