Anniversary Dinner

A Dinner Table at Night by John Singer Sargent

He was calling from Orlando, Florida, where he was at a conference—it was hot and flat, he said, and you couldn’t get any place without a car—and he told her that he had been taken out for dinner that evening by Franklin, a man who used to work for him but who was now living in Boston, and that for dinner they had aged sirloin steaks, potatoes au gratin, key lime pie, and two bottles of Merlot, followed by brandy back at the hotel, and that Franklin had confessed that he was having marriage trouble—things were really starting to fall apart—so, thinking of their friend David, whose wife had left him after seventeen years and who still hadn’t recovered two and half years later, he told Franklin, do whatever you have to, whatever it takes—get down on your knees and beg for God’s sake—but just don’t let her go, just don’t let her go, and then he said, suddenly in a low and tender voice, I don’t know, I just wanted to talk to you for a couple of minutes before I went to sleep, it’s almost one o’clock in the morning here, and she said, well, there’s not much to tell you—it was all macaroni and cheese, homework, and The Hobbit around here—and he said tell Seth hello for me, and she said, no, he hates it when you call while he’s asleep, so I just don’t tell him at all, it upsets him too much, and he said that he would try to call again soon when the boy was awake, and she said, yes, that would be a good idea; and after she hung up the phone, she went back to bed, picking up the book she had been reading when she had been interrupted by his call, and it was only when she woke up the next morning that she realized the night before had been their wedding anniversary, and she wondered whether or not he had known that when he called.

by Nina Zolotow

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