I understand now that this was not forgetfulness. A wife without insurance is a wife without medical records, without a documented paper trail of her own deterioration.
My legs buckled in the shower with no warning. I went sideways into the tile and caught myself on the grab bar. Leo said I probably slipped on conditioner. I started keeping a flashlight by the bed in case my legs gave out at night, which sounds paranoid until it is the thing that keeps you from splitting your head open on the nightstand at two in the morning.
The numbness spread up past my ankles. My feet felt like they belonged to someone else. I finally stopped waiting for Leo to fix the insurance situation and made my own appointment, paid two hundred and eighty-five dollars out of pocket from a small emergency account I keep at a separate credit union, two thousand one hundred dollars that nobody knew about. My grandmother had told me when I was nineteen that every woman should have money that belongs to her alone in a place nobody else can touch. I had never understood that advice as viscerally as the day I handed that cash to the receptionist.
