π Day

Yesterday, March 14, was my birthday.

It was also the day I consider our anniversary.

Truth be told, I'm not sure how a person dates these things, especially in a relationship like ours that started before we realised it. But I like March 14 for a number of reasons, so March 14 it is. 

Two years and a few days ago, I was in Florida with my son and then-husband, packing for my return trip. I was coming home a week earlier; they had a two-week spring break and I had less vacation time. That was fine. As it happened, by the end of the trip I wasn't sure what was going on with my marriage, so it was good to get home.

My birthday, 3.14, is Pi Day. I like to have pie instead of cake on my birthday. 

It was a few days before my birthday; because of my early return we would be in different time zones on March 14, so I told Husband I'd like to celebrate just before I left. I wanted pie, of course. Pie and salad. 

I don't know why I wanted salad, but I am guessing that I wanted to fully indulge in pie without going too far over my daily calorie allotment. That is the sort of thing I would do. 

He drove to a restaurant he'd chosen. We got as far as the door, where the menu was posted and I realized there was no salad. I can't remember if there was pie. I do remember that the prices were too high. I said I didn't want to eat there. We were in a big city; there was sure to be a nearby restaurant with salad and pie.

That was pretty much the end of the evening. He drove back to the hotel in silence. He did not want to go anywhere else. He went into the bedroom and that was that. I sat on the couch, ate the ice cream I'd put in the freezer a few days earlier, and asked the man who is now my partner to take me for dinner and pie on my birthday the next week. 

As I look back now, this seems like an entirely disproportionate reaction to not getting the birthday dinner of my choice. He didn't take me for salad -- so I went on a date with another man? (Who, by the way, sent me flowers and a thoughtful gift, then picked me up at work and took me to dinner. He'd called all over town to find out which restaurants served pie.) 

I'm quite sure that Husband had no idea that his decision to cancel dinner would have such a profound effect on our marriage, which unravelled in a matter of weeks. By the time he came home the next weekend, I knew that things would never be the same.

And at the time, I wouldn't have called our March 14 dinner a date. I wasn't sure what we had together. I only knew that I didn't want it to stop.