A love story

5

Few days ago, I was scrubbing the rim of the upstairs toilet because it smelled like a city alley in August. My phone dinged. I'd received an e-mail. I pulled off my latex gloves to read the message. Who am I kidding? I wasn't wearing gloves. Real honesty. I was scrubbing the toilet with bare hands. I was probably even using the same sponge I use on the sink, that area right near the toothbrushes. The e-mail was from my husband. "Thought you might like this," he said. It was a link to a list of life hacks, simple tricks designed to make one's life easier: use duct tape to open stuck lids, keep floppy boots upright with pool noodles, paper-clip the end of a tape roll so you can find it easily.

I wrote him back. "Or you could marry a woman and make her your slave."

He never did respond.

•

I'm not saying that men have it better or women have it better. I don't ever want to be a man. I'm just saying there's a big difference between the two.

•

When I swim at the public pool, I wear sunglasses so I can admire the hairless chest of the nineteen-year-old lifeguard. I love it that he, a child, really, is guarding me, fiercest of warriors, a mother, strong as stinky cheese, with a ripe, moldy, melted rotten center of such intense complexity and flavor it would kill a boy of his tender age.

•

Once, I woke Sam in the night. That's my husband's name, Sam. "Honey," I said. "Honey, are you awake?"

"Uhh?"

"I think I'm dying."

"Yeah," he said. "Uh-huh." And then he went back to sleep.

Presumably my husband likes stinky cheese and the challenge of living near my hormones. Presumably that's what love is.

Another night, also in bed, I woke Sam. I do that a lot. "I want you to agree that there is more than one reality."

"Huh?"

"I want you to agree that if I feel it, if I think it, it is real."

"But what if you think I'm an asshole?" he asked.

"Well. Then that's real."

"Really?"

"What does that word even mean, 'really'?" I started to scream a little.

"What?"

"The word 'really' suggests that we all see things the same way. It suggests one reality. Right?"

"Sure. Right. Really," he said. Really.