3:42pm
Jeannie was doing just fine. She drove confidently through the congested streets of the Cleveland suburb where she had lived most of her life. She passed the SouthPark Mall, where she’d gotten a pedicure just two weeks earlier. She blew past the turnoff that would take her to the office where she worked in the corporate training department. A red light stopped her at a busy intersection right by the florist that she knew to be the best and most fairly priced in town. She frowned and flipped her sun visor down sharply, annoyed with the bright sunshine.
She was a 38-year old adult woman who was more than capable of handling the minor difficulties of life. She had a good credit score, a career that she wasn’t passionate about but liked well enough, and she knew exactly who she was and where she was going. Realizing that money would be an issue and that she needed space to think and to research her next move, she had gone online and found a hotel nearby that was part of the Holiday Inn chain so she could use the big pile of rewards points that she had accrued instead of depleting her checking account or taking money out of savings. Going into credit card debt was not going to happen.
Where was it, though? She squinted into the glare and finally spotted the Holiday Inn Strongsville sign.
A bitterly cold wind whipped at her hair as she crossed the parking lot with her small but efficient wheeled suitcase, and Jeannie suddenly had a terrible realization: Christmas was coming. The holidays were only a few weeks away, the very next day was October already and then Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s. Jeannie felt a small pain in her abdomen as she realized that all her plans were gone, not only for the rest of her life, but for the holidays, too. No going to Sean’s parents’ pretty house in rural Pennsylvania for a thoughtfully planned, locally sourced Thanksgiving dinner. No presents from Sean under her parents’ ancient fake Christmas tree, and she’d already spent a couple of hundred dollars on his present. And then she had a lonely, kissless New Year’s Eve to look forward to.
Fuck. She felt tears behind her eyelids, but raised her chin resolutely and stomped through the front glass doors. How had she just now thought about the holidays? It had been two days since Sean had told her that, for whatever reason that he seemed to be unable to articulate, she wasn’t the future he wanted anymore. In those two days it had seemed like a series of irregularly timed punches to her chest, over and over.
Realizing that she was now, at nearly 40, single again.
Feeling stupid. How was it possible that he had been unhappy for a long time, but she had never noticed anything was wrong?
The rejection. She wasn’t what he wanted, even though he was what she wanted.
The lost years, wasting time with this dumbass who was apparently not smart enough to communicate to the one person closest to him.
Knowing that she would have to tell her parents that her wedding was off.
Realizing that she would never see his parents again.
The baby. Her poor uterus was getting older and more dried up by the day, and she had no potential sperm in sight. This could very well have been her one and only chance at having a baby.
But she could handle punches, even the really painful, personal chest punches of heartbreak and betrayal. She was doing just fine.
The lobby was pretty, a typical mid-range hotel level of style and comfort. More functional than fancy, but nice. Jeannie got in line behind three people in airline uniforms and looked around at the modern clean lines of the warm brown leather couches and chairs arranged around small tables. The artwork actually looked like art and not the kind of faded-looking tropical pastel prints that so many hotels had. Or the stupid multiple piece canvases. Did it really make a bland painting of contrasting lines more interesting to break it into three separate canvases? But Jeannie kind of liked the soft brushstrokes of the stark landscapes. There were tall plants on either end of the front desk, and Jeannie made a mental note to have big plants in her new living room.
