Three little words, plain words — just a simple declarative sentence impetuously blurted out at an intimate moment between two people — changed our lives.

They’re not the words you may be thinking of. Let me set the stage for you.

It was 1987. Cassie and I were still enjoying our first year of marriage in our new home 900 miles away from where we grew up. Then Cassie got a phone call from her mother. She always called her mother Mama but everyone else knew her as Maggie G. During these weekly calls Cassie usually put the phone on the table and played solitaire, occasionally mumbling “uh huh.”

That night, her “uh huh” did not have its usual absent-minded tone but the intensity of a method actor making her stage debut. 

When she hung up, Cassie said, trembling, “She’s coming to visit.”

That’s four words, if you’re counting, not three. The three words I mentioned above came later, after the weeks of planning, shopping, cleaning, worry and anxiety that went into my in-laws’ visit. 

Cassie and Maggie G had a relationship worthy of Greek drama. As the date approached, Cassie experienced night terrors. But at other times, she cried uncontrollably, wailing that she missed her Mama and wanted to move back Georgia. I drank.

I also sympathized, I listened, I ran errands. I held Cassie when she cried. When she got irritable with me, I let it pass.  

Maggie G and her husband, plus her two sisters, took the trip in a van. This was before cell phones and GPS, so while they were on the road Cassie paced and fidgeted for hours, asking me over and over, “Do you think they’re OK? Do you think they’re safe?” 

About 11 p.m. the phone rang. Nearby but lost, they were at a rest stop on the New Jersey turnpike. We drove to meet them so they could follow us back to the house. They were 20 minutes away at most. 

Like a little kid running to see her mother after the first day of kindergarten, Cassie jumped out of the car. Simultaneously, Maggie G stepped out of the van to meet her. 

At that tender moment of long-awaited parent-child reunion, the first words Maggie G said to her only child were, “You gained weight.”

That’s right: upon seeing her daughter for the first time in nearly a year — her daughter who had never been away from home for more than a few nights at a time— that was the first thing she said: “You gained weight.”

She followed it up with, “We brought a big box of your stuff — clothes and old toys and stuff — that you left at the house.”

The short return trip to the house, with Maggie G and the others following in their van, was the longest car ride of my life. I made a few feeble attempts to ease the tension: 

— “She didn’t say you’re fat. She just meant …”

—  “I think you look great, I’m not just saying that, I mean it …” 

— “If anything, I think you’ve lost weight …” 

Everything I said, worse than useless. I shut up. 

Quiet but seething at those three words — Maggie G’s little molotov cocktail of a sentence that had my wife alternately raging and sobbing, with me knowing that the damage she caused would bounce back at me, not Maggie G — I started plotting my revenge.

I wondered, what did Maggie G love above all other sensual and worldly pleasures that I could ruin for her? I didn’t have to think about it for long. 

Oreos. She loved regular Oreos, Double Stuf Oreos, Football Oreos and the since-discontinued Big Stuf Oreos. In fact, she loved every kind of cookie and gummy candy, every brand of cheap chocolate, every kind of convenience story pastry, every variation of salty chip and pretzel in the snacks aisle of the supermarket. 

I devised a plan that was simple but brilliant, built on Maggie G’s hatred of doctors and fear of hospitals. 

Because she was a hypochondriac, she was always asking me medical advice. I used to find it mildly amusing, and eventually I gave up trying to convince her that my doctorate — in history, with a specialization in late Renaissance studies —  didn’t require me to take a single course in medical school. 

How many times did she say to me, “But you’re a doctor!”?

I would answer, “But I’m not that kind of doctor. I have a Ph.D., not an M.D.”

“A doctor is a doctor! You must know something! Just look at this spot on my foot. …”

And so it went, over and over again. I often ended up putting my ear to her back, telling her to take some deep breathes, and declaring, “What a heartbeat! Magnificent!” 

Sooo, convincing her that she was diabetic was not only easy but deliriously satisfying. (I made her promise not to say anything to Cassie, who would be worried.) 

For good measure I convinced Maggie G that she had to give up not just sweets but smoking those skinny cigars she liked too. After their visit, I secretly called her every few weeks to make sure she was keeping to her diet and to scold her when I could tell she’d been cheating. On the phone I would chew loudly and say things like, “Excuse me a minute. A nut from this brownie is stuck in my teeth.” 

When we visited a year later, I wasn’t surprised to see how much weight she’d lost. Just cutting out the six spoonfuls of sugar she’d put in all those glasses of iced tea she drank every day would make a big difference for most people. Everyone thought she looked great, but I told her she needed to lose a few more pounds. I bought her a rowing machine and insisted she use it every day.

It was a golden time. It was especially enjoyable at the beginning, when she would engage that rowing machine in a desperate struggle for mastery, with me on a nearby stool offering encouragement while eating pecan pie and drinking Mountain Dew. 

But that was many years ago. My story doesn’t end well. 

After all these years, time has taken its toll on our families. The only ones left alive are Maggie G and me. 

She posts TikToc videos of herself, in a black leotard, demonstrating exercises for people in their 90s. I can’t stand to watch them. 

I’m in an assisted living facility, and she insists on calling me every day. Every single day. And every single day, she expresses amazement that I — so much younger than her — am in such poor health. 

Then, without fail, she invariably she says the same thing: “And you, a doctor!” 

Yea, that’s four words. Four words that I hate.