Tonic-Clonic Love
I involuntarily hissed as warm water ran over my cracked hands, slowly relaxing as the taut skin softened and the aloe in the soap soothed the pain. There were a number of perks to being a househusband, but dishpan hands were not one of them. I stared out the window as I scrubbed, watching the grey light filter through the November snow drifting softly down onto the field outside. The evergreens beyond sat motionless, cloaked in white. I turned the faucet off and dried my hands, grimacing as they left spots of red on the china-patterned towel. I clicked the slow cooker to high, then walked to the couch and slouched down, staring at the pill bottle on the mantelpiece and the clock to its left. The day had moved like molasses on a countertop. As nice as it was to sit and read undistracted while the snow came down, I missed my computers; five years as a hobbyist programmer and system administrator had ingrained habits that died hard, and even after a few years off the job I still felt myself reaching for a laptop that wasn't there; meanwhile, I had been unable to focus on either reading or writing today, and had spaced out a couple of times while preparing dinner. Even in exercising I had been lethargic, and my usual sets of push-ups, pull-ups, and squats had left me feeling more drained than usual. I flexed my biceps and squeezed each one in turn, sighing as the once-sturdy muscles had atrophied into skinny bars. Claire always said she loved me no matter what I looked like, but that reassurance had felt hollower and hollower as time went by. I had felt my mind getting foggier as of late, too; I kept losing myself in the twisting passages of German idealism that I had once strode through with the confidence of an ancient warrior, and the arguments to refute them had become weaker and more vague over time as their threads drifted away from me, disappearing into vapor as I tried to grasp them. More and more I found myself in the past, recalling life before Claire and I had taken our vows.
~
The soft chords of Misty floated through the air as Claire and I finished our dinners. I had never been in a restaurant as expensive as this before, and my borrowed suit seemed to hang in all the wrong places while the tie from Goodwill choked me to the point I could barely get another piece of steak down my throat. She, meanwhile, looked like she belonged, with an off-shoulder black dress accentuating her lithe figure as dark, wavy hair spilled down her shoulders and back. Her pale blue eyes glistened despite the low lighting, and she watched me intently, leaning forward as I declared defeat and set my fork down to sip on a glass of water, cooling meat mocking me.
"I expected a bit more from someone of your size"
I sat my glass back down and fiddled with my watch, hoping the gloom would hide the flush in my cheeks. "It's the tie. I've no idea why anyone wears them these days; it's not like we're mercenaries in the Thirty Years' War and need them to keep our collars closed"
My watch slide down my wrist, bringing my medical bracelet with it, and I frowned, but Claire seemed to take an interest, leaning in further.
"What's that?"
"My watch? An old Invicta, I got it from my grandfather"
"No, the other thing. I didn't take you as the sort of man to wear bracelets"
I groaned internally. I had hoped to avoid this conversation; it didn't seem wise to discuss permanent disabilities on a second date, but Claire was waiting eagerly, twisting a lock of hair with her fingers.
"It's a medical bracelet, for my epilepsy. If I have a seizure, it tells the paramedics that I have a history to check, and gives them an emergency number to call so my family knows"
Something flashed in her eyes, but I couldn't tell what. "Really? Who do they call?"
"My dad, right now. I'll probably switch it over when I get married…" I trailed off as Claire smirked, realizing what I was saying. "But that's not really important"
"What kind of seizures do you get? Like if someone flashes a light in your face you start twitching?"
"Yeah, it's photosensitive. I get grand mal seizures, so I'm like, writhing back and forth on the floor for a while"
"Is it painful?"
I stopped to consider. "I mean, I don't really remember any of it; I get amnesia for the five minutes before and then I'm passed out. I wake up with a raging headache and get really dizzy if I try to stand up, though"
She tilted her head.
"How long have you had it for?"
"Every since I was a kid. It took them a while to track down the cause, but eventually they put me on meds. I haven't had a seizure in years now"
Her smile went a little weird, and she leaned further forward, whispering conspiratorially. "How would you feel about having another one?"
"It'd be pretty bad, I think; the state would take my license away and I might break some bones now that I'm stronger," I said, bemused.
Her expression went back to normal and the conversation moved on, but her eyes kept flicking back to my wrist.
