Forever, Interrupted(59)

MAY


Ben was sweaty. It was a hot spring day. I had all of the windows open in the apartment; the door had been open for the past few hours as we hauled things up the front stairs. There was no point in turning on the air conditioner. All the cold air would have just flown right out the front door. I threw Ben a bottle of water as he headed down the stairs for another round of boxes.

“Thanks,” he said to me as he hit the sidewalk.

“Almost done!” I said.

“Yeah, but then I have to unpack everything!”

“Well, sure, but we can do that slowly, you know? Over the course of a few days if you want.”

Ben made his way to the moving truck and started pushing boxes toward the back edge. I played with a few of them to see which one was lightest, and then I took that one. I knew that the proper way to face a challenge was head-on, and in that spirit, I should have taken the heavy ones first, but my arms had started to quiver and my legs were feeling unreliable. It had been a full day of unpacking and unloading, after a full night of packing and loading. I was starting to phone it in, and I was all right with that.

With the lightest box, a box that was still rather heavy, in my hands, I made my way up the stairs. As I got to the door, Ben called to me. “What did you do?” he asked. “Take the lightest box you could find?”

“It’s not all that light, you know! You should pack better next time!”

“I’m hoping there won’t be a next time,” he yelled up at me. I was inside, setting the lightest heavy box down on the floor. I was trying to bend from the knees or whatever, but I finally just plopped it down on top of the others using what muscles I had left in my back.

“I just mean if we move someplace together.” I was waiting at the door, holding the screen open for him. He walked up the stairs, straight past me, and put down his box. We started to walk out together. We were both out of breath, albeit me more so than him.

“This hasn’t taught you anything about the perils of moving?” he asked, as he rushed ahead.

“No, you’re right,” I said. “We should stay here forever. I don’t ever want to move another thing.”

The sun started to set as we brought in the last of it. This was the beginning of something. We could both feel it. It was us against the world.

“Do you think you’ll be able to handle my dirty dishes?” he asked with his arm around me, kissing my head.

“I think so,” I replied. “Do you think you can handle the fact that I always want it to be ninety degrees in the house?”

“No,” he said. “But I will learn.”

I kissed his neck because it was as far as I could reach. My calves didn’t have the power to get me any higher. Ben moaned. It made me feel powerful to elicit that type of reaction without even meaning to. It made me feel like one of those women that oozes sex appeal in even the simplest of tasks. I felt like the Cleopatra of my apartment.

I rubbed my nose further into his neck. “Stop it,” he said falsely, as if I was doing something tawdry. “I have to return the truck by seven.”

“I wasn’t trying anything!” I said.

“Yes, you were! I’m too tired!”

“I wasn’t trying anything, really. I’m tired too.”

“Okay! Fine!” he said, grabbing me and pulling me toward my bedroom. Our bedroom. It was now filled with his stuff on the floor and resting against the walls.

“No, really. I’m so tired.”

And just like that the tides shifted. “Fine! I’ll do all the work,” he said. He laid me on the bed and lowered himself on top of me. “I love you,” he said, kissing my cheeks and my neck. “I love you so much. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.”

“I love you too,” I said back to him, but I don’t know if he heard me. He had started to focus on other things.





Thirty minutes later, I was naked and leaning over him, resting his head on a pillow and asking if he wanted me to take him to the hospital.

“No! No,” he said. “I think I just threw out my back.”

“Isn’t that what old men do?” I teased him.

“Look at how much crap I lifted today!” He winced in pain. “Can you get me my underwear?”

I got up and gave it to him. Then I put on my own. I wrapped my bra around me and threw on a T-shirt.

“What should we do?” I asked. “Do you want medicine? Should you see a doctor?” He was still trying to get his underwear on himself. He could barely move. Not wanting to see him struggle, I grabbed the waistband of his underwear. I shimmied the back up under his butt as subtly as I could. Then I pulled the front up to his waist. I pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed and I laid it on top of him.

“Do we have any ibuprofen?” he asked me.

There it was. “We.” The best kind of “we.” Do “we” have ibuprofen?

“I don’t myself, I don’t think,” I said. “Any in the boxes?”

“Yeah, in a box marked ‘Bathroom.’ I think I saw it in the living room on the floor.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I kissed his forehead and went into the living room.