The Unforgettable

It’s Saturday morning and I wake up to the smell of food. That can’t be coming from here. I sit up the smell of bacon fills my nose, is Chris really cooking? I look over at the clock it’s eight in the morning. I slide out of bed and run my fingers through my hair as I walk into the kitchen.

Chris is standing at the stove in his night shirt and briefs wielding a spatula and flipping a pancake.

He turns around to grab the cinnamon from the counter and sees me he gives me a smile.

“Good morning,” he’s sprinkling cinnamon into the pancakes.

Chris has rarely ever cooked, before we were only eating take out, it was usually me who was cooking, he’s cooked maybe ten times since we moved in together.

I stand at the counter and watch him as he flips another pancake and move around the bacon in the sizzling pan. He whips some eggs in a bowl with the beater then pours it into another pan on the back burner. He turns the bacon burner off and I continue watching him sitting at the counter on the barstool. He flips another pancake in the pan and scrambles the eggs, stands there and watches it all cook until he has to move things around again. He takes out to two plates, turns the burners off, decorates the plates in food and places a plate in front of me with a glass of apple juice.

“Happy Anniversary,” he says and puts his plate down next to mine going back to the cabinets for a glass.

Anniversary? Today’s our anniversary? I think and realize I don’t even know what today’s date is. The TV’s remote is on the back of the couch so I pick it up and quickly hit the guide, October 10th it says. I exit out of the guide and throw the remote back on the couch. Wow it really is our anniversary, six years now. I would have never even given today’s date a second thought had he not said anything.
He comes back with his glass of juice and sits next to me.

“H- Happy Anniversary,” I stutter.

He picks up his fork, “you try any yet?”

I shake my head and take a bite of the fluffy eggs and it’s pretty good.

“I added a lot of cheese to the eggs because I know that’s how you like it,” he says taking a bite of eggs and ripping apart his bacon with his teeth.

I slice up some pancakes and fill my mouth with the soft sweet pancakes. We finish our breakfast mostly in silence, he asks me if I like it and I say yes. When we’re finished he takes our plates, rinses them then puts them into the dishwasher and finally faces me.

“I have some stuff planned for us to do today. . . If you don’t mind going out with me.”

I stare at him then glance at the floor then back at him. He’s standing there leaning against the counter he looks a little nervous as he runs a hand through his hair. I guess he’s actually trying to prove that he can change but I don’t know if I want to go. I don’t know how to act anymore, we obviously can’t be the happy go lucky couple I thought we once were, we’ve only argued more and more. But if he’s willing to try, I guess I’m willing to see what he has planned out.

“I’ll go.”

“You’ll go?” he asks surprised. “Great, um I’ll let you take your time to get ready I just have to get dressed so, yeah.”

I nod, he nods too and gives an eager smile then strides away into the room. I take a breath, watch the two commercials that play until he comes back out then I go into the room and shut the door. I close my eyes and scratch the top of my head. I guess I should get ready, I don’t know what we’re going to be doing I suppose I should have asked that. I end up picking out some capris and a cream-colored polo shirt along with brown sandals. I take a steamy shower with the bathroom door open since the bedroom door is closed. I get dressed, brush my hair and head back into the living room.

“Ready?” he asks me holding the keys.

“Yeah.”

We leave, get into the car and head off onto the road. We don’t talk much, it’s kind of awkward. We stop at a light and he starts playing with the radio knob going through the stations. I take the chance to ask where we’re going.

“So what are we doing?”

He stops on a best 25 hits channel or something like that and clears his throat.

“Well, I know how much you like Tom Hanks and uh, there’s a new movie that he’s in that I wanted to take you to.”

I nod and say ‘oh nice,’ and it’s back to quietly listening to the radio and driving through the town. We get to the movie theater in about fifteen minutes, pay, Chris buys candy it’s sour gummy worms (because it’s my favorite), a small bag of popcorn along with a medium coke and we sit down in theater room number Four.

Chris laughs loudly at the first preview. He's always had a giddy childlike laugh, I always thought it was cute, I smile as the room goes dark and brightens again with another preview. 15 minutes later the movie starts, I feel Chris's hand ease onto my thigh. And I bite my lip feeling like I should do something but I don't, just rigidly sit there. A few minutes later finally relax and about thirty minutes into the movie I find myself leaning against his shoulder. It was a nice time.

Once the movie's over Chris suggests we walk a few blocks to go to the central park. As we walk Chris feels he should take my hand in his, it's warm in the cool breeze. We get to the park and walk up to the lake where there are a swarm of geese swimming along together. I watch them as some dunk their heads under for food and while others just swim or flap their wings splashing everything around them. Chris holds me around the waist staring off at the water too. He fingers some of my hair then looks at me and mentions the ice cream trolley we passed on the way.

"Want a scoop?" He asks.

