“My primary commitment has always been to my work. You knew that,” he reproached her quietly. He didn’t want to be made to feel guilty. His mother always did that to him and he hated it. Brigitte never had. He wanted to celebrate his dig, and his departure, not feel like a bad guy for leaving, which was more than a little simplistic, since it meant the end of their romance. But that was a price he was prepared to pay, and she had never expected. She realized now that she had been blind. And now he was, to everything but his dig. “I’m sorry, Brig. I know this is sudden. It’s hard for me too, but it’s pretty clean actually. We don’t even share an apartment. In fact, I was going to ask you if you want some of my stuff. I’m going to donate the rest. I don’t have a decent piece of furniture in the place, except the couch.” They had bought it together the year before, and now he was getting rid of that too, as easily as he was getting rid of her. She hadn’t felt this shocked or abandoned since her father’s death, and that came to mind as she sat and stared at Ted.
“What about my eggs?” she asked, as tears rolled down her cheeks. She was slowly losing control of her emotions and feeling panicked. This was not the Valentine’s Day dinner she had planned, nor that Amy had hoped for her.
“What eggs?” Ted looked blank.
“My eggs. The babies we’ll never have, and I may never have at all now. I’m thirty-eight years old, we’ve been together for six years. What am I supposed to do, put a notice on the bulletin board for some guy to marry and have kids with?”
“Is that all I was?” He looked insulted.
“No. You were the man I love, you still are. It was just so simple the way it was, I never asked the pertinent questions, I didn’t think I had to. Why can’t I go with you?” She looked at him pointedly, and he looked instantly uncomfortable.
“I can’t think about a wife and kids with a job this important to do. I don’t want the responsibility or the distraction. Besides, I just don’t want that kind of commitment. This is the right time for both of us to move on, and see what life has in store for each of us on our own.” She felt her heart ache as he said it. “I’m not even sure I’ll ever want marriage, or not for a long, long time.” Way too late for her by then, as Amy would have reminded her. Her eggs were of no interest to him, and apparently never had been. She felt stupid now for having assumed so much and understood so little. She never thought she had to ask him. It was all so comfortable for so long, she had just drifted down the river with him, and now he was kicking her out of the boat, and paddling on alone. He had made it clear that he didn’t want her in Egypt, now or later. She couldn’t even blame him for it, she was as responsible as he was for the misunderstanding, and she knew it. He hadn’t misled her. They had just lived from day to day and weekend to weekend for six years. And now she was thirty-eight years old, and he was leaving to live his dream, without her. Hearing him say it was the loneliest feeling she’d ever had.
“How do you want to handle this before I go?” he asked her gently. He felt sorry for her-she looked devastated by what he had told her. There was none of the joy for him that he had hoped for, and he realized now that that had been unrealistic. He had never fully understood how far-reaching her hopes were. She hadn’t shared those hopes with him. And now all her broken dreams and incorrect assumptions were crashing down around her. She looked like she’d just been hit by a semi and run over. She felt even worse than she looked.
“What do you mean?” She blew her nose into a tissue and couldn’t stop crying.
“I don’t want to make this any harder for you than it has to be. I’m leaving in three weeks. Do you want to stay with me till then, or would you rather see less of me before I go?”
“If I’m understanding you correctly, you consider our relationship over when you leave, you want to move on, is that right?” He nodded, and she blew her nose again and looked at him miserably.
“I can’t maintain a relationship with you here and live in Egypt. And your coming with me makes no sense. I think we would have ended it sooner or later.” That was news to her. But she was beyond arguing with him. She had taken too hard a hit.
“Then I think it’s better if we end it now,” she said with dignity. “I’d rather not see you again, Ted. It’ll just make it worse. It was over for us as soon as you got the dig.” Or maybe even before that since he wanted no commitment between them.
“It has nothing to do with you, Brig. It’s just life and how things work out sometimes.” But it was his life, not hers, that he was concerned with. She had never before realized how selfish he was. It was all about him, and now his dig.
“Yeah, I understand,” she said, slipping into her coat and standing up. She looked him straight in the eye. “Congratulations, Ted. I’m happy for you. I’m sad for us, and for me, but I’m happy for you.” She was trying valiantly to be gracious and he was touched, although still disappointed that she hadn’t been more enthusiastic and supportive of him. But he also understood that telling her he wanted to move on was a blow. He had wanted to do that for a while, but hadn’t had the guts. But now that he was leaving for Egypt, it seemed like the perfect time. To him.
“Thank you, Brig. I’ll take you home,” he offered.
She started crying copiously again and shook her head. “No… I’ll take a cab. Thanks for dinner. Goodnight.” And with that, she hurried out of the restaurant, hoping that no one would see her crying. Thanks for dinner, and for six years. Have a nice life. All she could think about as she stumbled out into the snow and hailed a cab was everything she had done wrong for six years. She wondered how she could have been so stupid. He wasn’t a “commitment kind of guy,” he didn’t know if he wanted a wife and kids, now or ever. It had been easy for both of them. Comfortable. That was the operative word and all she ever wanted in life, and now look what she wound up with. A man she had been “comfortable” with for six years, and now on a moment’s notice, he had dumped her and was leaving for Egypt and the dig he had always dreamed of. He had said goodbye to her the way you would to a student or an assistant, not a woman you were in love with. She realized then that he wasn’t in love with her. And maybe she wasn’t with him either. She had settled for easy, and comfortable, instead of commitment and passion. It had seemed like enough for six years, and look where it got her. She sat crying in the cab all the way back to her apartment. It was a terrible feeling knowing she would never see him again and it was over. Even worse since she had thought he would ask her to marry him that night. What a fool she had been, she kept telling herself over and over. Her cell phone rang as she walked into her apartment. She glanced at it and saw that it was Ted. She didn’t answer. What was the point? He wasn’t going to change his mind. It was over. And all that was left now were pity and regret instead of love.
Chapter 2
It snowed all night and there was another foot of snow on the ground by morning. It was now officially a blizzard, and gave Brigitte the perfect excuse not to go in to work. She lay in bed crying when she woke up, and just couldn’t face getting up and getting dressed. She felt as though her life was over, and she was overwhelmed by sadness and disappointment. And on top of that, she felt stupid. She had always known Ted wanted a dig of his own, she had just never understood how much he wanted it, or that he would dump her and run if he got one. She thought she had meant more to him than that, but apparently she didn’t. She had been a stopgap, a time-passer, until his career panned out the way he wanted.
Meanwhile she had done nothing about her own career, and had dawdled for seven years over her book. She felt like an utter failure as she read a text message from Ted. All it said was “I’m sorry.” She knew he probably was. He wasn’t a mean person, but he had his own goals in mind, and she wasn’t part of his master plan, which made her easy to leave behind. She wouldn’t have done it to him, but she also realized now that he was more ambitious than she had thought him. This dig meant everything to him, and she didn’t. It was a terrible feeling.
She got another text message about ten that morning. Brigitte was still in bed, and cried as she read it. It was from Amy. “Where are you? In bed, celebrating? Are you engaged? Tell me, tell me!” For a minute, Brigitte didn’t know what to answer, and then realized that she had no choice but to tell her. She’d have to sooner or later anyway. She texted back, “Not engaged. Dumped. It’s over. He got his own dig in Egypt, and leaves in 3 weeks. We ended it last night. Am taking the day off.” It was amazing how you could reduce major life events, and even tragedies, to text messages. She had learned it from the students, who conducted their relationships, and all vital communications, by text.
Amy let out a low whistle in her office when she read it. That was not what she had expected at all, and she
