A Little Bit Worse

I have the answer now, if you’d like to know.

It came to me on a sun-cloud speckled late summer morning.  My bedmate made coffee while the children slept behind a thin wooden door.  We sat under blankets on facing chairs in the living room. I held my mug with two hands, warming my fingers on the smooth fired clay.  He left his mug on the floor.

We knew by then about the dog. We knew about the head lice and the throat cultures and the bone tests and the Mono. We knew about the decline of my  friendships and the tin-foil chew of  my family relations.  And I knew that  the past two weeks had brought  my marriage to a fresh precipice with an unpleasant  view.

He reached for his mug. 

I have the answer now, if you’d like to know.

After a time (two weeks or so?), the heart palpitations, sweat and cringing stops. Your body re-learns to sleep. Your brain tamps down the mocking voice and the urge to run. Your bedmate makes coffee. Your sister wraps her arms around you and says she didn’t mean to hurt you.  She didn’t know how fragile you were.  An old friend sends a message out of the blue and the dog heals up.  The throat culture comes back negative and your head scratches not because of tiny flightless bugs but because you are a little bit crazy.  You are a little bit crazy.

I have the answer now, if you’d like to know.

You put down your coffee and look at your bedmate and know that he has has not suffered. He has skipped the dread and dire turns.  He never thought you’d be friendless or disowned. Even Mono seemed like a stretch.  For the past two weeks, he’s gone to work. He’s  breathed in and breathed out. He did not request the bone test.  He slept. He ate.  He knows nothing of a precipice.

I have the answer now:

It comes and it goes.

 It’s a little bit worse to know.  Because you. You will once again forget that after a time it will stop. Your bedmate will make coffee and you’ll remember. And you'll wonder how close you came to losing your way back.