I shrug, "sure."

"Chocolate?"

I nod and give a small smile, he kisses the side of my head and walks off to grab the cones.

The geese start to honk at each other making a scene flapping and splashing water. I giggle a little once I notice why they are starting such a commotion. A woman and son on the other side of the lake are being chased by other geese the mom is carrying a bag of food. They run over to a wooden picnic table and stand on top. The boy looks nervous as his mom tries to shoo them away. More geese are appearing which makes me laugh more, then I hear my name from behind me.

"Gianna?"

I'm startled and swiftly spin around to see who it might be, of course it's Giancarlo. My cheeks burn red, damn how small is this city?

I stare at him like an idiot as he takes steps closer to me.

He clears his throat, "I didn't think I'd see you again.”

I tuck some hair behind my ear and blink once.

"Oh, I um I don't know maybe. . . Uh, what are you doing here?"

He looks at me, "I come here every Saturday to feed the birds. . . I haven't seen you around here before."

"Oh, first time in a few years."

There's silence as he walks to the fence surrounding the lake, I walk up and stand next to him to watch the birds again. He speaks again looking at the paper bag he’s carrying.

"Would you like to feed some with me?"

He seems nervous as he opens his crinkled brown bag, I'm nervous because Chris could come up at any second. . . And of course now he appears.

Chris comes up behind us and clears his throat, I jump and quickly turn around to meet his suspicious eyes.

"You're back," I say jitterily.

He nods and hands over my cone and eyes Carlo up and down. I position to where my body's facing them both.

"Uh Chris, this is Carlo. Carlo this is uh, m- my husband, Chris," I stammer.

In, out, in out. Just breathe Anna nothing’s going to happen, everything’s fine. In, out, in out.

I watch Carlo's face drop a little when he hears the word husband, I watch his eyes go to the ring on my finger that I only put back on today. (I took it off and hadn’t worn it since Chris told me he cheated, until today.) Carlo looks between us then without missing a beat he plasters on a toothy smile and firmly shakes Chris's hand.

"Nice to meet you Chris," he says warmly.

I start to feel sick, Chris says "likewise" and points at my ice creams and hand saying it's melting as chocolate runs down my hand. I run my tongue along the scoop and Carlo lets out a nervous sound.

"Well you two enjoy the rest of your day," he says abruptly.

He gives Chris a nod, and gives me another glance as he walks away I watch as he notices the woman and son across the lake still being attacked by birds. He gasps and whistles loudly waving his bread in the air. He rips the bread apart and throws chunks into the water. The geese start flapping and honking their way into Carlo’s direction and he flings more pieces of bread into the water. I feel Chris’s eyes on me and I look over at him, he appears as though he’s thinking about questioning me but then shakes it off.

He points to my cone again and I lick it all over, I slurp it all down because I’m tired of the chocolate melting all over hand making it sticky. After wolfing down the cone I squeeze my eyes shut as I am now suffering from a brain freezing. I hear Chris burst into giddy laughter I groan and feel him pull me into a bear hug wrapping me in his arms. The tension in my forehead peaks then I feel it release slowly fading. Chris rubs my back in little circles still laughing then when it’s finally relieved I pull back.

“Ready to go home?” he asks.

I nod and he laughs at me, “you’ve got chocolate on your face.”

He leans in closer to me and licks the tip of nose, then presses his lips to mine. I burn red as he parts my lips against his and slips his tongue intertwining with mine. His hand slides down my side and rests on my right butt cheek. I grow embarrassed and pull away looking down, it’s kind of like he’s putting on a show for people, more like proving a point to Carlo. I turn around to see Carlo in the distance being approached by the woman who was being chased by the geese on the other side of the lake.

Chris takes my hand and leads us towards Carlo and the woman so that we can walk back to the car in the movie theater parking lot, their conversation is more and more audible. The woman talks to Carlo excitedly, in a flirtatious manner which makes me burn with jealousy just a tiny bit.

“Thank you so much for saving us!” she exclaims dramatically.

Carlo nods and smiles politely.

“Please. I must know the name of my savior.”

“I’m far from a savior, but I’m Giancarlo,” he extends a hand that she eagerly takes and holds on to too long.

“Nice to meet you Giancarlo,” she wipes his name free of any Italian touch. “I’m Tiffany. How can I ever repay you?”

He laughs, dammit why is she bothering him? Go away, he doesn’t want anything from you, he’s not for you. . . Well he’s not for me either, but. . . He’s especially not for you. She’s not even a good mother it looks like, she’s hanging all over Carlo as her kid wanders over to the water. He’s safe and all, there’s a gate that prevents anyone from falling into the water. But what if he were to slip through the slits of the gate, he would be drowning by now.

“No need, I enjoy the geese.”

Chris and I are walking right by them now and I catch Carlo’s eye as we do.

