rainbow

It was around 8:15pm when Scott had completely exhausted himself in the effort to put Jonah to sleep and went outside on the front steps to get some air. I saw him head out as I was going into the bunker to face captain h-to-the-e-to-the… I-won’t-go-to-sleep-I’ll-just-stand-here-and-scream-instead. As I took my turn in the chair with Jonah for my second time that night, I noticed that the light filtering into the nursery around the edge of the curtain was indeed quite beautiful in that warm wet just started to rain at sunset kind of glow-y way. Half an hour later, Jonah was still not asleep. I left the nursery, went into the kitchen.

I cried as I smashed garlic and sea salt in the mortar-and-pestle, to make a butter sauce to put on the broccoli for our belated dinner. Scott tried to console me. I pushed him away.

Jonah cried in his crib as we ate our dinner. At 9:15, I went back in and held him in the chair again. Finally exhausted, he conked out.

I returned to the living room where Scott was sitting, stood in front of him.

“There is nothing you can do to console me. There is nothing you can say.”

(The next day he admitted to me that it was a relief to hear that.)

We barely spoke for the rest of the night. He went to sleep but I couldn’t. Wired on emotional overload, at 11:30, I got up, went to the computer, checked Facebook (as one does). Found out that my husband, along with several other FB friends from Oakland through Berkeley and up to Richmond, had seen a rainbow earlier that evening. Actually, a double rainbow. Scott had photographed it from our front door.

It made me so incredibly sad to have missed the rainbow. Sadder to have discovered Scott’s experience of it via FB.

I feel like there’s a metaphor in here somewhere.