This morning, implementing a diabolical plot, I poisoned Kathleen, subjecting her to a life of torment.

I confess!

The plot was diabolical because it was impatient. Kathleen’s tummy bug has been with us for several weeks now, and it has not responded to my stream of eviction notices. This morning, I persuaded Kathleen that she had recovered enough to have an almost-normal weekend breakfast. But the croissant and the scrambled eggs, while perhaps not deadly on their own, were catalyzed by coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice into a toxic fireball that kept Kathleen in bed all day — because the bed is to stay close to the bathrrom.

The glorious weather outside was simply an insult.

Kathleen sweetly begged me not to feel bad, but it was impossible. If I had deliberately slipped her a poison pill, my remorse could not have been greater. What ought to have been a pleasant day on the balcony, knitting and checking out eBay was instead a tableau vivant from the last days of a beloved cholera victim. It was some comfort that Kathleen didn’t run a fever at all; it seemed simply to be a matter of her body saying NO! A THOUSOUND TIMES, NO! to fresh-squeezed orange juice. And not kidding about the thousand times, either.

At five o’clock on Sundays, Kathleen calls her parents. I offered to call on her behalf, and the offer was accepted. I told Kathleen’s father what I’d done. He laughed. I resolved not to mention this unbelievable callousness to Kathleen, but when I recounted the verbal portion of our conversation, she smiled (wanly!) and said, “Daddy probably laughed.” The joke was that I’m as impatient as my father-in-law for rude good health to grace his partner. And indeed I am, only I haven’t his excuse. For in truth I’m the sick person in this household. The one who, before Remicade, used to spend days and weeks as Kathleen spent this afternoon.

In all seriousness, I was very angry with myself. Kathleen kept saying, “But I decided that I could handle the orange juice. You didn’t force-feed me!” Sweetest Kathleen! What Kathleen actually decided, though, was that it was easier to drink the orange juice than to bear the atmospheric pressure of my pouts and whistles.

They talk about people who are “bad patients,” who can’t let others nurse them through, say, a tummy bug. But I am a “bad nurse.” Get well soon, or it’s “bring out your dead.”

Or, from Kathleen’s viewpoint, it’s as Winston Churchill immortally put it: “If I were your husband, madam, I would drink that orange juice!”  

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Gotham Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.