Children's Toys

The restaurant was large, but every dining area took up so much space that it made the place feel small. The seats were plump and soft and circled around to make crescent moons.

Gerald and Samatha sat on the outer corners of each side. It was silent until Samantha started speaking,

"Wow, this is awfully expensive! I'm afraid to look at the mains."

"You know, I just feel like. Well, I feel like I don't really see the point of all this. I mean, this whole dinner, my stomachs going to be just turning in guilt. "

"I can't help but wonder why; it feels more like an ordeal than a gift?. Are you doing this on purpose? So you can later say, "Oh darling think of all that I do for you?" I can feel you looking at me now and thinking to yourself that I'm acting unreasonable, that I'm unfair."

A waitress stood to the side, attempting to find an opening to politely ask if they'd like to order. She was young, maybe still in high school and seemed genuinely happy to be there. Except now, her face was falling in the way that only finding yourself privy to an uncomfortably intimate conversation can give you.

"no, waitress, we are NOT ready to order yet."

The waitress jumped and darted away. His wife had said this reasonably loudly, and Gerald felt thankful that the music had covered the sounds. Or at least he hoped they did.

It felt like hotel music, but not real hotel music. Hotel music from hotels in movies. Moody with a sense of both the potential for sex and violence. The line that kept repeating was

''What you do. Are you coming back for me?'' It was jazzy and longing.

Samantha continued,

"but that's because now that I know what I know, I'm looking at everything you do with new eyes. How could you think I could sleep next to you every night and not know when you are hiding something."

Gerald took a gulp in and simply waited; he adjusted his necktie and looked at the table.

"Your own WIFE you've been taking for a fool. Goddammit, I can barely look at your DUMB face without wanting to take these pretentious plates and smack you with them." He could feel heads turning. She wasn't very subtle.

Gerald looked up at the ceiling, made out of glass; looking up made him feel like he was in one of those mirror mazes. Where he was both running away from himself and running into himself.

"While you were sleeping, I went on your phone, and I found nothing..... so then I put a nanny cam in your car. Don't look at me like that; I shouldn't be the one having to defend my actions. I have a right, you know, and you've been keeping secrets from me."

"I saw that you took an extra stop on your way home from work, and you picked up children toys from that brand my miniature pony. I couldn't understand what a grown man could possibly want with such items. And that's when I realized, their not for you,"

"you must have a child somewhere that you're hiding from me."

Gerald simply looked at Samantha, looked at her ironed blue blouse and her curly raven hair. He narrowed in on her lips which were thin and covered in chapstick and moving and saying words. Still, now more than ever, he felt like she was speaking in Arabic or Spanish or some language he couldn't speak.

"Wow! now that I've finally told you that, I know. I feel much better; I've been brewing with that knowledge for weeks. But if I'm honest with myself and you, it really is all my fault. You see, I never should have let you go, out and with your friend before his wedding, all those years ago. "

"When a person drinks and starts to stumble, they've lost themselves, and I'm sure you did more than just stumble. "

Gerald opened his mouth about to put an end to whatever was developing. Still, Samantha tumbled over words that hadn't even left his mouth.

"Hey, hey shhhhhh, it's okay, you don't need to say anything. From now on I'll pick you up from work and take you home. Maybe you should ask your boss if he could set you up to work from home?"

"Anyways, I think it's finally time I see what all the fuss about oysters is about? what about you, what are you thinking of getting?……"

Gerald stood all of a sudden as if his legs had surpassed him; Samantha looked at him in concern. "Gerald, what are you doing?"

He did feel like standing there, and looking down at her was a bit odd. Wasn't it a bit of a jump to ask for a divorce after a conversation that went around a bend or two it shouldn't have?.

But he couldn't help but imagine the rest of his life stuck at home with her. He realized then and there if he didn't leave now, he never would. So he spoke up, his voice shook the waitress was back at the table.

He knew how much Samantha hated it when he embarrassed her, but if he ordered a meal, he'd end up having to wait until the food came, and then eat the food and then pay for the food and on and on it would go.

"Samatha, I'm leaving you," he said; Samantha still looked confused. The waitress made a squeaking sound like she was lightly strangled and bustled away. He started walking away, but then he realized something.

