Cream

I saw my ex-father-in-law the other day for the first time in six years. It was my first visual reminder of The Bad Old Days in a long, long time. I never see my ex. Never see his friends. Never see his family members.

Until I met my friend Russ for lunch and there he was, Father of Ex, sitting on the patio of The Coup. Wearing the same navy blue sweater and khakis I swear he had on six years ago when my marriage went Hiroshima-circa-August 6, 1945.

For whatever reason, the Ex and I have adopted a policy of studiously ignoring each other during any chance meetings or passings by. I don't know why. You'd think twelve years of history would warrant at least an awkward hello. And in this case you'd be wrong.

Because apparently it involves no more interaction than between people at the bus stop or in the Tim Hortons line. And even in those cases, there's the likelihood of someone saying, "No, you go ahead," which is not going to happen in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Ex.

I guess that's what happens when each party firmly believes the other party is a complete and utter waste of organic material who thoroughly ruined their life.

And I guess the ignoring applies to ex-father-in-laws, too.

The thing about ignoring someone is that you aren't actually ignoring them at all. You pay closer attention to people you ignore than you do to anyone or anything else.

And the thing about stuff that happened six or more years ago is this: you no longer get that feeling in your stomach. That feeling, when you see the person who broke your heart, that is probably equivalent to someone dipping a serrated knife into some kind of high-potency acid or maybe liquid explosives and then plunging it into your solar plexus. That particular sensation is gone. Along with things like Resentment and Anger and Sadness.

But what isn't gone is this strange thing about ignoring each other. And the awareness of the possibility that every move you make may be observed and recounted at a later date. So, I looked across the table at Russ, a work friend, and wondered if Father of Ex would report back about how my new "boyfriend" and I have the same haircut.

And, here's the embarrassing part. I was nervous about the cream in my coffee. Because dairy products are like the Ebola virus in Family of Ex. Which comes from a long history with a particular illness.

The result of this illness was a Stalin-esque approach to food and diet. Which worked well because that family has a Stalin-eque approach to everything else in life, too. They were the most hard-line, judgmental, black-and-white people I have ever met. There was good. And then there was bad. There was right. And then there was wrong. If you planned on becoming part of The Family (and all the Godfather images that conjures), you had to conform.

One can only assume that I, as Crazy Ex-wife of the eldest child and one who clearly did not conform, fall into the Bad/Wrong side of things. Along with the cream in my coffee.

The funny thing is, cream in my coffee was the first step to regaining a sense of joy after my marriage ended. I was so depleted of deliciousness after my years with this iron-willed spirit-crusher, that cream was an act of defiance. And a kind of rebirth.

Cream came to represent all that is good in life. The richness of how life should be. Every morning when I stirred the thick, white sweetness into my cup, it was as though I was pouring in life itself. Filling my bony, devastated carcass with all that is sensual and decadent and possible.

In Paris, when you order a coffee with milk, you say, "Un creme, s'il vous plait." A cream, please. God. It's even wonderful to say it.

And there I was, sitting in a restaurant six years later, completely aware that how I take my coffee could potentially be used as metaphoric confirmation that I was as pointless a person as they thought.

So, what else could I do in a situation like that?

I added more cream.