My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward by Mark Lukach

Author:Mark Lukach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

seven

September 2011

We pushed our overloaded grocery cart out of Trader Joe’s in the foggy September afternoon. “I’m really excited with the location I’ve picked for the new campaign photo shoot,” Giulia said as we loaded up our groceries. “Getting the permits was a pain, but we’re going to be shooting at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater.”

“Where’s that again?” I asked.

“You know, that cool park in the Marina that has the archways and columns and looks like it’s from a European city.” This was Giulia’s second photo shoot at her new company at the job she’d found a few months after we returned home from Ireland. Although she hadn’t worked in more than a year and a half, she fell back into her work routine as though she hadn’t missed a day.

“The model is going to fly in from L.A. and I’ll spend the day with her at the shoot, but I might need to ask you to take her back to the airport if that’s okay?”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” I responded, enchanted by how firmly our lives felt back on track.

Giulia was positively buzzing about her new role, and now that she was back at work, I was sincerely trying my hand at a career in writing, working from the house on freelance projects, to mixed success. Some days were packed, others were completely empty. Not yet ready to return to a full-time teaching load and all the demands that meant on my schedule, I pieced together work in whatever way I could.

On the weekends we ran errands together, as we had done for three years before she had gone psychotic. Our lives felt like they were back in our control.

So much in our control that we were trying to get pregnant.

As we loaded the last bag of groceries, Giulia abruptly changed topics. “Let’s get a pregnancy test,” she said, an eager smile on her face.

“No, no, no.” I shook my head. “We just started trying, it’s barely even been a month. Let’s not get too excited. There’s no pressure yet. Let’s be patient.”

But Giulia wasn’t listening. She grabbed my hand and pulled me along to the CVS next door to the Trader Joe’s. I dragged my feet, but I was grumbling mostly for show. I had been looking forward to this for longer than I could remember. I envisioned fatherhood as my life’s ultimate goal, something I learned from my mom, who always said that her true calling was to be a mother. Even when we were eighteen and newly in love, I talked to Giulia about wanting to have children together. Nine years and a psychotic episode later, Giulia’s work felt good enough, our relationship felt good enough, her sleep felt good enough, and we both thought it was finally time. Her psychotic break had delayed this, and even threatened to take it away from us, but now we were finally here, “trying,” an amazing euphemism for having lots of excited, joyful sex.

But I played it cool. I had to.

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