A stranger’s leftovers, Nice, 2007.

My husband and I keep meaning to go out to dinner. I’m not sure what it would prove. That we’re still normal people who didn’t just change in every way? That we can still enjoy a good meal amid the company of strangers?

The last time we tried this was nearly two weeks after we lost Lorenzo. Ryan and I were spending nearly every minute together, as we did those first few weeks, and after a follow-up appointment with my OBGYN it seemed like not a bad idea to go across to the mall to get him some work clothes, and then why not just go across the parking lot to grab dinner? How normal, that progression of thought that got us there.

Losing Lorenzo was still every conversation, every gesture, every reason behind every tear, physical collapse, dazed expression, and moment of waking side-by-side. In many ways, it still is, of course. But we also have to function back here in Chile. We have to talk about grocery lists and walking the dog. There, heartbroken in California, we were still weirdly in a place we now vacation to, technically. We had the luxury to grieve in each other’s company for hours and hours at a time, whether we were sitting in the backyard or picking out Khakis at Macy’s Men’s Store.

So, we went to P.F. Chang’s. We ordered far more food than we could eat. And all I saw were families with children. It didn’t matter if the children were college-aged. I saw mothers and fathers and the people who made them into mothers and fathers. Those were the only possible cookie cutters to fit these strangers through. I stared. I imagined the scenarios for their gathering at a table or two away from us… Stanford graduation? Once a week family meal? Early Father’s Day celebration? They looked innocent, un-grieving, though now I know better than to presume who hasn’t lost, perhaps just as deeply as we have. I had to force myself to look away, to steer my focus back to my husband and our meal. But I wasn’t there.

We haven’t gone out to dinner, just the two of us, since. The past few weekends, we’ll say it: We should have a date night. We should go out to such-and-such place. But all I’m thinking is that we went there the night before we got the bad news or do I really want to be out in public when the crying starts up again? Like it did the other night, which marked another full week passing without my period, without that first step forward into the future where it’s possible for this body—that so catastrophically failed to protect our son—to create a healthy life.

Fortunately, I had already decided that pajamas, the couch, Ryan and Ruby close at hand, and a motley pasta were far better ideas than dressing for public, ordering off a menu, and watching dozens of families dine since Ryan and I prefer to eat around the time parents with small children do (7pm) versus when most Chileans under the age of 80 do (10pm). It was always one of the things I loved and looked forward to about it here: 1) That restaurants were kid-friendly places and 2) We wouldn’t be the only family keen on the early-bird special.

So, we still haven’t had a date night. That isn’t to say we don’t set the table at home and talk about how we’re doing (by that I mean how we’re really doing) and feel secure knowing the dog is lounging on her bed nearby and things are at least right inside our home. They are rarely right out in public these days, or in the room up the road where I found out our baby had a fatal heart condition, or where it was confirmed in another room on another continent, or anywhere in the universe that allows babies to suffer and die. That does not have any suitable arrangement.

Birthdays, 2010, Waikiki. It’s boggling how innocent we look.

Because the shortest version of the story I am sharing with you is that my baby died. My. Baby. Died. That is the entire story. That is the change in me and the way I see the world. That is both my fear actualized and my fearlessness because I dare the universe to ever wage war against me again. I dare anyone to take on a bereaved parent. Unless you are one, you will never truly understand and that’s a blessing. That is also a shorter version of the story. Though I love you for trying and helping.

Going out to dinner—the carefree distraction you need to possess in order to do so—it’s simply one of many normalities that no longer make sense. Like celebrity gossip or Coca-Cola or social media. Like anything other than my son having lived.

Another way to say it: I’m still very much in Hell. That’s how I’m really doing. And I suppose you just don’t take ‘Hell’ out to dinner.