He Never Cared for My Tenderness,Goodbye to the Husband Who Forgot Me

After my daughter got sick, my mom sent over a whole bag of wild ginseng.

She'd dug it out of the mountains herself, and nearly broke her leg doing it.

I felt awful about it, so I told Abraham Simmons again and again not to touch it.

But when I got home from work, I found out he'd given the ginseng away to a junior secretary at one of his client companies.

When I confronted him, Abraham didn't even look up.

His tone was dismissive. "Oh, that red bag?"

"Charlotte liked it, so I let her take it."

"I'm swamped at work. You really expect me to remember every little thing you say?"

"It's not like it was worth anything anyway."

"If you want some that badly, I'll just buy you another bag."

He was always like this. My words never registered with him at all.

Before, I might have talked myself down.

He worked hard, and it was all for this family.

After so many years together, we ought to cut each other some slack.

But today, something was different.

Staring at the empty cabinet, I suddenly felt it.

My heart seemed to hollow out right along with it.

——

That bag of wild ginseng was from my mom. It meant something.

Refusing to give up, I rummaged through the cabinet a few more times.

A pink notebook slipped out by accident.

Abraham, busy with his video game, didn't hear it.

He had his headphones on, completely absorbed.

And he muttered, carelessly brushing me off.

"It's just a few crummy ginseng roots. What's the big deal?"

"Poverty really does make people petty. Never seen anything of the world."

It wasn't just ginseng. It was wild ginseng.

Wild ginseng my mom had spent more than half a year digging up for me.

I was about to fire back when May Simmons came out of her room, her forehead beaded with sweat.

"Mom, my tummy hurts so bad…"

Her stomach trouble was acting up again.

I rushed to dig through the medicine box for her pills.

The anger I'd barely tamped down came surging back all at once.

"Abraham! I told you May has a bad stomach. She can't eat this junk food."

"Why can you never remember a single thing I tell you?"

Abraham, still glued to his game, finally bothered to look up.

But his face was all impatience.

"What are you yelling for? Can't you say things like a normal person?"

"I'm right in the middle of talking shop with a client. Could you stop bugging me with these little things?"

Little things.

Forgetting May at preschool last month, leaving her out in the rain until she ran a fever. A little thing.

Forgetting yesterday that I'm allergic to shellfish, sending me to the ER in the middle of the night. A little thing.

And now triggering May's stomach attack was a little thing too.

It was as though, in his eyes,

anything to do with me or our child was a trivial, unimportant little thing.

The DoorDash bag at my feet was a glaring red.

The fury knotted up inside me with nowhere to go.

But my daughter was in real pain, so all I could do was get her to the hospital first.

May had an acute stomach spasm.

Five or six hours had already passed since the attack began.

Any longer, and her life would have been in danger.

I was furious and heartbroken all at once.

Then May suddenly lifted her head.

"I told Daddy my tummy hurt, but Daddy said he was really busy with work and didn't have time for me."

"Mom, Daddy isn't actually that busy, is he? He just doesn't want anything to do with me, right?"

Those innocent little words landed like a sledgehammer.

They shattered every last illusion I'd been using to fool myself.

Somewhere along the way, Abraham's work had suddenly become so very, very busy.

Too busy with overtime, too busy with business trips.

Too busy shopping, too busy gaming.

As if all he had to do was wave the banner of "work,"

and every single thing at home stopped being his problem.

I wanted so badly to make excuses for him, the way I always had.

But looking into May's pure, trusting eyes, I couldn't get a single word out.