I narrate to him that last night both partners
thought they’d given everything up for the other.
It was ugly. They didn’t get, they wouldn’t get,
what they’d hoped for. I editorialize
that I think rage is clichéd in marriage
after a decade and a half. I sip my coffee, say, 
I’m glad we’re past those years, and continue with the drama— 
the husband rattled on about how hard he works, 
explained that to work harder
would be impossible. The pretty wife shrieked back
she was a ghost, that’s the word she used, 
I am a ghost. She never broke out
with her singing career. I sigh in sympathy
for the artist’s struggle: If only she didn’t have to
raise her family; again, I digress. The handsome husband
(who we, the viewers, know is dead now, in the present day) 
shouted well-written lines. His gray hair, wrinkles, 
and clenched fist made clear he couldn’t be enough.
I said to my husband, They should call
this show This Is It instead of This Is Us. 
It is what it is; it’s not what they thought, 
or wanted, or thought they wanted. 
The characters don’t see the big picture,
what we already know—  
the loved one will die.

Cathy Allman entered the writing field as a reporter after attending the school of Cinema and Television at the University of Southern California. While her career shifted gears from writing to advertising and marketing, she never stopped writing or attending workshops, eventually earning an MFA from Manhattanville College. She has reinvested in her writing, and she teaches creativity workshops at high schools and at her Connecticut office.