A Normal Couple

Sometimes I think he’s better … and then we’re out to eat and the coughing begins and I forgot—he forgot, we forgot—an inhaler (which bag was it in??) and then the looks from the other diners start and I swear he’s not dying and I’m not a bad wife for sitting here unconcerned as he runs to the bathroom—I’m a tired wife I’m a we’ve-been-here-before wife I’m a we-should-know-better wife because this is part of our normal, and sometimes things like lettuce are incompatible with my husband’s ability to breathe and sometimes I’m incompatible with my husband’s ability to breathe and I look like a lonely wife, a sad wife, an in-over-her-head wife, an ungrateful wife, a haughty wife as I sit and look at my phone in the booth while he’s off regurgitating part of his meal. Wife wife wife Right now I exist only in relation to him and his inability to eat a $10 burger without asphyxiating and whose responsibility is it—really—to make sure he remembers lettuce can be a problem, and what does the term “care partner” even mean when he’s able to make medical decisions, dietary choices on his own but I fill out the […]