Over the next few weeks, Ashton kept going to his appointments with Rebecca every Thursday.
I kept going to my appointments with Dr. Morgan. Every two weeks, then. More tests. More drops that stung. More charts. Every visit, I could read a line or two further down than the time before.
And we started marriage counseling together. Rebecca referred us to a colleague of hers, a woman named Dr. Patrice Odum, who had an office above a bakery on Southeast Division. Every session smelled like cinnamon rolls.
The first session was awful. I cried. He cried. We said things we’d been swallowing for two years.
“I felt like I was your patient,” I told him in that little room. “Not your wife.”
“I felt like if I put down any part of it for one second,” he said, “the whole thing would fall apart and it would be my fault.”
Dr. Odum just nodded and handed out tissues.
But the sessions got easier. Slowly. Our house slowly turned into a place where we could actually talk about what was frustrating us before it piled up into something bigger.
Ashton stopped doing things for me automatically. Things I could already do myself. He stopped grabbing the grocery bags out of my hands. He stopped cutting my food. He stopped reaching for the remote before I could.
Instead, he started asking a question.
“Would you like help with that?”
Sometimes I said yes.
Sometimes I said no.
And he learned to respect both answers.
That sounds like such a small thing. It isn’t. It might be the most important thing anybody’s ever said to me. Would you like help with that? Because it means you still get to decide. It means you’re still a whole person.
I started looking for work again, too. A friend of mine from the dental office connected me with a medical billing company that hires remote claims specialists. I applied. With my phone’s magnifier and a big monitor Ashton set up on the desk in the spare room, I could do it.
I start next month.
Lila Hart is a dedicated Digital Archivist and Research Specialist with a keen eye for preserving and curating meaningful content. At TheArchivists, she specializes in organizing and managing digital archives, ensuring that valuable stories and historical moments are accessible for generations to come.
Lila earned her degree in History and Archival Studies from the University of Edinburgh, where she cultivated her passion for documenting the past and preserving cultural heritage. Her expertise lies in combining traditional archival techniques with modern digital tools, allowing her to create comprehensive and engaging collections that resonate with audiences worldwide.
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