Melancholy Baby

4

I started to tear up again as I told him, and when I got through, he put his arms around me and pulled me against him. This made Rosie vaguely uneasy, until he scooped her in, too, and the three of us sat in close embrace while I cried a little.

After a while I stopped, and with my face still against his chest said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Of course you don’t,” Spike said.

“I know we were divorced,” I said. “I know he slept with other people and God knows I did, too.”

“But sometimes you slept with each other,” Spike said softly, “even though you were divorced, and you still loved him, and you were pretty sure he loved you, and you sort of knew that someday it would work out, and you’d be together again, in some way or other.”

I nodded against his chest. It was like snuggling a sandbag.

“And now the sonovabitch is getting married and you can’t think that anymore.”

I nodded again.

“Even though you divorced him originally.”

“Yes.”

My voice sounded small and muffled against him. He didn’t say anything else, just kept his arm around me and patted my back gently. With his other hand, he gave Rosie a piece of her dinner roll. I got my breathing under control after a while, and he let me go and I sat up straight. Spike handed me a napkin and I blotted my eyes dry, trying not to make too much of a mess of my makeup.

“For what it’s worth,” Spike said, “this is as bad as it’s going to get. In a while it will get better.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

“It will get better,” Spike said.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” I said. “I can’t live with him, but when he finds somebody that can, I have a breakdown.”

“Because the first time you left him. Now he’s leaving you.”

“You think I’m that childish?”

“Sure,” Spike said.

“I can’t live with anyone,” I said.

“I know.”

“But why can’t I?”

“I don’t know.”

Rosie had settled in comfortably between us now that there was no more hugging and crying, and kept her eyes on the roll. Spike broke off another small piece and fed it to her.

“I don’t know, either,” I said. “That’s the awful thing.”

“Weren’t you seeing a shrink a while ago?”

“Dr. Copeland, yes, but that was business. I was consulting on that Melissa Joan Hall thing.”

“But didn’t you go see him for a while afterwards?”

“Just a couple of times,” I said. “I didn’t see any reason to go really.”

“ ’Cause Richie wasn’t getting married, and neither were you, so you and he could be whatever you and he were.”

I nodded.

“And, as I recall, you were bopping that guy from LA.”

“Spike!”

“Which made it easier to feel like you were happy,” Spike said. “Right now you feel badly alone.”

“Except for you,” I said.

“And as we both know, I’m gayer than three humming birds,” Spike said.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” I said.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t love you, either. But that’s not what we’re talking about.”

“What are we talking about?”

“You need to see a shrink.”

“Oh, God,” I said.

“We need to know what’s wrong with you.” He grinned at me. “I can only take you so far.”

“That seems so long a hill to climb.”

Spike nodded.

“I mean, do you think I’m crazy?”

“I think you need to know what’s making you unhappy.”

“Duh,” I said. “Richie’s marriage might have something to do with it.”

“I think you need to know why that’s making you so unhappy.”

“Because I love him, for crissake.”

“Then I think you need to know why you love him and can’t live with him.”

I was silent. Spike gave Rosie the final bite of roll. The ladies that Rosie had offended finished their free lunches and got up and left. They were careful not to notice me or Rosie.

“You bastard,” I said to Spike.

He smiled.

“Explain to me where I’m wrong,” he said.

“You’re not wrong. It’s why I called you a bastard.”