My Sister's Husband's Toenail Fungus
by Susan Weiman
He was the kind of guy who never went to the doctor. Maybe that's most men. He didn't see the point. He had heart problems, was diabetic, and consumed jars of M&Ms, fried chicken, and tubs of Butter Brickle ice cream with chocolate sauce. I could see why he was afraid to go.
My poor sister, Ellen, had to make his doctor appointments and text him numerous reminders. He'd go, but never reveal what the doctor said. One night she found insulin on his bedroom night table.
"Why are you taking this?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said in his wishy-washy whiny voice.
She called the doctor. That's how she learned he was diabetic. She felt sorry for him, but she also wanted to kill him.
***
Ellen was a gentle soul. She stopped the car to watch deer cross, patched up the wings of abandoned baby birds, and swept ladybugs into a dustpan and brought them outside to fly away.
If she had only encouraged her husband, Brandt, to fly away. Despite their constant bickering, Ellen always had an excuse. She would never divorce him. I often wondered if she stayed with him because of the kids or if she felt for him as she did for wounded animals.
Late spring, she developed allergies that affected her breathing and triggered her asthma. After months of taking allergy meds, she went to an allergist who stuck hundreds of tiny needles in her pale skin. A week later she received a call from the nurse.
"Ellen, you are allergic to toenail fungus."
"What? Are you kidding?"
"Have you checked your toes?"
"No, but I bet my husband has it."
***
After the phone call, something snapped. Ellen, a black belt, imagined breaking hundreds of boards. She leaped into the air, did a kick, a punch, and gracefully dropped into a split.
She broke a few more boards, marched into the kitchen and retrieved a box of trash bags. One by one, she filled them with ancient computer equipment, old manuals and magazines, newspapers dating back to the ’70s, and other nerdy stuff. She collected his empty soda cans, candy-bar wrappers ,and moldy food on paper plates, and piled the large bags on the front lawn.
Lastly, with a quick kick and a punch, she cursed Brandt and tossed the fungusy sheets on top of the heap. The dog whimpered. She hugged him, then told him to shut up.
Susan Weiman’s work has been published in the Paterson Literary Review, Trolley, HomePlanetNews.com, First Literary Review - East, City Lore, and other journals and anthologies. She has three chapbooks, New York-ish, 2018; Roommates, 2021; and “We’ll Get Together When It’s Over,” 2025. She is currently working on a memoir.