So he turned back around. "Samantha, could you please give me back my wallet,"

When he had been younger. Samantha had always been to him reasonable, and anything she was mad about or concerned about had made perfect sense. But as he had gotten older, it had made less and less sense. Until Gerald couldn't work out if she had lost her mind or was just trying to make his life difficult. Or if he was overly dramatic.

Regardless of when that had happened, Gerald had been too scared of spending the rest of his life alone. Now he had a newer, much more terrifying fear. Spending the rest of his life with her.

She still looked confused. "I'm worried about you, Gerald. I don't know if it's a good idea to give you back your wallet. This has all come out of the blue."

Gerald sighed deeply, he had never been very good with words, and it was hard when he was with her because it was almost like he could only see his behaviour from her point of view. How could he explain what she was doing to him without having her bulldoze him with a new enforced narrative?

So he leaned down, looking her in the eyes and said

"give me my wallet now, and I will talk to you in the morning when I go to pick up my things" He felt proud of himself. Then he could go to a hotel and write a letter and put all his thoughts down.

"are you going to your other family?"

She said suspiciously. Someone looked over from another table with a smirk; it was a man around his age, and he seemed to be jerkily pointing his thumb in their direction. To what Gerald could only assume was his wife to say, "see, other people have way more issues than us."

He sighed deeply

"Samantha, I don't have another family."

Samanthas face sort of flinched, and her eyes watered, "so you're lying to me again."

"I thought we've been through this already."

She was slapping her hands down on the table frustratedly and being very loud. Now everyone was looking. Gerald didn't like to see her like this; it broke him completely to see her. Usually, when he saw her like this, he'd do anything she wanted. To get her to stop.

"Just go, go back to your other family and leave me all alone for all I care."

He could hear whispering. Gerald felt the back of his neck grow warm, he just wanted his wallet, and now he was feeling guilty and evil and terrible. He reached over Samantha and snatched his wallet out. Gerald found the car keys and placed them on the table. So she could get home; then he walked out of the restaurant. An old woman at a table that he passed shouted up at him and said

"Just terrible, truly disgusting behaviour. Men like you shouldn't be born."

He glanced back to the table he had left and the couple that he thought were using them to feel better about themselves. Were already sitting with Samantha and comforting her.

When he left the restaurant, it was dark out; he walked along the street. Trying to organize his thoughts.

He swerved into an alleyway that had a single pulsating street lamp. He walked a little to its left side and leaned against the wall, so he was drenched in shadow. He felt less like a man and more like a goblin. For a moment, he couldn't breathe, and he was being suffocated by an invisible force, but very quickly, it subsided.

He reached into his wallet and took out the little scratch card that had somehow fallen under his wives radar. He still couldn't believe he had won. It was a little bit rubbed but still, there four in a row $20,000. He sighed deeply; the goal had been to take her out for a lavish meal with it.

But now he had bigger plans. He wondered to himself if he would've been able to leave her if he hadn't had the money. He figured he probably would never know.

Later that night, when he decided to treat himself for probably the first time in his life by checking into a hotel, he took out a little black notebook and wrote himself a list

Explain to my wife why I can't be with her anymore- get her to understand

collect my clothes

go to the nearest airport and take the most immediate flight to some new place (like they do in movies)

Midway through the next day, Gerald would find himself on his couch in his shared apartment with his wife with his feet up on a loafer and an Ice pack up against his head. With one singular thought clear in his mind, tomorrow I'll try again.

As soon as he had stepped into his home that day. He was bombarded by a group of people who simply 'cared' about him and his wife's well being. From the paster from the church they had attended once three years ago to five of his co-workers and neighbours, he had only met in passing.

They all wanted to let him know they were disappointed in him and thought the secret family deserved to know about Samatha. It had been excruciating. Especially when Paul, a man who had worked at the desk alongside him for the last fifteen years that he had always wanted to befriend, offered his six cence.

Eventually, Gerald had stood and said with the poise and elegance of a man who was close to breaking point. ''It's not my miniature pony; it's my little pony okay. I don't have a secret family. I simply like to play with them; they help relieve stress and make me feel comfortable. Is that so wrong?''

Quickly the guests dispersed. As he sat there with the dull aching feeling that everything was all too complicated. His wife had simply said, ''If you had told me the truth from the beginning, we wouldn't have to go through all of this.''

Gerald had then realized that she had known that he did not have a secret family and was simply getting him to tell her the truth.