Hot Plates

In the kitchen there is a tribal order. If you stop moving, close your eyes, listen to the rhythmic thumping, dull white noise, the voices calling out, it almost sounds like a chant set to the beating drums of the dishwasher and cutting boards. Percussion builds around you. Someone calls out, "Hot plate! And you get out of the way. In the kitchen if something dangerous is coming toward you, someone usually warns you. If you're about to run into a knife or step in glass someone will alert you. In life, there is no such warning.

From a busy clanking kitchen in the restaurant to a more modest kitchen one zipcode over, I was using a spoon to crush up kitty's pills and a fork to mash it and mix it into Gucci's fancy feast, which is about as fancy as fancy ketchup. I was thinking about whether I'd do laps in the pool or try to work on my book a bit more when the phone vibrated. Something about bad news just sounds different when the phone rings. It's as if the phone knows the conversation you're about to have and is trying to warn you. Baby Daddy left me a cryptic voicemail yesterday saying that he needed to talk to me. I merely assumed that it was some emotional come to Jesus conversation he wanted to have and told him we'd talk another time. Like all men, surely he would come to his senses eventually and by then it would be too late. And it was too late, I moved on.

This time, I saw his face pop up on the phone and thought about letting it go to voicemail but also thought it might be good to lay into him a little, might relieve some of my stress, so I picked up. And here I thought I was getting the call that he wanted to get back together. It was a different kind of call. He was calling to tell me that he has Hep C and he's pretty sure he got it after we were sleeping together ("...but who knows with how many other people I was fucking," is the subtext implied there). Then, as if to lessen the blow, he said, "That's why I didn't want to have sex with you the last couple times we hung out."

It's at this point in a conversation which, if we were in a car, I would have slammed on the brakes and in my imagination sent him flying into the dashboard because he was probably irresponsible enough to have not put on a seatbelt. I stopped him in his mopey repentant tracks and asked,

"So how is taking care of your happiness and your child working out for you? That's why you couldn't be in a relationship with me right? So where's this fit in to all that?"

He backtracked and made excuses and I could tell he was trying his hardest to be calm he tried to diffuse my anger. Unfortunately he didn't seem to realize why I was angry. I was less worried about myself and more worried about him. This is a man of forty-eight who is not only has a callous disregard for his own life, but for mine as well. And I said the thing you're not supposed to say to someone twice your age,

"Just grow up! Stop making excuses and grow up! You weren't careless, or stupid, or irresponsible, this is about immaturity. You're forty-eight. You can't screw up like this anymore."

This stopped him. Because I wasn't talking about an STD, I was talking about a life that he was living. A stupid, senseless, irrational life where he made a mistake, got a wake up call, and then went and made the same mistake again this time to worse consequences. I will never make someone feel bad about making mistakes. The first time. But when a person continues to make the same mistake they are more interested in the behavior that is problematic than the people around them.

And the best thing, the only good thing about this whole situation, is that for the first time in my life I dodged the bullet. I got out of the burning building just in time. I got off the boat before it sank. I had a gut feeling to end things with Baby Daddy if he wouldn't be exclusive with me and I was right. I, for once, got myself out of a dangerous and emotionally harmful situation. Instead of keeping him in my life and letting his behavior put me equally at risk I got out. And now when I look back at the breakup I don't see stress or tears or unfinished business. I just see relief, relief that I got out on time.

When things go wrong, the really bad things in life, there are the three people I call: my doctor, my shrink, and my mother. And this time, I'm not ashamed of anything that I have to tell any of them.

A week later I got my 'just in case' test back, I was fine. But, I still wondered about Baby Daddy.