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The Christmas My Marriage Ended
It Was Fabulous To Watch it Crashing At Last
Christmas. It’s the holiday with the highest expectations of the entire year. I mean, sure, some people get all geared up for their birthday, but Christmas is pretty much like a whole ton of people having the same birthday on the same day. Even people who don’t celebrate the holiday get roped in to some of the hubbub.
When I first met Joe, it was Thanksgiving weekend. I was friends with his brother’s girlfriend, Denise. Denise and I had met in Lamaze class a couple of months before, owing to the fact that we were both expecting our first babies. Our sons were born eight days apart, in mid-October and we were enjoying the first days and weeks of motherhood together. I called her when, much to my disappointment, there was a snowstorm brewing at Thanksgiving and I decided not to drive home with my newborn, but instead stayed in Pittsburgh and played it safe.
She invited me to spend Sunday afternoon with her boyfriend’s family, a traditional “Italian Sunday,” complete with mountains of spaghetti and people coming and going, noisily greeting each other with hugs and warmth and boisterous laughter. I reluctantly agreed, but it turns out that is where I met the man I would spend the next twenty-some years with.
