Saturday night. Dave and I are headed to a little Cuban restaurant we love. We pass by a packed outdoor cafe. "We ate there once, didn't we?" I ask.
"Yeah," says Dave. "It was right before Max was born. I hate that place."
"Why?"
"It brings back bad memories."
Oh.
"Honey, that was a beautiful time before Max was born," I tell him.
"Yes, but then we ended up in hell," Dave says. "It was catastrophic."
Dave hardly ever talks about the period when Max was born. So when I hear him say things like this, they take me by surprise. And they pain me. Dave is the most cheerful, easygoing guy I've ever met, and it still hurts to think back to how shattered he was during Max's two weeks in the NICU. I wasn't sure I'd ever see happy-go-lucky Dave again.
We drive in silence for a minute. Then Dave says,
"If I had known Max would turn out the way he did, I wouldn't have been so upset back then."
And we're quiet again. And we're headed to the little Cuban restaurant. And I know we're both thinking about how lucky we are.
Photo/M Bob
