She'll Meet me at the Car

She’ll meet me at the car.
“I have a present for you.”
Like I need anything.
The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.

But she wants to give me something, I guess.
Some candy or some trinket purchased at a thrift store.
I say “thank you.”
It is important to her that she gives me things.
It is important that I like them.
So I try to.

I want, more than anything else, to make her happy.
But life hasn’t gone as we planned.

She’s working at minimum wage.

My better job can’t pay both student loans, but neither can my job plus hers.

We have no kids.

We thought we’d have kids by now.

Even the foster care agency rejected us as parents.

Bastards.

The car that just needed to get us through until we could afford something better has leaked gasoline for almost two years.

Now it’s leaking steering fluid.

The mechanic says it’s not worth fixing.

I wonder if anything is worth fixing.

But what choice do we have?

We’re going to drive this bitch into the ground.

And so I need to do things for her: make a decent dinner, mold clay bear figurines, mop the floors, clean the toilets.

And so she needs to give me things. This time it’s a cupcake she that was leftover because it was someone’s birthday at work.

And I say thank you.  And I love her. And I just can’t stop crying inside.