The Choice

him? Do not sleep with him, she has warned me. Especially not on a
first date.
“Edith Eva Eger,” my ex-husband pleads, “please, please let the kids
spend the night with friends and agree to come to dinner with me.”
“Whatever it is, we can discuss it on the phone, or when you drop
the kids off.”
“No,” he says. “No. is is not a conversation for the phone or the
front door.”
I assume it has to do with the children, and I agree to meet him at
our favorite prime rib restaurant, our old date spot.
“I’m picking you up,” he says.
He arrives exactly on time, dressed for a date in a dark suit and silk
tie. He leans in to kiss my cheek and I don’t want to move away, I
want to stay near his cologne, his cleanly shaved chin.
In the restaurant, at our old table, he takes my hands. “Is it
possible,” he asks, “that we have more to build together?”
His question sends my mind spinning, as though we are already on
the dance floor. Try again? Reunite? “What about her?” I ask.
“She’s a lovely person. She’s fun. She’s a very good companion.”
“So?”
“Let me ĕnish.” Tears begin to well in his eyes and fall down his
face. “She’s not the mother of my children. She didn’t spring me out of
jail in Prešov. She’s never heard of the Tatra Mountains. She can’t
pronounce chicken paprikash, much less make it for dinner. Edie, she
isn’t the woman I love. She isn’t you.”
e compliments feel good, the embrace of our shared past, but
what strikes me most deeply is Béla’s readiness for risk. is has
always been true of him, as far as I can tell. He chose to ĕght Nazis in
the forest. He risked death by disease and bullets to stop what was
unconscionable. I was conscripted into risk. Béla chose risk knowingly,
and he chooses it again at this table, allowing himself to be vulnerable