Food, silence and contemplation.

My husband wrapped me in his arms, held me, kissed and smothered me, I wasn't complaining. We sat at the servery, me ensconced on his knees. For a long time that's all we did, one difference, for the first time in months we were both smiling. At each other. I studied the lines of his face, the hard edge had gone. It was a change from a little over ten minutes ago, I won't any time soon forget the apoplectic look plastered on his face after I'd given my clever little ditty about being pregnant. I thought he'd had a heart attack, I panicked, I'd killed him! I stopped dead thinking that was the case right up to the point I realised he had hoisted me up in his arms, hugging and kissing my tummy.

I relaxed my grip on my wife as she stayed perched on my legs, lent into me watching me in her bemused way, trying her Jedi mind trick thingy. I just had to know, "Honey, why on God's green earth did you not lead with this news?" as I pointed in the direction of her soon to be baby bump, "You know instead of the other heart break thingy."

"I broke your heart!?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that, yes, but look Hun, what I did, what I said to you, when it comes to breaking hearts, I damn well did it with some finality ....well just about."

"But you wouldn't, if I hadn't ...."

"NO! WE'RE NOT DOING THIS. I overstepped the mark, I took what you said, created the worst case scenario and ran with that, THAT'S not what I want to be ......anymore. I don't need it, it's a vile way to go through life, and you sure as shit don't deserve it either."

They sat holding each other, neither talked. 'A truce. No. More than a truce.' he thought. It was a pause, a point for reflection. Something new for them. One thing they were both contemplating was, there was now an urgency to fix 'them' as quickly as they could, a little he or she would make sure of that.

He wanted to make changes to himself and she was surprised with his comments about not wanting to continue being who he was. It had awakened a lot of curiosity within her, she pondered whether it was wrong to ask him about that right now? She still asked, "Honey, tell me, about you, what do you want to change, and why? Would you tell me?" She stayed quite but waited expectantly for her husband to speak.

It took a while before he began to explain the affect Frank Lorne's heart attack had on him. How he'd successfully replaced his commitment to his marriage with more attention to his career took a little bit more to fully explain so that his wife would understand, the intense competitive rivalry, the need to **** his colleague's to submission, steamrolling over their ideas, the aggressive edge required to accomplish that task and the isolation that it all caused, he'd realised he had come to hate himself. He realised he had managed to bring it home, indicated by the widening gap between them. Sometimes he just felt wiped out, or when things didn't go right or he was having problems with no immediate solution he suffered from anxiety attacks bordering on severe paranoia, and then there were the few times he'd come home in a heightened state of aggression which hadn't washed off at work.

She understood the wiped feeling, that was common to her career as well, she was extremely worried over the anxiety and paranoia because she did not know what to look for, the aggression thing she had identified that a lot of times, she told him that when that happened she was delicate with what she did, letting him talk but skirting around him. She asked him whether he would open up to her and share those problems, She in turn would tell him more of what work problems she struck. His reply was a yes and especially after what had happened tonight it was a given.

I felt after my 'Come to Jesus' talk with my Wife that I wanted to know some of what my wife had been putting herself through so I asked her, "Honey, what's going on with you, you said there were other things you weren't happy about having done ...so?"

"Honey, you have to promise me you won't freak, please, just ...I need you to keep it together, okay?" I could see a sad expectation on her face, a pleading and knew if I told her yes I may well be lying, I really did not have a good feeling about this at all, so I lied, I even crossed my fingers behind my back, go figure.

"Okay ..... yep ...... Okay, no, okay, yes, yep, go, go."

"Honey, I've been off my birth control pills just on two years now."

"Okay ... yep." I didn't know where this was going, I was surprised how long she'd been off the pill though.

"Remember last June, when I fell ill?"

"Yeah I do, you thought it was severe flu bout, sore bones and everything, yep I remember."

The Clock started its chiming interrupting our conversation, ten o'clock damn that came around quick.

"Sorry Hun, you were saying?" She looked so frail, fragile.

"Honey, I'm so sorry, I miscarried."