It’s funny how at the beginning of the pregnancy, time seemed to stretch out vast before me, like it would never be time for my son to arrive and now that April is almost over I can’t believe that in just over a month he should be here. I also can’t believe that I went from the girl that no one could believe was pregnant to this awkward, waddling woman! I think my son and I are both having problems getting comfortable lately. I don’t think he has much room to move in there and at night I seem to be having my own problems getting comfortable.

I’m also having a hard time finding peace and comfort in my relationship with Rob, we haven’t talked since the fiasco went down with his family. When we broke up while I had no delusions that we were “friends” – I did believe that with a little time and space, we might actually be able to be civil towards one another, but the pregnancy didn’t seem to give us much time or space to heal.

I’ve often tried to put myself in Rob’s shoes, to try to figure out where he’s coming from, but I have to admit that this man that I thought I knew so well, that I had planned a life with seems like a  stranger to me. There’s a time when I thought I could’ve trusted him with anything in the world and now the three pregnancy promises he made are just three more promises in a long string of promises that he made and broke. Still though, I wondered if he’s going to miss his son. I wondered if he worries about what he’ll say the day he meets him. Though mostly I just wondered what’s going on in that head of his!

Ask and you shall receive.

Rob called me, after our extended silence, and asked the usual questions but then he lingered on the phone.

“Would you like to go out to dinner tomorrow?” he asked.

“Um, sure,” I said, recognizing that an olive branch was being offered and knowing that peace needed to be made between us.

We met at a barbecue place that we used to frequent, (Rob was often on the Atkins Diet so a place where he could get heaping plates of meat was just what the doctor ordered!)  and spent several minutes trying to make idle chit chat. I wondered when this had gotten so complicated, when we were together we never seemed to run out of things to talk about, and now we couldn’t even seem to make small talk.

“I need your advice,” he finally said, while digging into a pile of smoked pork.

“Okay,” I said skeptically.

“I’m having problems with Emily,” he said and he launched into a laundry list of concerns that was developing. For example, Emily cried when she opened canned biscuits, because she was anticipating the ‘pop’ which always scared her. He offered to buy her a gun because he was concerned for her safety and she said that she would rather he spend that kind of money on something sparkly for her. She had a meltdown when they went horseback riding and they encountered wildlife on the trails.

As he kept going down the laundry list I was surprised to note that I didn’t feel anything. There is a time that even hearing her name was enough to set my teeth on edge but instead I felt nothing at all. Is this what it’s like to be friends with an ex? I listened as I would listen to any girlfriend talking about their relationship woes. I asked intelligent and insightful questions, meant to make him really reflect and consider what he was feeling, and where the relationship was going. I was so proud of myself, I could do this – I could be his friend.

“Maybe she’s just not the girl for you,” I said after listening to him give me reason upon reason for why they just weren’t a good match.

“I knew it,” he said, sitting up and dropping his fork to his plate with a clatter, “you’re jealous.”

And just like that, it all went out the window.

“Jealous of what?” I asked, my face growing hot with embarrassment that I had let my guard down around him for one minute.

“Of my relationship with Emily.”

Oh boy.

“You know what Rob, you are the man who made a career in the military, while we were together you taught me how to string and shoot a long bow, your living room is decorated with medieval weapons, and you have an extensive collection of guns that you shoot, frequently. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to see that perhaps your interests don’t mesh well with a girl who has a minor meltdown every time she opens a can of biscuits. Pointing that out to you doesn’t make me jealous, it makes me a good friend.”

I rose to my feet ready to leave.

“I’m moving,” he called after me.

“When?” I asked turning back to look at him.

“In two weeks,” he said.

“Will you be back?” I asked, and the unspoken part of that question was – for the birth of our son.

“I’m not planning on it,” responded.

I nodded, in understanding and I looked at him. When I met Rob, I thought he looked like a superhero – tall, broad shouldered, and square jawed. I thought that he was fearless and that together we could take on anything. He radiated strength and fearlessness to me than and now he just seemed so full of fear.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said and I turned my back on him and I left.

I had wanted a picture of Rob and our son for his baby book, so that one day when I told our son his story that would be a part of it. That we loved him from the minute, we knew he was there. However, as I drove away from the barbecue place I realized that story I painted in my head was a lie – I loved my son from the moment I knew he was there; through the vomiting, the indecision, the worry, the doubts, the hard decisions, the dreams, the wishes – I loved him, Rob did not. To Rob, this wasn’t a baby or even a part of him, it was the last thread that bound us together, a thread that he was ready to have cut. It was a hard truth to swallow, but there it was.

I contacted Mary at the attorney’s office the next day to make sure that they knew Rob was leaving the state, and to make sure that he kept in touch with them, so they knew where to send his paperwork.

Our son wasn’t born yet, but the thread was severed – the chapter in my life about Rob was over and closed.

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