After five years of cleaning him, lifting him, and serving as his full-time nurse, I overheard my paralyzed husband laughing with a stranger and

My name is Marianne Cortez, and I am thirty two years old. When I look into the mirror now, I no longer recognize the woman staring back. Her shoulders slope forward as if bracing for impact. Her eyes are ringed with shadows that sleep has not touched in years. Her hands tell the story more clearly than her face, roughened by endless washing, by lifting weight that was never meant to be carried alone, by gripping the rails of wheelchairs and the edges of hospital beds.