And then she stopped searching and turned to her husband and asked—with a little sass—“Is this you being funny?” She hoped that Phil was being funny. Because Phil used to be funny. So, so funny. And fun.

“No!” said Phil, defending himself.

“’Cause it’s not funny,” scolded Marci. “I’m cold!” And she actually was, now. And her stocking foot was colder.

“Well, you’re the one that wanted to go skating!”

“Well, if you didn’t want to go, you should have just said.”

“I did say! I said, ‘Wanna go to dinner at the Snowmobile Club instead?’ But you said you wanted to go skating. And I said that if you really wanted to go, then we should go.”

“Yeah, well, I really wanted to go.”

“Yeah! And we went! We’re here!”

“Yeah.” They were there. At least she was. But he wasn’t. She felt like Phil wasn’t really ever anywhere that she was anymore. And she almost laid into him and told him so, when her better nature suddenly took over. And made her say, appreciatively, “And I’m glad we’re here. Thanks for going with me.”

“Sure,” said Phil. And he felt like everything was okay for a second.

Marci also felt like things were okay for a second.

And then Phil got back to work looking for Marci’s shoe.

And Marci put the Coleman lantern back on the picnic table and put her skate back on, so she could be more mobile—and to warm up her stocking foot.

And then, with one skate on and one shoe on, she grabbed the lantern and joined Phil in the search for her other shoe.

After a few seconds, she stopped searching and turned to Phil and said, “You know … we used to do this all the time.”

“Look for your other shoe?” asked Phil, being funny.

“Ha-ha, no. Go skating.” She was hoping hard that he would understand why she wanted to go skating so badly. “Why don’t we come here anymore?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s fun.”

Phil didn’t quite agree that skating was fun. But didn’t say so.

And then Marci realized that it had been a really long time since she and Phil had done anything fun.

And she wondered why that was and asked, “Why do people stop doing the things they used to do for fun, huh?”

“I don’t know. They get busy, I guess.”

“Well … that’s no reason to stop doing fun things.”

Phil shrugged. And didn’t know what else to say about why people stop doing the things they used to do for fun. And he really wasn’t interested in thinking about why he and his wife didn’t have fun anymore, so he changed the topic and got them back on task and asked, “Where the heck is your shoe? It’s gotta be here.”

Marci watched Phil as he resumed his search for Marci’s other shoe—which he was expanding to include the entire picnic area.

And then she felt like she needed to extend an olive branch—maybe to preempt the fight that she felt was coming. “Phil,” she said tenderly, “I’m not mad. I was never mad.”