Page 68 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

Mr. Barton gave me a promotion after three months as an interpreter. Actually, my supervisor, a woman named Magdalena gave me the promotion, but it was made clear that it was at the direction of Mr. Barton. Starting training three months prior to be an interpreter for the company, conveying information that could be either banal or secretive enough to require me to sign non-disclosure forms, was something I took to like a duck to water. Helping others to communicate, no matter how boring or exciting the conversations were, was a dream.

It was also something I could do even on days when my energy was so low that I felt I could crumple at my desk. Interpreting didn’t require that I be enthusiastic and energic—I merely had to sound as though I was. I had learned to be great at pretending to be perfect.

Even on the days I woke up nauseated, or even vomiting, I could get to work and do my job. If my joints hurt and my head was throbbing, I could do my job. Exhaustion, pain, and stomach problems couldn’t keep me from being able to tell one person what another said and vice versa. Medication that technically did its job and my employment could coexist.

My day-to-day life was another story.

Regardless, the promotion came with yet another raise. Also, more responsibilities. However, my job was so easy that a few additional responsibilities still didn’t fill my work days. On most days, I struggled to look busy. Magdalena and Mr. Barton were more than pleased with my performance, though, and that was all that mattered.

Even on the days when I felt as though death was right around the corner, I was able to perform my job in such a way that seem exemplary. Because it was. I’d finally found a job that I not only could do well but set me on a course to feel more equal with Peter. The salary and eventual benefits conjured the outcome I had wanted since moving to the United States. I was not reliant on my husband for all of my needs. Independent from him, I could easily meet all of my needs.

That’s what equality meant to me.

Equality does not nurture a marriage when there is inequity, however.

Though I couldn’t prove it, I felt that our original arrangement when I had first moved to America had colored me a certain way in Peter’s eyes. I had been dependent on him for all of my needs for those first few months. Before my medication made it difficult for me, I had met all of his needs—as far as domestic duties went.

Our roles in our marriage were not equitable.

They hadn’t been since I had moved to the United States.

Our marriage had been unequitable from the first day. But it took over a year to realize it.

It’s funny how those revelations creep up on a person.

Odder still, two men who had never been married before, and are trying to figure out how to make one work that has not been equitable from the beginning, will do anything but work together to figure it out.

Because communication and forming a plan requires equity.

A Wandering Eye

“How was work?”

That’s the only thing Peter could think to ask me over dinner on a Friday evening.

“It was good,” I’d said, and though I didn’t want to, I’d returned the question. “How was your work?”

“Good.”

Even though it all had seemed like a performance for months, the two of us had done our best to have dinner with each other every night. Especially on weekends. They were often silent affairs where scrapes of forks and knives against ceramic sounded thunderous. Eating as quickly as we could to end our suffering, every dinner was a race to the finish. Then we’d wash dishes in silence, one of us washing and the other drying, and go our separate ways until bedtime.

Once in bed, we’d read our books on our separate sides, creating a chasm between us on the mattress. Eventually, with nothing to say, and not knowing how to say something if there was something to say, we’d turn out our lamps and slide under the covers. Peter would turn to his side, facing away from me, I’d mirror his position. We’d drift off to sleep, listening to each other breathe in that pregnant silence, wondering why neither of us would say the thing on both of our minds.

Our marriage was in name only.

We were failing. We had failed. Our home felt empty and cavernous, every sound each of us would make would cause the other to tense, wondering if we would be forced to interact.

Bravely, we both fought to keep our marriage going. Which only emphasized the cowardliness we both displayed in never bringing up the one question we both had on our minds.

“Did you pick up your medication today?” he asked. “I can pick it up tomorrow if not.”

“No,” I said. “I got it. I stopped on my way home.”

“Okay.”

“Dr. Rollins said to start it tomorrow,” I added.

My insurance with Source Language, Inc. was finally in full effect and the original medication—the one that didn’t make me feel like a shell of a human being—was covered for me once again. Eventually, as long as no other surprises arose, I would begin to feel like myself again. Though I had no idea who Enzo was anymore. The old Enzo was an echo in the darkness of the cavern that my soul had become.