Dear Jasmina

On Thursday last week, I left Marie-Hélène with Grandma and Grandpa and attended the traditional lunch that is offered to any employee that leaves the office. (I’m reading Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and I now have a hard time turning off the Editor in my head… Was that last sentence right? Is it a traditional lunch or a lunch traditionally given? Sigh…) Marie-Hélène was an angel. She played, went to sleep and woke up without many tears involved. I came back and she hardly smiled in acknowledgement. Christian and I decided that a romantic diner together was a go. The Grandparents came over, we waved goodbye to our blue-eyed treasure and left.

Chianti’s is a tiny restaurant with a cosy atmosphere that surprises you when you open the door. It is part of a strip mall whose main feature is the Dollarama a few plain doors down. A server made his way over to us through tables and padded wicker chairs.
“We have a reservation under ‘Chris’”
“Sure! I’ll just go check that.”
He comes back to say there is no Chris in the reservation book. Did we reserve under another name? How about our phone number? We see him flip pages and consult a woman, and the elderly couple between the bar that holds the reservation book, and us at the entrance, is hoping we’ll have a table. Our chances are visibly disappearing. The tables are booked, the reserved card is not for us. The reservation made that morning couldn’t have been – “we’re not open that early” the waiter explains, less charmingly.

We leave. Christian wants to check the number at home. I wait in the car, listening to the radio, checking my hair with manicured hands. He reappears in the driveway and mimes tears running down his face – Marie-Hélène is crying. We cancel our plans and come up with theories to explain why she missed us. In the short 15 minutes we were gone, Grandma and Grandpa had moved her from the Exer-saucer, to the window, to the Jolly Jumper, to a duvet on the floor covered with toys. We ordered pizza for the two of us and shared a glass of water. In lieu of chocolate, we bathed our princess and let Grandma read her bedtime stories, including a book of Touch and Feel Pets that has a cat whose wiskers Marie-Hélène has learned to pull. Grandma and Grandpa left, and we opened our cards over a cup of tea, before watching Lost and going to bed. Valentine’s – the family edition – is lovely… Our princess simply insisted on being part. Next year we’ll have her to pour the wine and light the candles.