My Husband Quit His Heart Pills for Her

My husband, Roman, has a bad heart. Five years ago they cut his chest open, and after that I quit my job and stayed home to keep him alive.

That day I got to his office ten minutes early with his lunch.

Through the glass door I watched Brielle Nash, his assistant, pick up his pill box. Twenty-eight compartments. I fill it every Sunday night.

She flipped open Wednesday evening, tipped the pills into her palm, and dropped them in the trash.

"That's the one that makes you feel eighty."

Roman laughed. He didn't stop her.

Then she handed him the can she'd been drinking from, and he took a sip out of her hand.

"That's living," she said. "Don't tell the boss lady, though. She'd have me fired."

He reached over and ruffled her hair. "I'll lock it in my drawer."

My lunchbox was sitting by his elbow. He hadn't opened it.

Later I found the flask in that drawer. Supplement bottles. A keycard for a boxing gym.

And a key I hadn't seen in five years.

I didn't do anything.

I went home and opened the safe and went through fifteen years of marriage one thing at a time.

Then I started working out what would be mine when he died.

Every Sunday night I sit at the kitchen table and fill his pill box.

Twenty-eight compartments, four a day. Roman sits next to me the whole time on his phone, and when I'm done he reaches over and snaps the last lid shut. He's done it for five years. Neither of us has ever said anything about it.

That Tuesday I left the house ten minutes early.

Through the glass I saw Bri sitting on the edge of his desk with the pill box open in her hand.

"Do you actually know what these do to a man?" She asked it the way she'd ask about the weather. "Nobody ever tells you that part."

Roman didn't look up from the contract. "They keep me alive."

"Sure." She tipped Wednesday into her palm. "Being alive and having a life aren't the same thing."

She dropped them in the trash.

"That's the one that makes you feel eighty."

He laughed then. He didn't stop her.

"Does she really write your blood pressure down in a notebook?"

"Every morning."

"God." Bri held out her can. "You know the heart's an emotional organ, right? The more someone controls you, the worse it gets. That's not me talking, that's science."

He took it out of her hand and drank. "Not bad."

"That's living." She smiled at him. "Don't tell the boss lady, though. She'd have me fired."

He reached over and ruffled her hair. "I'll lock it in my drawer."

She made a face. "Grown man, still doing what he's told."

His smile flattened out. "I don't want the fight. You have no idea what a woman that age is like once she gets going. It's frightening."

"That bad?"

"You'd be surprised."

"Then what happens when she comes after me?" Bri leaned down toward him. "I'm on your side here."

Roman stopped.

I knew that pause. He had that exact look on his face the night he asked me to marry him.

"Don't worry," he said. "I won't let her touch you."

She gave him a sloppy little salute. He gave her one back.

I had my hand on the door and I couldn't push it.

I kept thinking, and then what. I walk in, and then what.

Five years ago he went down on the kitchen floor between the island and the refrigerator. I knelt on the tile and did compressions until the ambulance came. Eleven minutes. At the hospital they told me I'd broken two of his ribs.

The doctor said that was normal. He said if nothing broke, you probably weren't pressing hard enough.

I looked down at my hands.

I brought him back with these hands.

There's a sticker on the lid of his lunchbox where I write the sodium, every day, so he can see the number himself. Six hundred and ten milligrams. I'd written it that morning at seven.

I peeled it off and closed my hand around it.

Then I knocked.