I'm sitting in the garage. Dark, obviously. Engine's off, but the scent of gasoline and old oil is… familiar. Comforting, almost. It’s been an hour. Maybe two. Time gets a little stretchy when you're just… existing. My wife, bless her heart, she's in there. Asleep, I hope. That tremor, Parkinson's, it wears her out. And me. Goddamn, it wears me out. She had a tough day. The dyskinesia was bad. Really bad. Like her body was fighting itself. And I just… watched. Helpless. I made her dinner, mashed it all up just the way she likes. Fed it to her, spoonful by careful spoonful. She kept trying to help, hands shaking, bumping the spoon. “I’m sorry, honey,” she kept saying. “I’m just… SO clumsy.” Like it was her fault. Like any of this is *her* fault. And I just said, "It's alright, sweetheart. You're doing great." A fucking LIE. She wasn’t doing great. And I wasn’t doing great either. I remember my first wife. Elizabeth. Midlife. Forty-nine years old, a month before my fiftieth birthday. She said, “I need more.” More what, I asked? More LIFE, she said. More… *vivacity*. Like I was a fucking anchor. She wanted to sail, and I was holding her down. Friends, our mutual friends, they took sides. Mostly hers. The “free spirit.” The one brave enough to go chase her goddamn dreams. I was left with the wreckage. Fifty years old, a broken heart, and a mortgage. That was a particularly brutal lesson in object permanence. You think things are there, they’ll always be there, and then poof. Gone. Now, it’s just… this. This quiet. This darkness. I can’t go inside. I know she’ll call for me eventually. Maybe to help her get to the bathroom. Maybe just to say my name. But right now, the thought of that… that *need*… it feels like a physical weight. Like the air is too thick. I just need to breathe for a bit. Before I go back in there and put on the smile. The patient, kind, loving husband smile. It’s a good smile. Convincing, I think. But Jesus Christ, it’s exhausting to hold up. I just want to… stay here. In the gasoline smell. In the dark. Where nobody needs me. Not for a little while.