Ben and I are getting to know each other. I can’t say yet that he seems completely happy and adjusted to his new life but he seems less sad. He is still pining for his other family, not showing too much interest in food. I learned that if I gave him a few pieces of food, the same way I give him treats, from my hand he would eat the eagerly enough, so I started by feeding him by hand for the first few days. Now I have him eating from his bowl, as long as I sit next to him while he eats. I’m happy to see him eating and I’ll be thrilled when I can see less of his ribs, but it makes me a little sad to think of what his family did to get him to this state.

Russ came over to meet Ben, and declared him to be a good dog. I thought Russ was being quite generous since Ben seemed relatively unimpressed by Russ, preferring instead to stay seated on his big pillow watching cautiously. (Though Ben did seem to warm when Russ sat next to him and started to pet him.)

“Joy, do you remember that man you were talking to at the bar on our date?” he asked, looking intently at Ben, which made something in my stomach drop.

“Yes,” I said bracing myself.

“So you know that he’s an instructor at the base?”

“Of course, my ex is also an instructor,” I said “Russ, I think you’re getting ready to tell me something you’re scared that I’m not going to like, but you can tell me. I’m little but I’m scrappy.”

“Your ex, Rob, he’s been telling people about the decision you guys made. Everyone at his squadron knows, and so of course it’s drifting over into my squadron too.”

“Oh,” I said, but I knew that. On some level the minute the familiar face approached me at the restaurant I knew that everyone knew. My cheeks felt hot with embarrassment.

“I guess I really need to talk to Rob, don’t I?” I said, smiling weakly.

“It would probably be a good idea. You know, better to grab the bull by the horns?” he said, patting Ben and standing up.

“Sure,” I agreed and I hugged Russ good bye, and tried to determine the best way to approach Rob about all of this.

Rob called the very next day and asked if he could stop by to meet Ben after he got together with his friends for their weekly basketball game in the park. I told him he was more than welcome, and then I fretted and worried about how to gently approach the subject of the broken promise to Rob.

Rob was in my apartment for about fifteen minutes extolling the virtues of my decision to get a dog, all the health benefits, the mental health benefits, etc. etc. before I gestured to the sofa asking him to sit down.

“Rob, when we talked about this baby, we agreed to a few small things to try to eliminate any excessive amount of stress, do you remember that?”

Rob exhaled sharply, “who told you?”

“Who told me isn’t really the issue,” I started but he cut me off.

“Look Emily is my girlfriend and this pregnancy situation is very difficult for her, so next month she’s coming to stay for two weeks and really that seems like the least I can do for her.”

“Oh,” I said weakly, “that wasn’t really what I was talking about.”

Emotions flashed through me, hurt, anger, sadness, confusion and back to hurt. The emotions were coming so fast and that I burst into tears. Rob looked suspicious.

“I wasn’t talking about Emily,”  I said as I got control over my emotions and his look changed from suspicion to confusion, “I was talking about the fact that half of the base seems to know that I’m pregnant and that ‘we’ decided on an adoption plan.”

“Oh that,” he said.

“Yes that.” I said, tears spent, anger was starting to become the dominant emotion.

“Well I just told Tex, and he told someone else, and they told someone else, and you know how these things go.”  He said dismissively.

“Yes, I do know how these things go, which is why we agreed that you weren’t going to talk about it with people from the base,” I said coldly, “do you know how embarrassed I was when I was approached on my date by someone telling me they knew all about such personal details about my life?”

“You had a date?” he asked.

“That’s not really the point,” I said.

“I think it is,” he said starting to sound angry which made me the confused one, “you shouldn’t be dating while you’re pregnant!”

“I won’t date while I’m pregnant if you don’t date while I’m pregnant,” I said with a chuckle.

“I can tell you this, my ex-wife didn’t date while she was pregnant.” He said indignantly and I burst out laughing.

“Well I should hope not, I believe she was married to you while she was pregnant.” I said, still laughing.

“Joy, this isn’t funny, you need to be home taking care of yourself and the baby. You don’t need to be out on the town.”

“I think you need to leave,” I said feeling the laughter fade and the anger flashing back with a vengeance.

“I am not going to leave until we resolve this,” he said stubbornly.

“There is nothing to resolve. I am pregnant and I am doing everything within my power to make sure that the baby has what it needs to happy and healthy, but I have a life, one that I hope to get back to when this is all over, and one that you seem hell bent on ruining. What do you think is worse for my health and the health of the baby – having a nice man take me out to dinner for Valentine’s day or knowing that for the next few years whenever I encounter your instructor friends they will be thinking of me as ‘the girl you knocked up who then gave her baby away’?”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate,” he started again, but I cut him off.

“Well, that’s funny because a couple of months ago you were the one who thought it wasn’t appropriate to have Emily come visit while I was pregnant and might need you for ‘moral support’ but you’ve proven to be pretty flexible on what’s appropriate and what’s not.”

He glared at me and stomped out of my apartment , slamming the door behind him so hard that my whole little world seemed to rattle.

“And this is exactly why we couldn’t keep the baby, and try to co-parent it,” I said outloud to no one in particular, but Ben’s wise eyes seemed to agree with me.

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