Eight Minutes Read Online Free PDF Page A

drilling down to the magma with each other. Establishing the core. The crust could crack, and we’d still have the core.
    Or so we thought until the accident.
    Eric was in the rehab facility for almost two months after I brought Toby home. I barely knew Lakshmi then. When we brought Eric home, he was in a lot of pain and sedated most of the time. Entire days passed when I’m not sure he knew Toby and I were in the same house.
    He qualified for home health care, which sounded like a good idea at first. I didn’t realize that I would end up barely lifting a finger to help Eric’s recovery. I’d see him wince with pain, and I’d feel guilty that I wasn’t the one making it better for him. I also didn’t anticipate how much it would bother me that someone else was in our house all day. I found fault with every aide they sent us and complained more than I should’ve. I knew he was getting frustrated with me, but when I fired the third one, Eric’s response made me realize how much our marriage had changed.
    He defended the home health aide and did not even flinch as he suggested that I go back to work. Right away. Put Toby in day care and get out of the house. Like it was that easy. Like the accident had erased his memory of what we’d decided together while I was pregnant. Like it had slipped his mind that the only reason we’d waited to have a baby was to make sure we could make it on one income. His. Like it didn’t matter that I knew exactly what I wanted to teach Toby at every developmental milestone that first year. He didn’t even acknowledge that we’d ever had a Plan A—much less that this was about Plan Z for me.
    It was as if he had spouse-specific amnesia. He knew who I was, but it was as if he’d forgotten . . . well, who I was. I’m not proud of this, but I think I even said “Plan Z” to him.
    He shot back, “You think this is my Plan A?”
    The old Eric would’ve said “Shel,” in that softer voice, and then I would’ve hugged him and then he would’ve said something like, “We’re in Plan Z. But we’re in it together.”
    Something like that.
    That’s not how it went. And as much as I hated it, he was right. Pragmatic and right. One of us had to work and it couldn’t be him, and it wouldn’t do any good to sit around and pout about it. I couldn’t undo this any more than I could bring my mom back to help me.
    While I accepted the reality, from that point on, I felt we were out of sync. I kept wanting a do-over, but Eric never looked back. With some money coming in, he would worry less, he said. Having the house to himself during the day would free him up to do what he had to do: focus on making progress he could measure.
    After that, I couldn’t help focusing on what I couldn’t measure: the effect of those eight minutes. Memory loss. Personality shifts. Like he was tone-deaf emotionally. Out of nowhere, he developed an obsession with getting a dog—and a Dalmatian, to boot! I’d figured we’d have a family dog at some point, but why now? He was convinced it would speed his recovery. But a Dalmatian? They seemed too boisterous. Maybe a lap dog? Please. He wouldn’t even discuss it. Only a Dalmatian would do.
    It made no sense to me. It worried me, in fact. I tried to talk to him, but he didn’t want to hear it. I started a mental tally of any previously unnoticed idiosyncrasies, which I reported on the sly to Eric’s doctor.
    We got the dog. Eric named him Thud because the darn thing had no idea how big he was and kept thudding his head into the sofa, trying to retrieve a ball that had rolled underneath.
    I smile, remembering how goofy and cute he was as a puppy. Looking up from my work in the dirt, it takes a minute before I find Thud’s latest hiding place, under the feather grasses near the fence line. He’s chewing the cover off a tennis ball with characteristic determination. I guess it runs in the family.
    I took a freelance assignment and cried every day when I