In Sickness

Husband, who is in his late thirties with wavy, black, well-groomed hair showing just a spot of gray at the temples, stands next to Wife who is lying on a hospital bed. Wife’s vestiges of beauty still cling, her hair is a thick, shiny chestnut and her eyes are large and bottle green, but her body is puffy with middle age and her face pinched. He looks impatient, she, dismissive.

“You’re sick, but you can be OK if we just do what the doctors tell us to.”

“I’m not sick, husband. I’m fine. See, my arms and legs still move. That’s all I really need. That’s all you really need”

“You can't be serious. You just told the doctors you threw up the moon! And the stars! That the whole night sky was sitting in a puddle of your stomach acid on the ground. How does any of that indicate that you are fine?”

“You say, you say. That’s funny because we were saying it not two hours ago. You saw it too. I know because you screamed like our daughter for like an hour after it happened.”

“I did not—"

“Whatever. You say you didn’t see it, I say I’m fine. Now go away. Go get some coffee or something.” She turns away.

Husband closes his eyes for a tense moment and draws a deep breath.

“This is not something you can simply brush off. The doctors think you have a ‘cerebral contusion,’ which means you are bleeding in your brain. You could get brain damage. You could… Either way it’s serious. They say you have to have surgery, honey. Surgery.”

"Yes and I heard how quick you were to deny you it to the medical people too. 'Well Doctor, I'm not completely sure it was the moon. Could've been something funny-shaped she ate. The street lamps caused everything to look strange.' You’ll jump into the lap of anyone you think’s on your level. But not me. Not your wife. No, I’m way too uneducated to have any idea what happened. What happened, to me. You made me look like a crazy person in front of them! I'm not crazy and I know you saw it too. But if that's how it's gonna be, then you're right, there was no moon. I’m not sick, I’m fine, and I don’t need surgery. I only have a slight headache. I can take some Advil when we get home from here. That way it’s only a little money spent on wasting time in this room.”

He runs his hand through his hair, aggravated. It’s clear that this path has been tread before.

“Why are you being this way? You are in a hospital for God’s sake. Look around you, what do you see? Monitors and a fluid sack stuck in your veins. Look outside your door. See, doctors and nurses. They do not put people in here just for headaches.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I’m fine. Besides once they realize I'm not a crazy person, that I just married a spineless unsupportive jerk, they are going to want to cut me open to investigate.”

"A spineless--! Ugh, honey just think about it for a moment. How likely is it that you actually threw up the moon, that it wasn't just the light messing with our minds?"

She raises an eyebrow at the use of "our."

"About as likely as the fact that your snotty parents wish you'd knocked up That Girl instead of me eight years ago."

"Honestly? Is now really the time to bring that up?"

"What makes 'now' different?"

"You're sick, dear! Really sick! In one way or another--"

"Sick in the head according to you."

"--and I don't want us to be arguing the same point as always only for it to be our last con...I just cannot have this fight one more time with you." Husband sits in the chair next to the hospital bed, defeated.

"It was the moon. You saw it too," Wife whispers.

"Maybe. Let's say, for a minute, it was. How? I mean, it's not possible. Physically, scientifically, there is no precedent. I can't even imagine--"

"Who gives a crap if there's a precedent. What do you think it means? There must be some higher purpose to all this. Hmm, I'm a Leo, that's a fire sign. That doesn't seem to fit with the moon. But who knows? Maybe I'm some sorta moon prophet or something?" She scans the ink colored sky outside her window for possibilities with narrowed green eyes, smiling.

“Oh honey, not that zodiac stuff again. That's just ridiculous--"

Wife's head whips around to focus again on Husband, her hair a fiery cyclone around her face.

"You won't give an inch will you? The idea of me being a prophet scares you. A woman, especially this woman, with any sort of power...the horror! I just threw up the moon, you idiot. This is one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me and you can't stand it because it didn't happen to you for once."

Husband's hands clench and lines appear all over his tanned face. One might possibly trace a map in these lines of their ten years together.

"What do you want from me? I am doing everything I can to try and make sure you are OK. I only want you to be well. All I've ever wanted is for you to be happy. I just assumed someday you’d finally let go of being angry all the time and finally notice that I do everything, everything for you. Unfortunately, I've had a knack for desiring the impossible.”

Wife, shock apparent on her face, fiddles with the purple hospital bracelet on her wrist. Such intense passion has not been seen from the somewhat defeated Husband in many years.

"Alright. So if I am sick, from moon poisoning or somethin' not insanity, what does that mean?"

"I thought you were 'fine'?"

"Look here! I'm--"

"Forget it, I'm sorry. The doctors said they may have to operate."

"Of course they said that. That's what they want, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?

“Oh like they'll give a damn about me. I'll just be some incredible, book-worthy case to them. I'm not special, no one’s gonna try and keep me alive as long as they can still mess around in my innards to see where the moon came from. So why take the risk? Why would I want to put myself under the knife of somebody that would just as soon let it slip by ‘accident’ and have my body to play with as long as they want. Therefore, I am fine.” She tosses her hair with a huff, her point made, and slumps back in the bed with her arms crossed.

