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On our fifth anniversary, the year of wood, he waltzed into the house with a box wrapped in silver paper with a black ribbon. Inside was a beautiful cherrywood music box, and on the top was a painting of two perfect roses. He said they represented the flowers in his life, Gia and me. It was corny, but I loved it. When I lifted the lid, the song “The Hills Are Alive” fromThe Sound of Musicwafted through the living room. I’d told him how much I loved that song on our first date, and I was blown away that he’d remembered. The music box was still on my dresser, but the lid was broken at the hinges, and the picture of the roses had faded. Was that a metaphor for our marriage?

“Did you realize our anniversary is in two weeks?” I asked Jim as he brushed his teeth.

“Of course,” he said, spitting blobs of toothpaste into the sink. He hadn’t remembered either.

“I can ask my mom to stay with Gia if you want to go away, just the two of us.” Gia wouldn’t want anyone staying with her, but I wasn’t going to leave her home alone with Jason in the picture.

“Sure,” he said.

“We could go to that bed and breakfast in Norfolk that we used to love.” We needed something to get our marriage back on track.

“Which one?” he asked.

We had only been to one. “The one with that cobblestone fireplace and the view of the forest?” I could see the wheels turning in his head, and he was coming up with nothing. “You know, the place where we barely left the room except to go buy another bottle of champagne.”

“Oh yeah,” he said with no conviction.

How could he not remember the most romantic weekend we’d ever spent together? “I’ll call and see if they have a room available.”

“Sounds good.”

When he started flossing and spitting out little particles all over the place, I went downstairs. Instead of immediately making reservations, I picked up my gym bag and headed to my car. After changing, I went straight to the treadmills, hoping to find Michael. Being with him had become my escape. After thirty minutes when he still hadn’t shown up, I became frustrated. Where was he? The extent of my disappointment surprised me. I looked everywhere except the men’s locker room, and just as I was about to give up, I spotted him in a corner on one of the weight machines. He had been hidden behind a burly gentleman who was taking a break on the machine next to him. Michael had headphones on and was moving to his music and quietly singing. I loved that he was unaware of how dorky he looked. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror; he wasn’t the only one who looked foolish. My skin was blotchy, and my bangs were curling upward. I couldn’t let him see me like that.

I ducked back into the locker room and applied some tinted moisturizer. Not enough to look as if I had makeup on, but enough to look better than I had a few minutes ago. I brushed my bangs back in place and walked out of the locker room. I thought it would be less obvious that I needed to see him if I could get him to notice me first. I found a weight machine a little distance from him and hoped he’d see me. The machine I chose was for tightening your abs. I got on the incline bench and tucked my feet under the rollers. Then I laid back, put my hands behind my ears, and squeezed my stomach muscles as tight as I could and pulled myself up. I continued until my abs began screaming, but Michael still hadn’t seen me. I surreptitiously glanced his way, but he was engrossed in his routine. I moved a little closer to him, this time getting on the pull-down machine. After I’d killed myself there, and he still hadn’t looked my way, I decided to try one more machine before giving up and going over to him.

I picked an inner thigh machine because it was as close to him as I could get without being on top of him. The problem was my inner thighs hated working out. They were happy to stay mushy. I placed my legs in a contraption that reminded me of the gynecologist’s office yet not as fun. I bore down and concentrated and pushed my thighs together. I put more weight on the machine than I had ever used in the past; in fact, it was more weight than anyone my size would have ever been able to squeeze. I was not going to give up, so I tried even harder, but I couldn’t get the machine to move even an inch. I was now sweating profusely, and my thighs felt as if they were going to shoot off my body. I was grimacing when he finally noticed me. I couldn’t tell by his expression if he was amused or impressed.

“You need to lower your weight on this machine. Seventy-five pounds is too much, you could hurt yourself,” he said, pausing his own workout.

“That would explain why my thighs have been screaming at me.”

Michael lightened the weight for me and sat down on the outer thigh machine next to me. He put three-hundred pounds of weight on and then pushed his thighs apart as effortlessly as a butterfly flapping its wings. “I’m so glad I ran into you,” he said. Really,hewanted to run intome?Please don’t let my eyes light up.“I wanted to get the name of that assisted living facility that your dad’s in,” he added.

Okay, not exactly what I was hoping he’d say. “It’s Brooklawn Senior Center on Muldover Street.”

“I’m not sure my mom will consider it, but I’m hoping she’ll at least come with me to check it out.”

“It’s a nice place, as those places go.”

“That’s good. My mom needs more help, and she’s lonely, so maybe it would also force her to be more social. I worry about her.” He was sensitive and cute. He picked up his water bottle and took a drink. “Thanks for the info.” He added weight to his machine and went back to his workout.

“So, no treadmill today?” I asked.

“I didn’t want to risk my life,” he said.

“And you shouldn’t. Your life’s too important to waste.” A flush erupted on my cheeks, and a sensation of heat was on my back. Flirting made me warm, or was it perimenopause? We finished the thigh machines at the same time—or rather as soon as he stopped, I happily quit too. We switched machines, so now I was working my outer thighs and he was working his inner thighs, although his thighs were already perfect, not that I was looking. We were working out in unison, which seemed rather romantic in a sweaty way.

After we finished, we crossed to the free weights. He picked up a fifty-pound dumbbell in each hand and began doing bicep curls. I was entranced by the tightening and untightening of his arms and the way his tattoo brightened up under the overhead lights. I scanned the various weights on the rack.

“You should start with eights or tens if you’ve never lifted,” he said.

“Oh, I lift all the time. I struggled to get the twenty-pound dumbbells off the stack. As soon as I tried to lift them, I realized I was in trouble. As coolly as I could, I put them back on the rack and picked up eights. “So, what were the tamarin monkeys like?” I asked.

“Amazing. They let me hold one of the babies.”

“Wow, that’s so cool.” After ten curls, I put the eights back on the stack. Michael continued lifting.

“How’s your daughter?” he asked.