Since my surgery, I haven’t felt much like  . . .  well, you know. Not that I’ve always been uptight about you-know-what. I mean I can say the word. I’m an adult. I can talk about IT.

So recently Bob got tendonitis of the knee and went to physical therapy. When he came home, naturally my main concern was his health, so my first question was, “Is she pretty?”

“Who?”

“That vixen who’s working on your KNEE, so to speak.”

“Don’t you even care how I’m doing?”

“Of course. What was she wearing?”

He ignored me and limped into the kitchen. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just feeling insecure lately.” I massaged his shoulders while he chopped celery. He winced.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“My shoulders hurt.”

I backed up. “From what? I thought the problem was your knee. What else did she work on, so to speak?”

He stopped chopping. “If you say ‘so to speak’ one more time, I’ll stop doing all the housework and laundry.”

“Yeah, right. Like you won’t need clean underwear for your next ‘appointment’.”

“Do you hear how sick you sound?”

“You mean how sick I look, don’t you? Because I’m wearing junky clothes and SHE probably just wears a thong. I bet she has a belly button ring.”

“No she doesn’t.”

“Ah hah! And how,” I had my hands on my hips, “did you come upon that information, Mister I’m-here-for-my-knee, SO TO SPEAK?”

“Come with me next time and watch.”

“WATCH? And I’m the sickie!”

When he came home from his next visit, I had decided to work harder on my you-know-what drive. I put on soft music. “Do you want to  . . .  um  . . .  ?”

“To what?” He teased, as we slow danced to Sinatra.

“You know - what we saw those squirrels doing this morning.”

He laughed. “You’ve always had a hang-up talking about sex.”

I covered my ears and shrieked, “STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT!”

He took my hands but my mood had suddenly changed. I shooed him away and sat on the couch. “Things are so different now. I’m no fun anymore. I keep to myself. I’m distant from you. And because of my stupid spinal cord damage, I’ll never ride a bike again. I can’t even climb one stupid step and I’ll never be able to walk around Eagle Pond with you and our dog.” I tried not to cry. This self-pitying business is not my game, but it does linger on the sidelines. “I’ll never see Gracie chase her ball-y in her favorite swimming hole because it’s a stupid half-mile walk to the pond. I’ll never again see her try to bite the autumn leaves as they float away.”

He tenderly took my hands once more. “I know it’s awful but those things don’t matter.”

“Yes they do.”

“Not how you think they do. I love you  . . .  in sickness and in health. You know what I miss more than sex or any of those things we can’t do together anymore?”

“What?”

“You.”

We sat together quietly holding hands. “This closeness is what I miss,” he said. And slowly, the self-absorbed distance I’d been keeping between us began to vanish. I got up and put the Sinatra CD back on.

And then we imitated the squirrels.