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Too Sweet

My husband cooks for me, but I taste everything. Tonight he stirs wild mushroom and coriander soup with the same wooden spoon he used this afternoon in a pitcher of lemonade; I taste honey even as celery tops, bits of shitake and chopped onions slide across my tongue. The pins in my jaw ache. Seven weeks after the crash, to swallow anything he spoons into my mouth still fills like chips of glass in my throat.

"Mmm," he says and licks his teeth. "Good, no?"

I grope among the blanket folds for my pen, my notepad, and scribble, "TOO SWEET."

His lips curl into a smile. He thinks it's a compliment. He drinks his soup as if his bowl were a mug, then spoons another bittersweet sip into my mouth.

Past the curtain, huge flakes of snow fall through the aureolae of the street lamps.

It's not even seven o'clock when he lets the girls bring me rice pudding. Sarah crawls into bed and brushes my hair for the thirteenth time since breakfast (lukewarm oatmeal that tasted faintly of garlic).

I write, "ITCH, LEFT KNEE" and hand the note to Allison. She sounds out the words, looks at the cast that covers my leg from toe to thigh, and shouts, "Daddy, Mommy needs you!"

He comes into the room. Ally hands him the note. His eyes reflect the candlelight.

"Girls," he says, "Mommy finally has an itch on her leg!"

Sarah asks, "Should we scratch it?"

"No," he says. "We can't reach it. It's too far down inside her cast."

Ally's eyebrows rise. "Then why are you smiling?" she asks.

He lifts a few stray hairs from my forehead and tucks them behind my ear. "It's a good sign," he says.

Ally drops the brush on the blankets and asks, "What's so good about an itch?"

He kisses her forehead. "It means Mommy can feel her leg again. Maybe she won't stay paralyzed."

That word makes me cough: paralyzed. Disabled. Inert. Still. Mommy's nothing but a mass of hypersensitive taste buds and scribbled notes. Mommy tastes everything. The after shave. The sweat. Even the traces of gloom in Daddy's kisses.

He coaxes the girls to bed, walks the dogs, and puts on his pajamas. he sits awhile with me, then clicks off the TV.

"Laura," he says, staring at my breasts, "I wonder if -- I mean, do you ever -- still -- have any -- sexual --"

I reach for my notepad. He puts his hand on mine. With his other hand he touches my cheek. "Before you answer," he says, "what I really mean is, would you feel comfortable -- if you wouldn't, just tell me -- would you mind too much if I kissed your breasts?"

Flakes of snow tap the window. It can't be very cold, though, because they melt, drip, and leave a sheen that makes everything glisten: the street lamps, passing headlights, the neighbors' multicolored Christmas bulbs.

"It's been so long," he says.

He kisses my lips and I taste his worry. It's acrid, like too much black pepper. And there's a hint of vanilla ice cream. He sneaked dessert before coming to bed, and the flavor taints his lips. Sweet, soft, delicious -- I focus on the vanilla and grope for the hem of my gown.

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