The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2020

the top of his left eyelid. “My father took me to New Mexico for my 16th birthday and I fell in love with everything about it.” He looks down at his thumb, and then he looks up at her. “Have you been to New Mexico?” She does not seem to realize how far she has leaned over her big oak desk, or that her right hand has slid next to her left. “I haven’t been to New Mexico in a long time,” she says. “But I have been wanting to make another trip out there.” He doesn’t say anything. “So,” she says. “What does New Mexico have?” He swallows, and now stops massaging his upper lip. He looks at his two fingers falling into his lap. “It’s a place where if I can’t go out to dinner, or take the trash out into the cold wind, because the pain is too severe, my wife will not scream at me, ‘I swear to fucking God, you’re pathetic.’ It’s a place where, if I can’t have the living room light on, because the light hurts my eyes, my wife will not say, ‘It’s the dullest light in the world. What’s your problem?’” The sharp jolts of electrical pain that were buzzing his upper lip and left eyelid are shorter in length. There are also longer distances between each spasm. “It’s a place,” he says, calmer than he believes he has ever been, “where there is no such thing as being a burden.” She has never thought of her fiancé at work, but for some reason she is reminded of him now. She is reminded of how he calls her “stupid for thinking pepper will add flavor” to the chicken parmesan she makes. She is reminded of how she “again and again has to do her ridiculous yoga” in the living room when he is trying to watch the Tigers’ game. “Why can’t you ever give me some peace?” he says. “I’m the one with the real job.” Her patient is looking at her with more investment than her fiancé has ever given her. He says, “It’s a place maybe where someone says to the other person, ‘I’ll take the trash out right now since you’re not feeling well.’ It’s a place maybe where 42 The Meadow