~
I cringed at my younger self's awkwardness. I had never been good at conversation, but it really had been a wonder that Claire had continued to go out with me after that. As our relationship deepened, she had gotten very concerned with my epilepsy, texting me every morning and evening to make sure I had taken my meds, and calling me when she saw me online late at night or heard that I was at a party, but it was when I had a breakthrough seizure after we moved in together that she had become obsessed.
~
My shoulder blades pressed into the wooden floor painfully, and a coppery taste filled my mouth while an oom-pah band bashed their instruments against the inside of my skull. My bottom lip burned. I groaned and tried to turn on my side to spit out the blood, but my strength had left me and my arms were numb. My vision was hazy and I heard machine guns from the television before everything went black.
I woke again to a figure standing over me, speaking indistinctly. Again, I tried to move, and managed to shift myself a little as patches of black filled my vision. Blood trickled from my mouth and down my cheek as someone pushed me onto my side, and the world settled into some kind of order as Claire's voice floated into my mind.
"-re you okay? Does anything hurt? Did you hit your head on anything?"
"I'm…I'm good," I managed to croak out, willing my arms into action and pushing as hard as I could against the floor. I managed to get halfway up before my triceps failed me and I crashed back down onto the floor, grunting in pain. Claire lay down next to me, one arm pillowing my head and the other falling on my stomach as she pulled herself against me. Her breath was warm on my ear as she whispered.
"Shh, shh, don't try to get up. Just lie here, darling, I've got you. You're safe, okay? Just sleep for now"
I obeyed, and drifted back into the void.
~
I was able to snag an emergency appointment with the neurologist soon after , and Claire had spent a good five minutes scolding him after he expressed confusion at the breakthrough, and I had to ease her out the door so the doctor and I could discuss what next steps I needed to take. She had fumed the entire drive home, and didn't speak to me until the next evening. I, meanwhile, had spent the day on the phone with my boss, trying to work out a way to keep my job after the FMLA time ran out as I clutched a letter from the state Department of Public Safety informing me of the ways in which I could surrender my driver's license. The bottle of my new, higher Keppra dose had sat on the table like the half-finished steak, laughing and laughing as the walls closed in around me.
By the time Claire had returned from work my phone was dead and sheets of paper were strewn across the dinner table, and a bottle of whiskey sat on the now-vandalized DPS letter, which I had covered with scrawled profanity and lamentation. I was leaning back in my chair, sipping a lukewarm Toki, when the door slammed open and Claire stalked in, kicking her heels off in the entryway and throwing her blazer on one of the chairs. She grabbed the lowball glass from my hand and threw it against the wall, shattering it and leaving the liquor to drip down to the floor, then slapped me before falling into my lap and sobbing into my shoulder, apologizing as I rubbed her back.
"It's not your fault, honey. I've known this was possible since I first went on medication; we're gonna get through it. Together."
She stood back up and sniffed, then nodded and went to grab paper towels to clean up the whiskey.
~
The sick leave had allowed me to figure out a way to get to the office without driving, and the next six months saw me spending three hours a day on the bus, but with the increased dose, a clear EEG while on medication, and the blessing of my neurologist, the state gave me my license back and my life was back to normal for a few weeks before Claire and I's wedding turned it back upside down.
~
It had been a long day dealing with password rotations and patching, and the sight of a battered grey Camry parked outside the doublewide brought a smile to my lips and lifted my weary spirits despite the pounding rain. I walked inside and that good mood vanished as I was shaking off my damp boots, when I saw Claire sitting at the dinner table with my medication bottle, a flashlight, and piece of paper before her, resting her chin on her hands with her hair covering her face.
"Claire?"
She looked up, and I saw that same weird smile she had shown on our second date. She had wiped her makeup off, and her blouse was unbuttoned.
"Darling! We need to talk"
My stomach dropped like that of any other man hearing that phrase.
"About what?"
"About…taking our vows"
I raised an eyebrow. We had planned to be married in a few months, after we had saved enough for a decent ceremony. She continued, voice oddly monotone.
"I…I can't take it anymore. You, out there, driving around and working like nothing every happened. You put your life at risk every day and don't even acknowledge it"
"Is this about my seizure? I know it must have been scary for you, but-"
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE FOR ME," she shouted, standing, and I saw tears in her eyes as she smoothed her hair back and sat back down as I walked over. "I can't take losing you, darling, I just can't, and I can't stand the thought of it any longer"
"What do you mean?"