“I notice your accent,” the woman giggles. “Where are you from?”

Italian obviously you ditz, how can you not tell? Carlo doesn’t answer he’s busy watching me, watch him as we walk by. But I only glance a few times because I don’t want Chris to catch me. Before we’re out of earshot I hear the woman ask again which makes me laugh internally.

As we walk down the sidewalk Chris gives my hand a squeeze. I look over at him, he looks at me.

“How are you?” he asks.

I nod, “good. I had a nice time.”

He smiles, “I’m glad.”

There’s silence for a few moments as we continue walking then he speaks again.

“Sooo,” he elongates the word. “Who’s Mr. Luigi?”

I look at him confusedly then my heart sinks, I sigh.

Shrugging I say, “he’s just a guy I met.”

He nods giving my hands a couple squeezes, trying to reassure me that I can go on.

“We met at a café an-”

“What do you mean you met at a café? Like you knew him already and you guys met up?”

“No, I literally met him at the café. One of those places close to my job. I went in for food, he asked for some sugar, noticed I was sitting alone and decided to start a conversation. . .”

He nods and we get to the point where we need to cross the street to get to the parking lot. We cross and slip into the car, he starts it up and we head off merging with traffic to go home. Chris doesn’t press the matter anymore which is surprising. We get to the house, go inside and he goes off into the room I position myself on the couch and start flipping through channels. I hear Chris rustling around in the room, then the bathroom door closes. About five minutes later I’ve settled on an episode of Family Feud then Chris walks back out of the room. I look at him and he has a puzzled look on his face, he walks up to me stopping at the arm of the couch.

“You’re seeing a therapist now?” he asks flashing Carlo’s card.

My eyebrows stitch together, what the hell where’d he find that?

“Are you going through my things now?”

He shakes his head, “no it was on the floor next to the charger. I needed to plug my phone in and thought it was trash.”

"Oh,” I say.

“So, how long have you been going?”

I shrug, “I don’t know a couple times I guess.”

He nods, then looks at the floor and finally shrugs. “I didn’t know you felt that you needed a therapist. . . Maybe, we should go to a few sessions together.”

I don’t respond, I’m more so shocked.

“I know that I don’t communicate well at times. . . And we got into this situation because of me you know? So, it’s probably not right for you to go to these appointments alone, like- like there’s something wrong with you or like you did something wrong because you didn’t.”

“Chris. . . You don’t have to do that.”

“No, but I want to. I want to get better, I want us to get better together. Here why don’t you call them up to schedule an appointment. Or do you already have one set, think I could just tag along with your next one?”

I sigh, close my eyes and shake my head. Why is this happening, why is he pushing to do this? I don’t even want to talk about my problems, especially with Carlo. I should come up with an excuse, I should suggest another therapist, I shou-

“Holy shit,” Chris says, I look at him as he’s reading the card. “Giancarlo? As in Italiano boy from the park earlier?”

I nod and he raises an eyebrow at me, “why didn’t you tell me he was your therapist?”

I shrug, “I didn’t want you to think that I was stupid or something I guess, I don’t know. I didn’t want anyone to know because I’m. . . I’m not particularly comfortable with the idea myself.”

He sits down on the sofa next to me, looks at me then passes me the card. “I’ll be with you this time. We’ll be by each other’s side as we try and figure out what the next step is in our marriage and in our lives.”

I look at him, he’s serious about this. He’s really trying to put in effort to glue our relationship back together. God, this is going to kill Carlo, this is going to kill me. Fuck this is going to be so awkward like I’m going to call him up and be like, ‘hey I know the last time we saw each other I was super drunk and we kissed and all but do you think that you can counsel me and my husband now because we’ve been going through a pretty shitty time for the last month. But please set aside the feelings we’ve shared in order to help my marriage.’ God dammit!

Chris stands up and kisses the top of my head, stretches and says he’s going to shower mentions he felt sticky at the park.

He disappears into the room, my heart rate increases as I fish my phone from my pocket. I go to the number in my phone, take a breath and hit ‘call.’

Four rings in and then there’s an answer, “hey.”

“Hi. . .”

“How are you?”

“I’m okay. Uh,” I rush the words out of my mouth before I have time to rethink what I’m saying. “Can I make an appointment for my husband and I to see you?”

There’s silence, some movement on his side, my heart is bursting in my chest then he clears his throat and speaks.

“Mm, I don’t see why not. . . What day were you looking to make an appointment?”

So. Awkward. “I guess whenever you’re next available.”

“Can you do tomorrow at 9am?”

“Sure.”

“Great. . .”

There’s silence then he says, “alright well your appointments set for tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

“I look forward to seeing you again.”

I blush and bite my lip, “you too.”

“Bye, bye.”

“Bye,” I hang up, groan loudly and bury my face into the sofa cushion.