I’m sitting here at two in the morning listening to the oxygen concentrator hum in the corner and I want to scream. My husband is asleep—finally—after three hours of me changing bandages and listening to him moan about the soup being too thin or the room being too cold. I’ve spent the last ten years being the saint. The rock. The one who carries the bedpan and the insurance paperwork and the emotional weight of a marriage that’s taking its sweet time actually ending. I am seventy-two years old and my hands are cracked from soap and my back hurts every time I stand up, but that’s not what’s keeping me awake. It’s the heat. Not a fever, god I wish it were just a fever. It’s this fucking itch under my skin that shouldn't be there anymore. I look at myself in the mirror and I see a grandmother, a "sweet lady," a primary caregiver who smells like lavender and antiseptic. But inside? Inside I’m a goddamn furnace. It’s embarrassing. It’s worse than embarrassing, it’s revolting. I’m supposed to be done with this. My body is falling apart, my knees click like castanets, but I’m sitting here thinking about things that would make my daughter’s hair turn white. I want to be touched. I want to be handled. And then I look at him, snoring and frail, and I feel like the filthiest person on the planet. Who the hell decided that once you hit a certain age you just stop being a person with blood in your veins? Everyone looks at me and sees a utility. I’m a childcare provider for the grandkids on the weekends. I’m a nurse for Arthur every minute in between. I’m a polite neighbor who brings over the mail. Nobody sees a woman who hasn't had a real, bone-shaking moment of pleasure since the Clinton administration. I’m supposed to be content with a nice cup of chamomile and a crossword puzzle. BULLSHIT. I’m starving. I’m absolutely starving for something that isn't a "gentle hug" or a pat on the hand from a doctor. Yesterday I was at the grocery store and some guy—maybe late fifties, nice shoulders, probably a total prick—brushed past me in the produce aisle. Just a second of contact. He said "Excuse me, ma'am," and I almost lost my mind right there by the tomatoes. I had to grip the handle of my cart so hard my knuckles went white just so I wouldn't reach out and grab his arm. MA'AM. Like I’m a piece of antique furniture he’s afraid of bumping into. I went home and cried while I was pureeing carrots for Arthur’s lunch. Not because I’m sad, but because I’m so fucking ANGRY that I still want this. It’s humiliating to be this age and feel like a teenager in heat. It feels wrong. It feels like a joke nature is playing on me while I’m waiting for the end. So here I am. Wide awake, staring at the ceiling, feeling like a predator in a floral nightgown. I’ve done everything right. I played the part. I stayed. I cared. I sacrificed every single bit of my own identity to make sure everyone else was comfortable and fed and clean. And my reward is this? To be seventy-two and vibrating with a need that I can’t even admit to my own sisters without sounding like a pervert? Yeah, it’s disgusting. I know it is. I feel it in my marrow.