Conundrum

Conundrum
By: Mia L. Hazlett
3/29/10

I gave a hearty laugh at the idea of his mother moving in with us. I mean, I seriously laughed at him for having the audacity to ask if his mother could live with us. He knew how I felt about that woman. It would be one thing if she were ill or couldn’t take care of herself, by all means, my Christian heart would have to bend. But that’s not what we were talking about. We were talking about a woman that raised my husband to be her husband. And a house is not a home if there are two women trying to run it.

So his blank face stared at me, with his big brown puppy dog eyes. See my husband was in quite a conundrum and he didn’t even know that I knew. But when you’ve been with someone for so long, you know what their silence means. It means, his mother asked him. He gave the affirmative. He brought me out to this nice restaurant with all the right ambiance. He caressed my hand with the doting compliments and flirtatious grin. And then he tried to slip in the old, “I was thinking…” line. He asked the question, just knowing I would say, yes. But now it has backfired and he had to choose who he wanted pissed at him, the woman who gave him birth or the woman who he had to live with. Again, what a conundrum.

So now that blank face just stared at me. Again I knew what he was thinking. He could spend the rest of our dinner trying to convince me of the “whys and how” this could all work. Or he would actually have to go back and tell his Mommy no. I just didn’t understand why a grown ass married man couldn’t choose his wife over his mother. Just as I thought, he dove head first with the stories I had heard time and time again. “Poor her” and “His father something” and blah, blah, blah. He finished and took up his fork again and gently caressed my hand. He gave that dashing flirtatious grin. He just knew I was going to say yes.

Um…was he new to this? I played like he was. I returned his smile. Set down my fork. I looked into his eyes with my look I knew he liked, “No,” I repeated. Moment over. I withdrew my hand, picked my fork back up and finished off my meal.

Silence engulfed our ride home. There was nothing left to say. Again his mother had spoiled an evening between my husband and myself. The sad part was, it no longer required her presence. And because he chose her over me, he would spend the remainder of the evening consoling her. Just as I thought. We pulled up to the house and he dropped me off. I didn’t care that he was leaving me to be with her. I was used to it.

He never gave me a chance to tell him my news. I was somewhat disappointed in myself because I thought he really wanted to have a special night out. I should know by now that there would be an ulterior motive. Besides the fact I can’t take the woman living just a mile away, nevermind across the hall, she couldn’t use our spare bedroom. In eight months, this was going to be our baby’s nursery.

So instead of being wrapped in my husband’s arms and celebrating the announcement of our third child, I wept alone on our couch in our unlit living room. All the while, just a mile a way, my husband sat in the home he was never raised to leave.