The illness was a result of him giving up. It had been hiding in him, laying dormant, for years. Wearing down on him but never getting the better of him: never taking hold because he had hope. When he realized something was wrong, really wrong, he lost hope. He gave up and had no hope anymore. He had no proof and didn’t want to know what was wrong; despite that, he did know it was something. That opened the door.
“39.1, how is your throat?”
He just shook his head.
“I know you are sick, but you don’t have to be grumpy.” It sounded accusing in his ears.
He had that look on his face, the look of being lost and in pain. She hated that look and hated him for it. It was a look of wanting pity, or so she thought. And she couldn’t give pity.
“I just can’t talk,” he managed to whisper. She recoiled at the smell.
“It smells like something is rotting in your throat,” she managed in a kindly voice. “Just don’t talk,” she pecked him on the forehead and left the room.
He knew she wouldn’t kiss him. The smell was bad enough to go with the pain. She also didn’t want to get sick. She also hadn’t done more than give him a peck on the cheek in days. But on the forehead? He wanted help, like a sick man, not pity like a dying puppy. Either his face wasn’t saying or she wasn’t listening.
The worse he got, the more she went to buy medicine and talked on the phone—mostly with doctors he guessed. The worse it got the less she sat in the same room as him. Then, just a look into his eyes replaced the peck on the forehead. A look from across the room usually. He didn’t even want her kisses now. He understood. She didn’t want to get sick or have to bear the smell. It was embarrassing. He didn’t want her to smell him or even see him like this. And he understood even more. He didn’t want her to be next to him. He wanted someone to lay next to him and just be there. But he didn’t want it to be her. He wanted, no needed, someone, but more and more it could not be her. Her looks and movements betrayed something that he wanted no part of.
She was frustrate and worn out. Not just from his illness but from her life. She was worn out by what he didn’t want know. She was driven further from him by his fever, throat and smell… by that look in his eyes. She helped him, but she moved further and further away.
In her mind, he couldn’t have known and so it didn’t matter. Even if he did know, he could never have done anything and it was for the better. She would get him better, get him through this. She would do what she had to do to get him through it. And she would do whatever she needed to get through it. Then she would do what she wanted, finally.
In the end he recovered. And in the end he knew. She thought it was his illness that ended it for him. For her it had been over before that. And in the end she thought that made it all, all right.
