By Ashlee Gadd
@ashleegadd

He buried the first piece of jewelry he ever gave me in a box full of towels. 

It was Christmas morning, we had been dating for six months, and he casually handed me a gift the size of a crockpot. I shook it a little, as one does, but didn’t hear the clanking sound you’d expect from a kitchen appliance. Stumped, I proceeded to open a box filled with towels. Not new towels, but clean—clearly used—navy blue bath towels. I stared at him, not getting the joke.

“Keep digging,” he smiled. 

Finally, one of the towels unraveled to reveal a little black box. I opened it slowly. A thin silver band hosting a single tiny diamond sat inside. 

“It’s a promise ring,” he said, slipping it on my finger. 

“Some day, I’m going to buy you a better ring and ask you to marry me.”

***

I didn’t call it romance when he held my hair back that one time I puked next to the Kailua Pier. 

It’s still a joke between us, the ghost-like look on my face as we floated in the air mid-parasail. He said something like, “Wow, it’s beautiful up here, huh?”

And I said one thing back: “I can’t talk right now.” 

“I can’t talk right now” became code for I’m about to barf and we still use it to this day. Sometimes when we fly, I get nauseous during takeoff and landing. If at any point I say, “I can’t talk right now”— he knows to pass me a stick of gum, direct the air vent at my head and not speak until further notice.

I used that code two summers ago in the middle of date night, walking from the restaurant where we’d just had dinner to the auditorium where we had tickets to see Tyrone Wells perform. I threw up on the sidewalk, chalking it up to 7pm morning sickness. Turns out we both ate some bad chicken. Brett got it worse than I did, and we ended up at the ER around 2am. I was six months pregnant at the time, and pushed him into the ER in a wheelchair because he could hardly stand. It’s still a joke between us, that wheelchair. 

(Don’t worry, dear reader, this is not an essay about barf.)

(Okay, actually, I do have one more.)

Two of my three births included vomit. I’ll never forget the sight of my dad peeking into the recovery room to meet his first grandson and encountering his daughter mid-hurl instead.

“Uh, Brett?!” he said, quickly waving my husband over, who had just stepped out to greet my in-laws, “Ashlee needs you!” 

Ashlee needs you. 

My own father said this to my husband, as I was puking after my c-section. My dad loves me more than life itself but he may as well have said, “Sorry man—she’s your problem now.”

I didn’t call it romance when my husband left his parents in the hallway to rush by my side.

Do you know how many times he’s held a plastic bin in front of my face over the years? How many times his hands have become a human scrunchie? 

I wonder if he ever considered, way back then, on the couch, with the promise ring, how many times he’d have to hold my hair. 

***

On our one-year dating anniversary, I arranged to have a limo pick up Brett and take to a fancy restaurant where I’d be waiting in a little black dress. At the time it felt like a baller move, but looking back, how funny and awkward that I made my boyfriend ride in a limo all by himself. 

(I used to watch The Bachelor back then, what can I say?)

We were kids. We both lived at home with our parents, and—thanks to lucrative jobs and free rent—we always had money to burn in the name of romance. Flowers and fancy dates, love notes and surprises; we did it all. How many times did we take the train to San Francisco? He always wore a tie.

Last week we got in a fight about a cup. Yes, a cup. He asked if he could take my favorite tumbler to work, the one with the stainless steel straw that keeps your drink cold all day. I said, “Yes, but only if you wash it when you bring it home.” 

The next day I noticed the cup sitting in the kitchen sink, unwashed. I teased him about it, 70% kidding, 30% serious. The joke didn’t land well. 

Why is this such a big deal? Who cares about the stupid cup? 

To be clear: I did. I cared about the cup. Because it’s not about the cup. It’s never about the cup. It’s about the fact that I wash other people’s dishes 14 times a day and nobody ever says thank you and now there’s an extra cup in the sink, my cup, that I didn’t even use, and now I’m the one expected to wash it?

To be clear: I was acting like a toddler. Brett ended up washing the cup, a little too aggressively in my opinion, before leaving the house for work without his breakfast. I felt bad afterwards, so I taped a note to the bathroom mirror that said: “Thank you for washing my cup. I love you.” 

He texted me a picture of it later and said, “I love you, too.”

Our love notes have changed over the span of fifteen years, is what I’m trying to say.  

***

I recently got a piece of hamburger stuck in my throat at a restaurant. Have you ever had a Dorito go down the wrong way? It was kind of like that, except the food stopped halfway down like a broken elevator. I could still breathe, but I was very uncomfortable. After consulting Dr. Google, I ordered two full glasses of Coke, still ripe with optimism. No such luck. I ordered hot tea, followed by a chocolate chip cookie, followed by two cups of water. I’m no doctor, but wouldn’t it make sense that eating and drinking enough would eventually push the thing down? 

It didn’t. We migrated to Starbucks where I ordered a coffee and a piece of banana bread. Gulp, gulp, gulp. Still there. At home, I chugged two (two!) cans of La Croix. I laid belly down on the floor and stretched up into cobra pose, hoping yoga, and gravity, would do the trick.

After six hours, I started to panic. Urgent care informed me they weren’t equipped to handle my problem, and sent me to the ER. After several hours of waiting in the lobby, I was finally ushered into a room and instructed to remove my clothes and put on a hospital gown. 

I laughed out loud, assuming they had me confused with someone else, someone with a real problem. 

No, no, I’m not here for anything serious. I just have a piece of hamburger trapped in my throat. 

Yes, ma’am, we know. We need to intubate you to remove it. 

Next thing I know, I’m signing my life away on a clipboard with a blue pen, texting my husband to tell him I am going under. He needs to come to the hospital. I cannot drive myself home. Within minutes of his arrival, I hear, “Okay Ashlee it’s sleepy time,” and my body sinks into the bed as I silently beg God to let me wake up.

A few nights later my husband described to me, in detail, what it was like watching me come out of anesthesia. He broke down a descriptive and horrific play-by-play: my body thrashing around on the table, my eyes flickering open, my mouth filling with saliva before they sucked it out. He told me how worried he was, how alarmed the nurses looked. Apparently, nobody expected me to wake up that fast. 

“I felt so helpless,” he said, “I just sat there holding your hand.” 

***

Sometimes I think about that eighteen-year-old sitting on the couch with a tiny diamond glistening on her finger. I think about how many romantic comedies she had seen; how many times she said, “Oh, I know marriage will be hard”—to prove her wisdom and emotional maturity while in the back of her head still secretly picturing a lifetime of rose petals and candlelit meals. 

Make no mistake: that eighteen-year-old never thought about puke. 

Six days after Brett gave me the promise ring, I fell out of bed in excruciating pain. I remember my parents calling him from the car. “We’re taking Ashlee to the emergency room,” my mom said in a panic. 

He beat us there. To this day, I still don’t know how. He must have barreled down the freeway at 90mph. The second I walked through the door, I threw up in a trash can. Turns out I had kidney stones. I’d be there all day, hooked up to a morphine drip for nine straight hours. I didn’t call it romance when he decided to stay, to sit in a chair right next to the bed, holding my hand. 

It’s been fifteen years since then, and we’ve seen our fair share of puke and hospitals over that time. That eighteen-year-old on the couch with the promise ring had no idea what she was in for. She had no clue how much better and richer and deeper this love would be, fifteen years and three kids in. But she’d learn eventually. After all, petals wilt and chocolate melts and candles burn out. Even rings tarnish over time. 

But a man who will hold your hair and hold your hand every time you need him to?

Forever?

That’s pretty romantic.

Words and photo by Ashlee Gadd.