Installment Fifty-Two

Enough is enough.

The time had finally arrived to 'meet' the new in-law. And, it was an occasion that most definitely had to happen without TBM or the happily engaged couple as a peanut gallery.

Luckily, Edna took her son to Montreal to calm him down and to drag him to a doctor after his fainting spell in my apartment. Deborah and Sean took a 48-hour respite from the nuttiness of their elders, still none the wiser about Sean's father. He had not told them anything yet.

I considered dipping into my new 'sleeping medication' before my long overdue reunion with Gabe. I realized, though, it would be best to have my wits about me.

Besides, we had arranged to meet for dinner at a restaurant in the ByWard Market. I may not remember clearly the last time I toked up, but I do faintly recall hoovering through a friend’s refrigerator afterwards. At all costs, I needed to appear dignified. Out-of-control munchies are not a pretty sight.

I could always just get plastered on wine. At last, a skill from my expat days that may prove handy!

As it turned out, I ended up barely touching the food on my plate. I was way too shocked to eat upon hearing Gabe's story. With my bile rising, there would have been no place for the food to go down anyway. The glass of wine in front of me also remained as full as when it was poured.

Sitting across the table from a man I had kissed as a boy, dreamed about as a young woman, fantasized about as an unhappy wife, and then brought together again by our progeny at a difficult time in my life would seem, at face value, to hold all the ingredients of a fairy tale ending.

Can there be a woman alive, and probably a divorced one unlucky in the marriage lottery, who has not dreamed of being reunited with a childhood love? Isn't that the main reason the older crowd is on Facebook?

Forget all that nonsense about using it to see pictures of their grandchildren. That may be true for some (I thought fondly of my Uncle Thomas) but how many stories have I read about school reunions where lost loves are re-found and rekindled thanks to social media reunions and everyone lives happily ever after?

With that kind of romantic bullshit running through my head, I had waited with baited, optimistic breath to hear a story that would allow me to forgive Gabe's appalling behavior of abandoning his children upon the death of their mother.

Tossing and turning during sleepless nights, I had come up with no end of reasonable scenarios, from the bizarre to the ridiculous, (amnesia to kidnappings topped my list of implausible excuses.)

Nothing prepared me, though, for what he told me. And throughout his story, running through my mind non-stop, was an observation an old friend of mine constantly makes (and I always dismiss as being extraordinarily cynical.)

People will disappoint.

She got that right.

When he was finished accounting for the last ten years of his life, a monologue which I allowed him to complete uninterrupted, I was speechless.

"Well Joelly," he said. "That's what happened love.” He could barely look me in the eye. The term of endearment may have been involuntary, but I still found it gratuitous.

Lifting my wine glass, I briefly contemplated throwing its contents in his face but restrained myself and took a much needed giant gulp instead.

Without saying another word, I exited the restaurant in a daze, wondering how I could have squandered almost my entire life pining for a man I would never be able to forgive.

Ever.