“You can’t be serious,” I said to Bob, as he leaned over in bed to kiss me. After last month’s operation on my spine, I can hardly walk and I wear a brace that goes from above my chin to my chest. “What? You’ve got a thing for women in braces?”

“I was just kissing you good-night,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t find me attractive anymore?” He turned over. “Hey!” I said, shaking his shoulders. “I’m obviously upset!” 

He sat up. “Then let’s talk about it.”

“Now I don’t want to.” If there’s a self-pity queen, it’s me.

He rolled back over. “Fine.”

“Fine? I’m in agony and you say ‘fine’?”

“What would you like me to do?”

“You could at least kiss me good-night.”

He leaned toward me again and kissed my forehead. “Well, that’s a real turn-on,” I said.

He sighed, then kissed me on the lips. “Hey buster, you better not be thinking about what I think you’re thinking about.”

“Trust me. I’m not.”

“I can’t even walk. Why don’t you just buy one of those big rubber dolls? It would amount to the same thing.”

He got up and went to the kitchen. With my cane, I hobbled to catch up. He nuked a frozen slice of Jack’s Lounge pizza. “None for me?” I asked. “Or am I too fat for pizza?” He didn’t answer as he got a second slice. “Oh, I see. Not only do I walk like Frankenstein, I’ve got a huge scar on my neck and a gigantic brace that obviously gives you very sick urges, and now you think I’m fat. Well, I haven’t put on one pound since this whole ordeal. No thanks to you.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re making me a big fattening slice of pizza!”

“No matter what I do,” he said, “it’s wrong.”

“I know! And here I am recovering from major surgery!”

Aggravated, he put the slices back in the freezer.

I sat at the table. “I hate depending on you for everything – my laundry, my meals, the housecleaning.”

“You were like that before surgery.”

“But you liked taking care of me then.”

He sat across from me. “I love taking care of you, but you’re being, well  . . .  impossible.”

“I know.” I started to cry.

His eyes watered. “It’s been rough on me too.”

I shuffled over to him, holding myself up by the table for support, then fell into his lap. “Can you forgive me?”

“On one condition.”

“Oh no, Bob. Why don’t you just look at a dirty magazine or something?”

“The condition is that you stop being such a brat.”

I realized then that Bob could use some nurturing too. Often the caretaker deserves just as much care as the one who needs it in the first place.

In the morning, I brought him breakfast in bed, which amounted to the re-nuked slices of pizza and a quartered orange. It was the first “meal” I’d been capable of making since surgery. We ate in bed, laughing together.

I know there will be countless mornings to come when we both wake up happy, and I’m sure that before I know it, I will walk, with strong legs, into the kitchen for many more midnight pizza raids with Bob.

But stopping the brat thing? Now that’s really a long shot.