Ford
Many days over the past months, I’d been completely ashamed of myself, and today was one of those days. No one ever understands the control and power that the brain had over the body. Mentally, it would eat you alive, making you surrender all your willpower to the beast that beat you.
I had picked a fight with Elise over her trying to make me eat. She’d even made my favorite meal of chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes. I was eating a little at a time, and the medicine was making me sick every time I did. It was a revolving door, and I was fed up with it, and my wife was the same.
Elise and I had our fair share of fights. I surprisingly was usually calm, and she was quite the opposite.
I guess you could say the flame to our passion was just as strong when we disagreed.
I didn’t understand for a second why she would get so fired up and irate because I was the opposite. But finally, I got it. It was how she dealt with being treated the way she had been throughout her life, and I learned to respect it.
“Ford, baby, dinner is ready. You wanna come in here and eat?”
“No.”
“Come on, Ford. I just cooked this meal for you, hoping to get you to eat.” The disappointment in her voice was clear, and I felt bad for refusing it.
“I don’t want it.”
A few minutes later, I hear the pans clicking and clacking and grunts of frustration followed by the door slamming shut.
A couple of hours later, I awoke, realizing I had fallen asleep with my stomach turning or so I thought. After a few minutes, it came to me that it wasn’t my stomach that woke me but more the void that I was feeling and had been experiencing from the absence of my wife.
Elise
Ford treated me horribly tonight, and I’d had enough. I left after putting up the dinner I had spent over an hour cooking and went to buy a bottle of wine, followed by a visit to the park. I sat for what seemed like hours, drinking my wine and thinking about how things had slipped right out from under my fingertips.
I went over every detail; although the more I drank, the more the details became foggy. But one thing remained clear. I loved that man, for better or worse.
When the wine had taken full effect, I went back to our apartment and lay on the couch without turning the TV on. There wasn’t a damn thing I needed to see other than my husband back to himself. I had decided, though, I was in this for the long haul, so if he was hateful to me, I had resolved to take it. He was still my Ford.
I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable. I closed my eyes and tried to think of the times we had together, the times when there was no doubt of our love for each other. But I also thought of the disease that had taken over Ford’s body beyond his control and how I feared that there wasn’t a damn thing that could be done about it. With that thought, I kept my eyes closed in disappointment. I hoped and prayed I was mistaken, and this was all a bad, horrible dream.
Opening my eyes, I jump at the sight of Ford sitting in front of me on the coffee table with one hand on his knee, and his face focused on my every move.
I sat up ever so slightly to determine if it was a figment of my imagination.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said softly.
“I wasn’t sleeping. I can never sleep when we fight.”
He leaned in closer but didn’t touch me, didn’t reach for me, and didn’t say the words I needed to hear to ease my heartache.
“I am sorry for being such a prick. I know you were only trying to get me to eat.”
“It’s okay … I really don’t know what else to do.” I stated the fact that I knew. There were so many others that I didn’t.
“Elise, sweetheart, it isn’t you … and I am sorry that I took it out on you. I just can’t seem to make myself eat because I get so sick afterward.”
“But I want you to try … Your body needs it.”
“I know what my body needs. And it needs to …”
He looks down, and I am fearful of what he is going to say. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
“It needs what, Ford?”
I wait, holding my breath.
“It needs to be next to its wife. Come to bed with me please …”
He held out his hand, and I grabbed it without a second thought.
Sometimes, my Ford would come back to me, and right now, he was here. I savored those moments because I didn’t know how long they would last.