Ex: They're dating again.
Me: Who?
Ex: Your uncle and my mother
Me: ...You're kidding. I thought your mom was in Seattle now?
Ex: She is. But apparently she dropped by the mountain region to "pick up a few things".
Me: LOL. Well I guess we know what one of the things she picked up was
Ex: LOL. She said it like that too. As if she just happened to be in the neighborhood
I remember it all so clearly. My then-girlfriend, her mother and my uncle were in a furniture store in my hometown when ma sprung on upon us the news that they were considering moving in together. I laughed and wasn't sure if they were serious or not, the ex said, "No, this is not happening" in her outdoor voice and an argument ensued. The ride home was all kindsa uncomfortable. But they never did shack up. Her mom decided to move back to the West to help her other daughter with her kids and the relationship with my uncle ended soon after. As did my relationship with the ex, albeit later on and for different reasons. Our families were quite close while we were together but went through a cooling off period after we split. It's only been during the last year or so that certain members have reached out to one another again. Apparently her mother and my uncle have done more than just reach out.
These two crazy kids met way before the ex and I were even blips on the radar. My uncle spent a summer in California in his younger years and ended up hanging out with her mother, who was on a break from her boyfriend. They went on a handful of actual dates but hung out as friends a lot. When he left for home, she went back to the boyfriend whom she eventually married and had three kids (and four stepkids) with, including the ex. The family moved to our neck of the woods when the ex was three and she ended up in an afterschool program with my cousin. They weren't really friends but both families went to a school play of some sort and that's actually where the ex and I first met, although neither of us remembers it. Apparently we hung out a handful of times after that at birthday parties and other school functions and, in typical me fashion, I took a shine to her older sister (who is also older than me). But they moved back to Cali and we all lost touch. Flash forward to our twenties and you'll find that same older sister moving to New York for her husband's job. They bought a house in the 'burbs right next door to a family member of mine and no one even remembered that they'd met in a previous life. But they got to talking and realized they each had a family member who was one of those "hard to hold onto" types, and who each were the only sibling in their family without a family of their own. And that was the basis of our blind-ish date. It went well. Very well, obviously. But we didn't know of our past connection until a perfect storm of events brought her mom and my uncle back together.
My cousin had to have an emergency appendectomy and there were complications so he spent about a week in the hospital. My uncle, mom, sister and I were there everyday to sit with him and stopped at a Starbucks a few blocks away from the hospital. The day my cousin was released, the ex went to pick up her mom from the hospital and we were supposed to reconnect for dinner. My uncle and I swung by the coffee shop that morning and the ex's mom walked in. I stood there waiting for my drink and the two of them flirted up a storm and I was...how do you say...wildly uncomfortable. I knew they had met before but wasn't aware of their dating history at the time. He invited her to the Christmas festivities that year and they were inseparable. The ex and I didn't know what to make of it. In a complete reversal from how we'd react to the furniture store move in debacle, I was freaking out about them dating and she was seeing the positives. They were happy and that's what mattered to her. We tried not to think about what would happen if they got hitched down the line. But obviously neither their, nor our, relationship lasted.
As far as I know, they haven't had any contact since they split up years ago. She followed her daughter to another destination (they travel a lot for the husband's job) and finished out her teaching career. She retired last year and has been traveling ever since, most recently landing in the Pacific Northwest to spend time with her siblings and nieces. Neither seem all that interested in talking about what's going on between them, the ex only found out about it because her aunt let slip that ma was in Colorado to visit a friend. I guess we shall see where it goes from here. I swear, my aunts, uncles and mom are more trouble now than they were in their youths. My mom's addicted to playing Zelda on her new Wii, my uncle is on and off with a girl, Crazy Aunt is setting up cameras in her bedroom with some fool named James. It's like we became adults and they've all reverted back to being tweens. The circle of life, eh?
