The Husband orders a red wine and I order a Diet Coke. Plates are laid out: tuna carpaccio encrusted with toasted sesame seeds, pea shoot tendrils tenderly clasping veal medallions in abstracted herb sauce, zucchini slivers dressed with mint-dill reduction.
The Husband sips his wine, eats his veal while I tell him about the things my ex-boyfriends and I did all day, the art we saw, the items we bought. He nods his head to a rhythm different than the conversation.
He's being quieter than usual.Dessert finally arrives, a vanilla torte with raspberry coulis and mascarpone cream.
I try to enjoy it, but I can’t seem to escape the gaze of
the couple at the next table. The wife, she can’t help herself.
She leans over, puts her hand on my wrist, says, You will
produce beautiful children.
That’s been done, I tell her, taking my hand away.
I have one son and one daughter, one gang-bangingly after the other. One is six and the other seven. They look and act so much like the Husband. They chew with their mouths closed, they know the correct fork to use. At night, they crawl into my lap, full of easily disclosed secrets, light as folding chairs.