Page 82 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

He and I spent hours picking out pieces for each room. Deciding on fabrics and color choices for the new pieces. My husband loved my color choices. I used yellows and sagey greens. Pastel robin’s egg blue, and yes, pastel lavender and pink in places. I even used black and a color Olivia called “mushroom” to anchor each space.

I’d never dropped that amount of cash at one time in my life before. Not ever. We spent more than twice my yearly salary with the Social Security Administration in one day. My stomach pitched. But why? I had plans for my money, plans that involved helping a lot of people. So then didn’t I deserve to do something nice for myself, too?

I was a work in progress. We locked down a delivery day for each of the pieces of furniture and Blake followed me home.

He stood in the living room, loosening his tie while taking in the space.

“How did you get to the store so fast? We’d only just texted.”

“As I sat through my fourth straight meeting, I thought, why in the hell am I here instead of picking out sofas with you?”

“You blew off your meetings for furniture shopping?”

“Withyou.” His eyes dared me to counter that claim. I couldn’t. He made his decision without any prompting from me. And he saw the moment I gave in, nodding at me once, then letting his gaze travel around the room said, “We need to hire painters.”

“We should donate the furniture we’re getting rid of to the Habitat store.”

“Habitat store?” he asked and I couldn’t help it. I laughed. My husband never heard of a Habitat store?

“Habitat for Humanity.”

He wrinkled his brows. “I’ve heard of them… Jimmy Carter, right?” He was referring to the former President of the United States who’d spent his years post-presidency building Habitat houses. “But don’t they build houses?”

“They do. But they also remodel homes and people donate their newish to slightly used furniture and appliances to the store when they redecorate. They’re sold at very discounted prices. It’s a nice organization.”

“We’ll donate to wherever you want this stuff to go. I have to follow your lead on this one.” He looked a bit shame-faced, blushing and everything.

“No need,” I offered, smiling as I took his hand to walk with him into the kitchen to eat whatever wonderful things Dee had waiting for us. “Keep holding my hand. We’ll lead together.”

We might have called the painters, but I refused the designer Blake suggested. Come hell or high water, Blake and I would do this together… or die trying.

For the next three days, we tested the bonds of our marriage. How, you might ask? Two words: Moving. Furniture. Blake could’ve hired a moving company to haul the furniture away for us. But I was Gloria Kowalski at heart, even if Gloria Parker by name. I didn’t hire someone every time I needed something done. Plus, I thought giving him a dose of the reality most people lived was good for him. It helped build empathy.

“Use your knees, not your back,” I directed Blake for the umpteenth time today as we hefted the sofa in our master bedroom. Right about now I rethought my decision to use this home redo as a bonding moment. I had no clue. Well, I had some clue…

As we maneuvered it through the doorway, his old band T-shirt that he’d gotten during college caught on the corner of the metal strike—the part that the lock slid into, secured to the jamb—tearing.

“Dammit.” He moved his whole body rather than lose his grip. “Glory, you’ve got to pull your weight here,” he snapped. A long strand of hair fell from the scarf I wore tied around my head like a modern-day Rosie the Riveter. I tried blowing it out of my face to no avail. “Glory… sweetheart… we have to move this?—”

Okay, so I might have dropped my side of the sofa but that hair was driving me crazy. But his returning reaction was a little over the top. I’d never seen him this annoyed with me before.

I gritted through my teeth as I hefted the sofa again. “What… is… wrong… with you? It’s… just… a… T-shirt.”

“Let’s just… get this done,” he replied, far less winded than me.

What was happening here?

I didn’t ask again. Instead, I started walking backward until he startled into action, stumbling to keep up with me. It took me a bit longer to get down the stairs. Up till this point, Blake had been the backward driver.

My fingers started slipping, straining under the massive weight. If I ever got a stupid wild hair to pluck again, thinking that it’d be fun to work alongside my husband to accomplish a mammoth task like this—somebody better shoot me. Right between the eyes. I tried to use my knee to prop the bottom of the sofa up to get a better grip, and I lost my footing.

“Glory!” he shouted right before I spilled backward down the remaining steps. I only had time to look up and see my impending doom in the form of the sofa gliding toward me at, toward my destruction at literalbreakneckspeed. My whole body clenched as I braced for impact.

“Oh,shi—” That was as much as I got out before the sofa rocketed into, then over me, crashing to the floor and tumbling up and over like a world-class gymnastic routine. I wanted to enjoy the show, but my head felt foggy and… damp.

“Sweetheart,” Blake shouted as I watched him rush down the steps at me, but he stopped abruptly, touching me gently, moving loose strands of sticky hair from my forehead. “Glory, sweetheart… Shit, you’re bleeding. We need to get you to the ER. You have to get checked out.”

“I’m fine,” I argued, but I winced at the same time. Pain filled my head. It radiated up my arm into my shoulder. My tailbone smarted something fierce and I thought I might’ve twisted myankle. He raised his stupid, sexy eyebrow at me. “Okay,” I admitted. “I might not be fine.

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