"Your mom and sister are still fighting like cats and dogs. Your mom put in her two weeks for retirement, but they convinced her to stay longer."
That's where the catching up ended. He had wanted to get together to "hang out" but they had pretty much run out of things to say. As he spoke, tears welled up in his eyes, and she panicked thinking of something else to say to distract him. She couldn't think of anything, so she just approached it head on.
"Have you told anyone else about us? Confided in anyone?"
It was the wrong thing to say. The tears started falling. "No."
"Why not? You need some emotional support."
He looked at her like a man in so much pain, and she willed herself to stay strong.
"I don't even know what to say! What are we, what would I say? I don't know what--" He gestured around weakly, indicating the both of them.
"We are separated. That's what we are." She said gently, trying to hold back her emotions.
He continued to cry in the middle of the restaurant, the man who never cried or felt emotion. He was letting himself drown in this, instead of doing what he needed to do. He wasn't going to fight for her. He wasn't even going to fight for himself.
If it was possible, her heart broke a little more for him. After a little over a month apart he was still crying like it was the day it happened. This was so hard on him, but there was nothing she could really do.
A few days later, she decided she had to do something. She contacted a mutual friend of theirs, Acrobat, and told him that they had separated, but her husband needed the support of his friends right now, so please meet up with him for coffee. The friend willingly agreed, and offered his support to her as well.
She felt a little better after doing it, and hoped it was the right thing. She really wanted to help him without enabling. The line was almost as blurry as ever.
