Silverware clanked and the buzz of a hundred different conversations were the only sounds he heard. He and his wife stared at each other, eating their salads quietly while waiting for their entrees to come.
It was date night and like a depleted well, their conversation had run dry.
Initially they had talked about the children. That’s what their lives had become: Whatever the kids needed. The trips to practices, carpool, projects, homework, laundry. The kids were the joy of their lives. But they also were their lives. They were exhausted.
Another bite, quiet chewing and more silence.
He looked into his wife’s blue eyes. They were a stunning cobalt, as beautiful as the day he had first met her. While he didn’t believe in love at first sight, he would admit he had fallen in love with the beauty of her eyes. They were the gateway to her soul. You could tell whatever her heart was feeling just by looking those eyes. He had seen them blue. And red. Full of tears. And closed.
Marriages are complicated things. “Until death do you part” is not for the weak of heart. So many times both of them had wanted to quit. To give up on that vow and on each other. But something kept them together. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was familiarity. Whatever it was they had made it all the way to this restaurant. Now if their food would just get there.
She looked at her watch and sighed.
He looked again in her eyes. He saw their whole 20 years together. The good times. The bad. The history. Their history. When he first met her, he thought he had known what love was. For years he held their relationship to that impossible standard. He had made the mistake of believing love was just words. He had learned the hard way that love was about action. The gestures. The little things. It was a verb.
He thought about all the work she did at work and home. How much of her energy she unselfishly poured into the kids. How she had sacrificed when he had chased his silly dreams. How much of her identity she had let go. No, love wasn’t a few words in a sappy song or in a greeting card. Love was the day in and day out giving she did for him and their children. He thought about all she did. Obviously she was madly in love with him.
The two looked at each other. More silence.
She looked at her husband. He was a good man if not a little flawed. Most days he frustrated the living crud out of her. But he tried. She could have done so much worse and she knew it. They were a team and had a strong foundation to build the rest of their lives on. That foundation was what the sweet words and gestures were built on. She looked at his weathered face and imagined spending the rest of her life with this man. Maybe that was love after all.
They looked at each other in silence and then at the same time said, “I love you.” Both smiled and then said at the same time again, “Where’s our food? I’m hungry.”
“I wonder if the kids have burned the house down yet?” She said.
They laughed and started talking about their hopes for their future. And that night in a fancy restaurant, a great marriage was reborn before the entrees ever made it to the table.