The Push

by Ashley Audrain

The comfort I found in you was consuming—I had nothing when I met you, and so you effortlessly became my everything.

“Listen for each other’s heartbeat in the current. You’ll always find each other. And then you’ll always find the shore.”

I no longer felt like my mother’s daughter. I felt like your wife.

There was space where there hadn’t been before, and in that space was resentment.

You used to care about me as a person—my happiness, the things that made me thrive. Now I was a service provider. You didn’t see me as a woman. I was just the mother of your child.

“We’ll be happy here,” I whispered and rubbed my socked feet over yours. “I thought we always were.”

I remember one day realizing how important my body was to our family. Not my intellect, not my ambitions of a writing career. Not the person shaped by thirty-five years. Just my body.

I am not a monster, and neither is she.

“And you deserved more from me.”