Last Friday night.

You know as soon as she takes off her coat.

She is as slender as a reed, skinny even, in her tight jeans and tight top, with her sheaf of long flat straight hair, slender everywhere except – 


You and your husband, your never-Valentine, had arrived at Marc and Claudine’s with a tray of cupcakes and a bottle of wine and the anticipation of spending a warm and lazy night among friends. You know now, upon the arrival of the other couple, that the evening will instead unfurl into anguish for you.

You don’t say anything to her about it but you watch as Marc pours six glasses of wine and calls the group over to say cheers. You watch. You watch her. You wait for her to refuse her glass. Or you wait for her to instead take it and pretend to drink, as you did during all the Christmas and New Year festivities. She refuses it. “In fact, I won’t be able to drink this because I am pregnant,” she says, reservedly, proudly, happily.

There is a moment of silence. She and her husband sit shyly; they are always shy. You sense Gilles tightening next to you, afraid of your reaction. He’s right to be afraid.

You know there are two things you can do. One is exactly what Gilles fears; to give in to the pain, to leave, to just run out in a storm of tears and snot and ugliness and humiliation. It’s unthinkable; the evening has just begun, and the embarrassment would be unforgivable to you. The other is to swallow the pain, to numb it, to resist it until the natural end of the night.

You wait for Marc to speak but he doesn’t. He’s good with children but Claudine has refused and is approaching the age where there will no longer be a different choice to make. Claudine hasn’t heard; she’s still leaning over the pots on the stove. You wonder if Marc knows. Despite your own reticence, Gilles has spoken to friends. Not to Marc, as far as you know, but perhaps somebody else passed the news along.

You wait for Gilles to speak but he doesn’t. It’s to you to break the silence cold and sharp and gray and brittle and treacherous as thin ice over loose gravel on a mountain road. You feel like you are on that road, driving a tractionless vehicle, hurtling towards a void. 

“How lovely, congratulations!” you say brightly in a voice that doesn’t even hint of shattering.

The ceremony has become awkward. Marc jumps up to look for a juice, a soda, something other than the wine, for her. Gilles mumbles some good wishes and puts down his glass. You take a sip – more than a sip – from your own, not caring about the rudeness of doing so before having touched it to everyone else’s. Claudine is still in the kitchen.

It gets worse. Oh, we weren’t expecting it, they say; it was a surprise; we only found out a couple of weeks ago. It’s not the right time, but we’ll be happy nonetheless. It’s three months along. As it would have been for you.

The time has arrived to say cheers properly. Glasses clink, your own among them, half-empty. “Congratulations again!” you add, as if saying it enough times could stop the anger and sorrow and resentment and jealousy, simmering, burning inside you. Consuming you.

Presently you excuse yourself and you go to the toilet and look at yourself in the mirror. What comes to mind is Munch’s The Scream. You are screaming. Your mouth is open, a perfect oval, and you are screaming. No, it is much more than that; it is not just that you are screaming; it is that you sense "an infinite scream passing through you."

No sound comes out. Your eyes are round and you put your hands to your cheeks like the artist’s subject, desolate, desolated, standing alone on the bridge over "the blue-black fjord." You see no sky but if you could you know there would be, for you too, "blood and tongues of fire."

You know if you let a single sound or a single tear escape, the second option, resistance, will no longer be possible.

You walk out of the bathroom. Your eyeballs are red from the pressure and your throat is raw despite the silence of your screams.

The evening passes. You talk and laugh and eat and drink and the evening passes. You take too much wine. You know you have to. Occasionally you go to the toilet and scream soundlessly again.

Finally it’s time to go home.

That’s when you let the sounds and the tears escape.

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