Helpmeet

by Naben Ruthnum

It wasn’t pain as he had conceived of it in his career, Edward told Louise: not pain as a warning, but pain as a lament. When he was still pretending he had a future, Edward kept notes on the sensations, detailed their occurrences, even tried to connect them to emotional states in language strictly scientific, not poetic.

and realized she should be crying, that the only reason she wasn’t was that she had removed the option from herself for this evening’s work, the way she had when she was given harder work at the hospital in the rooms of the dying.

I can unhealthily relate to Louise in her intrapersonal conflict by being a nurse and switching in and out of that role emotionally

Louise was now trembling between her hospital voice and her nursery voice, tempering the solicitous patience of the first with the lilting, soft kindness of the second.

She was able to speak with these other voices in the way she would be able to sing a song memorized in childhood, and they were different enough from her own that she could use that difference to keep from sobbing,

No WHY AM I FEELING THIS SO HARD LOL THIS IS A HORROR NOVELLA

When she assisted Dr. Bannister at Edward’s enucleation, Bannister had told her it felt as though two women were behind him: the wife surveying his work, and the nurse handing him implements and taking away swabs. He had thought his statement very wise, she could tell, and while she nodded she also wanted to disagree. But there was truth to it, that Edward’s illness had caused Louise to split.

Yeah nah I GET it!