From my second writing day

Forgive what will prove to be several posts in one day, but I'm trying to back track and get up-to-date with this thing. Day 2, Mari in her older POV. To be honest, I hated this writing day. I felt all over the place and pointless. But, alas, an excerpt (albeit a short one):

If I am a bit more honest than that, I would say that we were there for each other. Not because we both shared in the pain of my struggle, although we did, but because he was never so out of control as he was during those years. And then there was the shopping. Compulsive online shopping for antique miniatures, which to this day I don’t understand. But we have over 2,000. And you might wonder how he could have possibly been there for me during such a time, but he was. At every appointment, during every night of vomit and tears, through every nightmare that had me waking, screaming through the night. He yelled at the nurses who could not longer find any usable veins and caused me so much pain with every prick that I once actually lost my bowels. He haggled with insurance agents, followed up with letters in writing, called the doctors and administrators demanding letters of medical necessity, and showing up at their doors before they even opened, standing over them until they were typed, and sealed, and stamped, and handed to him to take to the post. He did these things stoned or drunk or high, but he did them, effectively. Then he would rush back home to me, squealing in delight like a schoolboy at a toy store when a package containing his latest antique miniature would arrive. He’d leap in what looked like innocence and genuine joy. He would run to me, knife in hand, and open the box gingerly, eagerly, open the flaps completely with exaggeration, throw out the plastic bubbles or foam peanuts into the air behind him, then gasp. Slow, long gasps. He’d show me the three-inch antique wooden piece of furniture, which only ever looked like doll house toys to me, and then explain its history for the next hour or so, stroking my hair, jumping up to make me some tea (sometimes taking a few minutes too long to bring it to me and I knew why, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t care).