We Need To Talk

“Velvet, we need to talk.”

               Jonah Delaney adjusted his silver wire-framed glasses in a decisive manner and then forced his hands to rest on the cool granite countertop before him.  Standing there in the kitchen his wife had decorated with such meticulous detail, surrounded by the top-of-the-line and stylish Calder appliances her family’s company had provided, he felt almost alien.  

                Velvet Delaney looked up from her newspaper.  It was spring and the social page was crowded with young engaged couples, not the least of which was her own daughter—but social news and wedding announcements, even the wedding announcement she had been so eager to relish, would have to wait.  Jonah Delaney had never, in the twenty years they had been married, uttered those five dreaded words.  ‘Velvet, we need to talk’.

                As Jonah looked into the wide, pale green eyes of his wife he was almost startled by how beautiful she remained.  Though she had just passed her fortieth birthday she still retained a youthful glow and looked easily a decade younger than her years.  

                He was sick with guilt.  Twenty years of marriage.  Twenty years of sleeping with the most gorgeous woman in town, twenty years of having the loveliest hostess on his arm, the most charming mother, and sweetest friend in his corner, in his home.  She had borne him four beautiful children, they had raised them together, she made his home stylish and graceful.  She fixed him drinks after work, saw him through four major promotions by throwing dinner parties and arranging luncheons. ‘And she hasn’t aged a day’, he thought bleakly.  ‘And she still is the most beautiful woman in town—‘ he reminded himself grimly ‘She’ll be fine.’  He set his jaw.

                Jonah Delaney still looked as handsome as they day Velvet had met him.  Though his auburn hair was now white at the temples and peppered with silver strands, but that only seemed to make him more attractive, ‘sophisticated’ she told him.  His jaw had lost none of its immaculate, chiseled form and he sported only a few care-worn lines around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes.  But it was those eyes Velvet had fallen in love with—those rich violet eyes. 

                In truth, he told her as a boy he’d been teased mercilessly for them.  A girly color, Liz Taylor violet, the kids had mocked.  But as Jonah grew into a man the taunts had dried up and admiring glances had taken their place.    As a man the typically feminine hue of his eyes seemed to work, brought an alluring softness to his otherwise strong and very male features.

                But his daring gorgeous face was grave now, those eyes stern.  He wore an expression he’d worn a thousand times in the course of raising their children and she suddenly wondered which of their teenaged girls had gotten into trouble this time.  ‘All our children got his eyes’ she mused, all four. ‘Only Grey got mine.’  She closed the paper with a sigh thinking she’d like to see her son in the social page more often.

                “What is it?”  She smiled warmly but fixed him with an earnest gaze.  His jaw was tight.  Oh dear.

                Jonah pressed his palms to the cool black granite, willing his pulse to regulate.  How could he tell her?  How could he tell her after twenty years of marriage, twenty three amazing years together, that he wanted a divorce?