Date Night Is Cancelled
When we first selected Saturday
as an official Date Night because
Sophia was invited to the sleepover
and we had no other plans, I wrote
it out- an announcement, a sign-
DATE NIGHT- in big block letters,
red outlined with black, and big
enough to fill the entire square in
the calendar, as if to crowd out any
other possibility. I added stickers
to signify the importance of this
rare evening, to suggest the way
it shone at the end of the week like
some exception, some beacon- a
kissing emoji and the word LOVE
with a heart for the O, so, yes, I
had expectations, because we so
rarely find the space in which just
we two can knock around, taking
up all the space, locking out even
the cats, so that I hear you and you
hear me and conversations don't
lose themselves in the distances
of hallways and the chaos of kitchen
cabinets, so when Mom came by
and asked if we could make the time
to visit with old friends we rarely
see, to attend what will, of course,
be a lovely dinner party, I hemmed
and tried to imagine the magic words
that would have made it impossible
to say yes, unthinkable to agree, but
that isn't who we are, and this wasn't
just any request, and even if we
both are disappointed, we love our
families, and we never close those
doors, and so we will postpone our
only Saturday and maybe meet
instead for lunch. I mean it's not
like we don't live together, sleep
beside each other every night, but
that is not what gets written on
my calendar, and I wrote DATE
NIGHT big and red and with
permanent ink. The stickers are there.
Consider the stickers. Consider
the empty space I've now filled twice.
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