Baggage

He: "This week will be really busy for me. The girls are returning to school and I want to do some catching up with the little guy." 

She: "Does this mean I don't get to see you at all?" 

We're having our regular Monday brunch at my favorite café and I greet his announcement with a frown and a pretty pout. He kisses me and presents me with a single rose. It's not enough to pacify me. We barely have enough time together already, he's gone for too long and when I have him he is working so hard, this man of mine.

We met six months ago at a charity event in a friend's art gallery and from that first night he swept me off my feet. He was tall and good-looking, the touch of gray at his temples lending him an air of uniqueness that had all the women ogling him all night. Imagine my surprise when he snagged two glasses of champagne and walked straight towards me with a smile. He was charming and kind and the type of gentleman I had grown up reading about. That he spent the night making love to my mind and only lightly flirting, not in a hurry to cross over any other threshold only made me want him more. We ended the night with a peck (frustrating for me) and I thought I would never see him again.

He sent me flowers every day for the next 14 days, and asked me to dinner on the 15th. Dinner was magical, it was like I had known him forever. For the first time, I had met a man whose intelligence was inspiring instead of intimidating, whose achievements seemed gallant instead of arrogant, and I thought to myself that he was the one. He was smitten too, and even as he hinted that he should not be with me he was never able to hold himself back.

Three months later, he made me cry.

It was raining heavily that night, never a good sign. He was cooking dinner at my place and he was there before I got home from the gallery. He had prepared a rose-scented bath, there were candles everywhere and my heart skipped many times as I contemplated what the evening ahead could be. When he told me his big secret, I thought my heart had stopped altogether. I cried as he held me, even as I tried to hate him. He swore that in spite of it he would never leave, he loved me.

That was the only cloud in our journey. Things are normal now, as normal as can be. As he finished his brunch and rushed off to meet his first clients of the week and live his life away from me, I patted my belly lightly, urging the little one to wait for a more appropriate time to tell 'daddy' the good news. We will be a great family, me and him and our little one. I have learned to accept him and the baggage he came with: a wife, two beautiful daughters and his first son...