She Waits

His angry music playlist was blaring, so she knew exactly what kind of mood he was going to be in when she re-entered the room. Every song, every lyric degrading and demeaning. Her least favorite song being a spin on an old Camp Fire song, “The Cat Came Back.” But this group wasn’t singing about a cat being better when she’s down on her knees. This was a new form of waiting. She had spent years waiting for him. What strange irony life has that now she is actually truly waiting on him. She stared down at the purple latex gloves on her hands and wondered, not for the first time, how she had gotten here. She knew how, but was so angry with herself that she didn’t want to admit that reason, even to herself. She waited for her husband to be ready for the next step in bowel care and tried to not think about anything else. She simply waited.  

The very first time he ever came to her house, he was hours late. She waited. She sat on her parents sofa and waited. She didn’t leave the house for fear of missing the phone ring, because what if he called? What if he had had an accident and that was why he was late? So she waited.

It turns out that he was late every time he came to visit her. But she waited each and every time. How many hours that she could have been out with friends? She turned down the invitations from friends to go to the beach or to movies or trips to the mall. She could have been building memories instead of piling regrets. She turned down opportunities to visit her grandma. They were continuing to work on their cross stitching together; they had won a blue ribbon last year at the County Fair on their tablecloth. She could have spent so many more hours with her grandmother before she passed away at the end of that summer, but she spent those hours waiting. Her parents began to joke about adding on two hours to whatever time he said he would come to the actual time he would arrive and that might be closer to when to expect him. And still she waited.

She loved to take walks. She would invite him to walk with her. He said wait. He would go later. She would lace up her shoes, grab her sweatshirt, be ready to walk out the door with him but...later never came. 

They talked of taking hikes together. She bought him a hiking trail guidebook. He said wait until next weekend. Or the next weekend might be better. Or maybe the next weekend. She waited and that book collected dust.

He knew she loved to canoe and camp. He bought her a canoe. They bought camping gear. She thought how romantic! How sweet! This will be so much fun! And yet...it was never the right time to go. So, she waited to use them.

She would ask him to take her out on a date night. The answer was the same. Maybe later. Want to sit next to her on the couch? Maybe later. Her whole life was being spent waiting. Waiting for what? Waiting to have a future? Waiting for when? Waiting for when they retire? Waiting for the children to be grown up and move away? 

He didn’t want to do anything with her. He didn’t want anything to do with her. 

It took a long time, too long for her to come to this realization. He was probably wondering what she was waiting for and to just leave. 

So she left.

She was gone. She was happy and living somewhere else. She was safe. She was no longer waiting for the  silent treatment to end because she had said the wrong thing. She was no longer waiting for him to come home from his friend’s houses. She no longer waited to be invited to the parties he went to without her because he didn’t want to bring her. She no longer had to wait for him to come home, anxious and worried because it was hours after he said he would be home. She no longer had to wait, anxiously scanning the doors of the school waiting for him to show up for a school event when he missed yet another one of his children’s games or performances. She didn’t have to wait for him to come to the dinner table. She no longer had to wait to be listened to as he sat in his chair and stared at his computer screen for hours. She no longer had to wait in fear of falling asleep that he would come upstairs with his beer breath to demand sex. She no longer waited until he wasn’t home to call her parents for fear of being criticized for the words she said. She didn’t wait and hide the historical fiction books she preferred and would only read when he wasn’t around. She could start to build a future for herself.

She was gone.  

And now she was back. 

His fall was sudden and paralyzing. No one could have seen it coming. When it was time to leave the hospital, everyone assumed he would go home. He assumed he would go home. His parents assumed he would go home. The doctors and nurses assumed he would go home. It seemed everyone expected  that she would take on this responsibility. Everyone assumed she would be okay with this. Everyone except her.

She did not expect to become the full time caregiver. She did not expect to take on the role that whole teams of people had been playing out for her husband’s care - from doctor to dietitian to laundry maid to nurse to physical therapist. His life would literally be in her hands. She would become the full time caregiver. He knew she would wait on him. She had always waited on him. And so, she waited on him. 

When the cracks started, he said he would hire an aide or two to help. To give her a break. By this point, the anger and frustration had already destroyed her. He continued to let her know her failings. She is not good enough. He tells her the aides have done more for him than she has ever done for him. She doesn’t prepare the proper meals. She doesn’t help him brush his teeth properly. She doesn’t talk, but then she talks too much or not about the right things. She makes him nauseous and causes his blood pressure to spike. She has to make him laugh. She needs to entertain, not really talk. He complains. She doesn’t take him outside often enough. She doesn’t offer to take him with her when she goes to the store. She doesn’t ask him to dinner. She does ask, but the answer is still the same: maybe later. She asks him if he would like to watch a movie with her, and his answer is the same: maybe later.

She asks him if he is ready for her to come back in, her purple gloves stretched tight on her hands, and he calls out, not yet.  So she picks up her headphones and starts to hum along. She is over the waiting. She was gone, she thinks. 

She is still gone.