“That is insane! Why would...How...What makes you...? I’m fairly certain, dear, that a hospital with a reputation like this one would never simply let someone die just to promote their own agenda.”

“So the doctors don’t care about publishing stuff in medical journals? Or being the first to figure out some crazy new disease? I’ve watched The Medical Shows, I know. All these surgeries they do, they’re purely philanthropic? The doctors don’t claim none of the work as their own? Don’t name diseases after themselves?”

“Of course they publish and other things of that sort, but honey, why can’t you just accept this? You have every chance of being just fine if you just say you are not well and accept the treatment.”

“I’m no one’s science experiment. Therefore, I’m fine. Awesome, spiffy, healthy as a horse.”

“Do you know what they told me earlier? When they pulled me out of the room to talk to me in private, do you know what they said? They told me if you don’t do anything about this, and it is a cerebral contusion, you could get irrevocable brain damage. Or, if that’s not enough for you, you could hemorrhage and die. And then, your body's not your own anymore anyway. So this refusal to acknowledge the truth is just moronic.”

“I am not a moron, dear, and you’ll do well to remember who takes care of you and our child. You don't complain when a moron stocks your beer. You don't complain when a moron cleans up your dishes. You don't complain when a moron goes to bed with you. You really can’t stand that something this amazing, this unreal, this powerful, happened to your trailer park wife, can you?”

“Have I ever called you that? Will you ever tire of victimizing yourself? I cannot help that my parents have money just as much that I cannot, for God knows what reason sometimes, help wanting to be with you.”

She turns away from him, it appears unable to argue with his obvious earnestness, and busies herself straightening her hospital gown.

“Please, if it actually was the moon you threw up, you may have some serious medical ramifications. You could be suffering from some sort of radiation exposure. Either way, I just want you to be able to get better and you can’t do that by pretending everything is perfect.”

Wife gives no indication she has heard him. He reaches toward her, as if to stroke her hair, but his hand stops and hangs, awkward, in midair for a moment before falling back to his side. The air itself is heavy with what they should say.

“Let me help you. I love you. It’s not as if I’m trying to swindle you.”

Silence.

“Good God, what do you want me to do? Just let you die? What kind of husband would that make me? I…I took off work and everything just to make sure I could be by your side all the way through this.”

She spins around.

“Oh! You took off work and everything did you? Well by golly, if I had known that…Well shoot, you’re right. I’m sick as a dog. Cut me open right here, right now!”

She turns her back on him once again.

"Honey? Honey, please. I am not trying to…I keep saying all the wrong things. Will you just trust me? I want to take care of you. Would you let our daughter not get treated? If this happened to her, would you just assume everything was fine? Would you not make certain that there was nothing about this…experience…that could potentially hurt her in the long run?”

She turns back to him, her clear green eyes narrowed.

“‘Course I wouldn’t. She's my child. I would give everything I have to make life better for her. But I would be there to make sure she doesn’t end up some greedy doctor’s medical miracle. Besides, I am not a child. I have always taken care of myself. And I am fine.”

“Well getting this surgery would make life better for her. She loves you and depends on you. I love you and depend on you. Can you not do this for us?”

Wife looks down and takes a shaky breath.

"Honey, you can’t just ignore this. You can’t do this to yourself.”

She snaps her head back up quickly, like a whip cracking or perhaps a rubber band snapping into place.

“I can and will do whatever I think is best.”

Husband closes his eyes. His hands shake.

“Do you love me?” It is almost a whisper.

“I…I…” She swallows, “It’s not about that. You just want me out of the house for a few days. You’re sick of me, sick of my voice. Sure it’s nice to have food on the table and the place is clean, but you could do that without me. Our daughter likes you better anyhow. You give her anything she wants anyway. You’re a pushover. Just let me drop dead, everyone would be better off.

She turns away, possibly to hide a barely audible sniff.

“Fine. If that’s what you want to believe, fine. I give up. I can only tell you I love you, or that you’re beautiful, or that I want only you and have it hit a brick wall so many times before it’s useless. I married you, not your pregnancy. And I’ve stuck with you, even when you constantly shut yourself off from me. I can’t change where I come from anymore than you can. And I can’t make you believe any different. I can’t make you do anything. The only thing that stands between us in our marriage is you. So if you want to go ahead and kill yourself off by doing nothing, there’s nothing more I can say.”

Husband shoves his way past a startled nurse who is trying to enter the room and leaves wringing his hands in frustration. He stops outside Wife's door and leans, exhausted, on the frame” just out of her sight. Inside the room, Wife takes a deep breath.

“Please, I lo—,” pause, “need him…” The nurse looks concerned and turns to walk back out the door towards Husband.

“No, no…nevermind. I’m fine” Wife says with a sigh.