June 3, 2012

For poorer

On the positive side, she thought, you really get to know someone when you have spent some time broke with them.  When there's no money for restaurants and bars and trips you have to be more resourceful about having fun.  Small things--like soy sauce to go on top of the plain white rice--seem like luxuries.  You get good at amusing each other for free.  She had known those things already, but she'd learned something new with this period of poverty.  She had learned what it was like to have someone steal food for her.  The profound gratitude and loyalty she felt when he returned with something to eat and physically put it into her hands when she was hungry and humble and vulnerable...well, that was new to her.  A lot of people didn't understand a lot of things about their relationship, to be sure, and this was one more that not many would comprehend.  But to her loving someone meant nourishing them with food, and when he opened his bag and pulled out what he managed to find, she wasn't sure if she had ever been loved more.