She was silent as I sat across from her, then made her demand.
"You need to quit your job and stay home"
"Claire, you know that we need both our salaries to keep going, not to mention funding the wedding ceremony. The economics-"
"I KNOW THE ECONOMICS"
I listened silently as she continued, her voice trembling. "We can make this work, darling, with just a little sacrifice. I can work harder, make more on commission, and if you cook-"
"That won't be enough, and you know it. Besides, neither you nor I can justify my staying here while I haven't had a seizure in months; I need to work"
She shifted in her chair and, as the light caught her eyes, I finally recognized her expression.
Hunger
"Darling, do you love me?"
"Of course"
"What would you do for me? For us?"
"Anything, my love"
She twisted the top off the medication bottle and showed me its unbroken seal. "I threw out your other bottles when I was at work today. This one, darling, is your wedding ring, and that seal our vow to one another. Do you understand?"
"And what if I break the seal?"
She scowled. "I leave. Forever"
My heart raced as duelling visions of the rest of my life flashed in my head; loving poverty crashed against the independent solitude, and my fists clenched, veins on the back of my hands popping as internal strife raged. Pale blue eyes bore into my soul as arguments and counterarguments were born, fought, and died in a psychological Verdun before, finally, I came to my decision.
"For you. For us"
Claire smiled and walked to my side, turning the piece of paper around. Her left hand, previously in her lap, held a small, thin knife. "Then let us make our vows, my darling. Give me your hand"
I offered her my left hand and flinched as she pierced the tip of my ring finger, before she did the same to her own. She pressed her bleeding digit against mine and used her right hand to squeeze them together, beginning to read from what I now saw were some variation on wedding vows.
"I now take you to be my husband; for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, in bad times and good, til death do us part. Darling?"
I covered her hand with my own and repeated after her, warm blood running down my arm. After I finished, she pressed her finger to the page and I followed, our prints rendered in mixed blood.
~
I was pulled out of my reverie by the sound of an engine, and I got up from the couch to check on the pork shoulder, whose smell filled the air and made my mouth water. I had clicked off the slow cooker and was beginning to pull the tender meat apart when Claire walked through the door, kicking her shoes aside and pulling her hair from its loose bun, shaking it so it cascaded down her back. She did not speak. Neither did I. The tension was thick in the air as we ate, and Claire's fork clicked against the empty plate before I was halfway through with my meal. I stood, taking my plate to the fridge before ducking into the bedroom to change. Renewing our vows had become its own ritual over the years, once every three months, though Claire had been pushing to do it more often as of late. I heard the familiar sound of Charles Mingus' Goodbye Pork Pie Hat as I pulled on a loose pair of pajama pants and tied my hair back, and the living room lights switched off, leaving the only the fading dusk to guide me to the futon. I sat down, legs crossed, and waited, breathing deeply and evenly, listening to Claire's own preparations. She walked in a few moments later, hair down, makeup gone, clad in a short black dressing gown and holding a flashlight. She stood before me and pointed the flashlight towards me.
"Til death do us part, darling"
I looked up, at her eyes and then at the flashlight. "Til death do us part"
~
Claire clicked the back of the flashlight twice, and a fifteen Hertz strobe began flashing in her husband's face. After a moment, he stiffened and fell back onto the futon with a groan that made her quiver. She switched the strobe off and placed it in the pocket of her gown as his arms and legs began to rhythmically jerk back and forth, and she watched hungrily as the last light of day shone upon his lean muscles flexing with all their might, veins popping up under under his skin. She licked her lips and pulled her gown off, letting it drop to the floor. When her husband finished, and lay on his back, panting, she walked to the bathroom and pulled a bottle of ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet. She padded back into the bedroom and rolled her husband onto his side, placing the medicine on the floor next to him, then pillowing his head with her arm and pulling him close, just like the first time she had given him a seizure. The sweat on their skin mingled and she burrowed her face in his locks, smelling him deeply and kissing his scalp as she joined him in sleep. Soon he would wake and she would comfort him as she always did before he drifted back into unconsciousness, but for now, in the snowy darkness, they were one.