Peanut Butter Chocolate

Two weeks after her husband died, Emily returned to their favorite spot in town: Scoopers. They went there at least once a week – sometimes more in the warmer months. They used the rationale that since they could get there on foot, they would therefore burn enough calories to justify their indulgence.

Aside from the close proximity, they also appreciated the fact that Scoopers offered both soft and hard serve. She preferred soft; James preferred hard. No compromise was necessary. They already had enough of those in their marriage.

Although Emily had a rotation of preferred flavors she would choose from (in fact, she rarely got the same thing twice), James had only one: peanut butter chocolate, which Scoopers always had in stock. The other ice cream shop in town only had the vanilla version with peanut butter chunks, which was unacceptable as far as James was concerned.  They never went back.

After James’s unexpected death, Emily wasn’t sure if she could ever return to Scoopers alone. There were many places she wasn’t looking forward to returning to without James and this was probably at the top of the list. But her craving eventually outweighed her guilt. She reminded herself that James would have wanted her to go. In fact, if the roles were reversed, she was convinced he wouldn’t have hesitated going.

When Emily arrived on foot, she nearly turned around and went right back home. But after taking a few deep breaths, she found the will to enter.

As she waited in line, she thought about the last time they were here: they were out of peanut butter chocolate ice cream!  Based on James’s reaction, you might have thought that someone just spat in his face.

“Unacceptable,” James seethed with uncharacteristic anger.

“He’s kidding,” Emily said, leaping into defense of the poor girl, who James had practically brought to the verge of tears.

She wasn’t convinced.

“I’m not kidding” James confirmed.

“I’m so sorry,” Emily whispered to the girl, not really sure how to handle this.

“Can I get you something else?” the girl asked.

“Nope.”

And then he pushed himself backwards against the counter, in a defiant gesture, adding an even bigger, more embarrassing exclamation mark to the situation.

Emily no longer had any interest in getting ice cream that night, which was certainly no easy feat.

“Don’t let me stop you,” James insisted.

“Is there really no other ice cream you want?” Emily tried reasoning to him like a child.

“No,” he pouted.

 “So to be clear, you’re literally going to choose no ice cream at all, rather than picking something else?”

“And settle?” he snarked.

“Yeah. That is any other normally functioning adult would do.”

“Well, their loss.”

Emily wasn’t used to irrational behavior coming from the otherwise stable, centered man that she called her husband.

“It seems like it’s more your loss. And mine.”

“Nobody’s stopping you from getting what you want.”

“What I want is to just go home,” Emily said, unsure if she was more embarrassed or upset that she was leaving empty-handed.

The rest of their evening was spent in separate rooms. She read a book in the living room – a rare evening where they didn’t watch some form of TV together.

It was just one of those bad nights any couple has every now and again. Fortunately, they still had their whole life together.

Or, so she thought.

Now, it was just one more thing about James she would miss: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

All she could do was hope that James was now in the great ice cream parlor in the sky, eating all the peanut butter ice cream he could ever possibly want.