Scrabble

He puts down the tiles - slowly, carefully. His fine motor functions haven’t come back completely - not yet, although they say he will probably make a full physical recovery at some point.

MARIA

The thing – the thing that feels like a knot - that’s almost always there inside me, gets tighter.

“That’s a proper noun. A name.”

“Yes”

“You can’t have anything that begins with a capital letter – remember?”

Sometimes he accepts that, shrugs, takes the letters off and starts again. Sometimes he doesn’t. The thing – the knot – tightens my throat.

The phone is on the table. It comes everywhere with me. We have a reference number for the police. They gave it to me when this started happening, and it’s supposed to mean we would get an instant response – but also a sympathetic one – so they wouldn’t beat the crap out of him – they would know about his brain injury.

We are on the crisis list while we wait for them to decide whether they will fund the intensive neuro rehab that he needs. We have been on the list since before Christmas. When I ask how much longer, they look down, shuffle their papers and say it’s the cuts – they don’t know.

“It’s a fucking word”

“Yes it’s a word, but you can’t have it because it’s a name. I’ll show you the rules”

Again

“Take yourself out of the equation” they said; “..try to remove direct confrontation . Just point to the rules”

The knot makes my mind clumsy and it takes me a minute or two to find the right bit on the printed sheet, even though we have done this a million times.

“Look – there – “nothing that starts with a capital letter”..”

He snatches the sheet – for a minute I wonder if he’s going to rip it up - and then he tries to say something – his speech isn’t all that good yet, especially if he’s upset

“It’s fucking German – what the fuck - it’s fucking German though!”

He is shaking with anger

I make my voice even lower – deliberately. Low and slow.

“I want to understand what you’re saying to me, but you need to calm down. I know you don’t mean to, but you’re frightening me..”

Give him feedback they said. He doesn’t know how he sounds. He needs you to tell him.

The look – it’s the look on his face that scares me. The one with no reason in it – the one….

**************************

Does he look as if he wants to kill you?

The psychologist is nice. Down to earth.

I nod. That’s exactly how it is. He has never hurt me though – I don’t want them to think that – and I don’t want them to cart him off somewhere. I made him a promise – before all this started, I made him a promise and I am not going to break it

******************************

“It’s fucking German. German rules!”

“How do you mean?”

There’s usually some kind of logic in what he says – something I can use…

He pushes the paper towards me – shakily points to a small line at the bottom. It says “Printed in Czechoslovakia”

I dig my nails into my hand – under the table so he can’t see. It stops me from crying

Breathe

“It doesn’t actually matter where the rules are printed. This is the English version, and these are the English rules, and you are just going to have to trust me. Your brain injury is making you confused. You’re going to have to trust me”

We go through this several times a day, and I know what works now – what’s worked up until now. It’s like you would check under the bed for a child, then solemnly assure them that there’s nothing there – no monsters, no coalmen, no anything. Slowly, seriously. You have to show that you take them seriously.

I put my hand on the phone, feel the smooth coldness of it. There’s a pause. Then he nods. The look vanishes

I lean towards him and we kiss. Later I will talk to him about this and he will have completely forgotten – he has almost no short term memory. He’ll say how sorry he is, and I’ll tell him I know it’s not his fault.

Sometimes, if it’s really bad and I’m crying, he will offer to get on a train to London, and I'll have to remind him that he doesn’t live there – hasn’t for ten years – and anyway he hasn’t got any money for the train, and he isn’t well enough.

***********************

“So ……”

I sit back, and watch as he takes the tiles off the board - slowly, because his hands don’t work as well as they used to. Then I wait for him to make another word.