The doctor muttered, “There are marks of a woman’s nails on your husband’s back.”
I looked at my “paralyzed” husband, slowly lifted the blanket, and literally froze like stone.
For three days Marco had been lying on our big bed in a tragic hero’s pose. His arms stretched along his body, his face reflecting universal suffering, the blanket carefully pulled up to his chin, as if the most terrible injuries imaginable were hidden beneath it.
“Lia, I can’t feel the little toe on my left foot anymore…” he groaned, his voice trembling as if he were standing on a stage before a sold-out audience. “It’s all over. I think I’m paralyzed.”
“Marco, your leg is just numb. You’ve been lying still for almost three hours.”
“Have you forgotten how I sacrificed myself for this house? I moved that cursed sofa so you could watch your show more comfortably.”
In reality, three days earlier Marco had simply bent down to pick up a beer bottle cap that had rolled under the armchair.
In his version it sounded like a heroic feat, as if he had saved the house from a catastrophe.
Since then I had been running between the kitchen and the bedroom, bringing him soup, pillows, and medicine, while patiently listening to his dramatic statements about fate and disability.
When our acquaintance, the neurologist Dr. Daniel, arrived, Marco immediately intensified his performance: he groaned louder, rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, and even tried to imitate trembling in his legs.
The examination didn’t take long. His reflexes were perfect.
“Turn onto your stomach,” the doctor said calmly.
A minute later the doctor suddenly stopped, leaned closer, and ran his finger along Marco’s back. Then he took off his glasses, and a strange expression appeared on his face—a peculiar mixture of confusion and surprise.
“Lia, could you come here for a moment?” he said quietly. “Let’s give the patient a little rest.”
We went into the kitchen, and I closed the door.
My heart started beating faster.
“Well?” I asked. “Is it serious?”
The doctor sighed.
“Medically, everything is quite simple,” he said. “A mild muscle inflammation, nothing serious. But there is one… detail.”
He lowered his voice almost to a whisper:
“There are long, deep, and very distinctive marks on your husband’s back.”
“Marks from a fall?”
“No… more like marks of passion… more precisely, a woman’s nails.”
Slowly I looked down at my own hands: short, unpolished nails, rough from cooking and work.
And at that moment Marco’s voice suddenly rang out from the bedroom…
I took a deep breath, trying to keep a calm expression. Inside, however, everything was already beginning to come together into an unpleasant but perfectly clear picture.
“Thank you, Dr. Daniel,” I said quietly. “It seems the treatment is really starting to work.”
When I returned to the room, Marco was lying exactly as before: with a martyr-like expression and his mouth slightly open. As soon as he saw me, he began groaning even louder.
“Lia… I think the pain is getting worse… I’ll probably need a few more days of complete rest.”
I walked over, pulled up a chair, and quietly sat down in front of the bed.
“Incredible,” I said softly. “The doctor says you’ll make a full recovery within a few days.”
Marco visibly stiffened.
“Really?” he asked cautiously.
I smiled faintly and slowly picked up the remote control from the floor—the one he “couldn’t” reach. Then, just as calmly, I pulled the blanket off him, revealing his back.
“There’s just one small detail, Marco…” I said almost gently. “The doctor was very interested in the scratches on your back. Long. Deep. Feminine.”
For a moment, silence fell over the room.
And a real miracle happened: the man who hadn’t felt his legs for three days suddenly sat up in bed.
I watched silently.
“It seems,” I said quietly as I stood up, “that medicine has once again proven its effectiveness today. Especially when the diagnosis is based on the truth.”
