For fifteen years now, Ive been a housewife. It wasnt something I ever dreamed for myself. But when our son, Matthew, was born, we both thought it best for me to stay home and look after him and the house, while my husband, Thomas, went off to work.
It seemed sensible at the time. He had a secure job, and someone needed to see to the home. I told myself it would just be for a while. But the years drifted by, and my world shrank to the space within these walls.
My days begin before even the faintest hint of dawn. The clock blinks 5:30 as I rise, padding into the chilly kitchen to brew tea and prepare breakfast. I wake Matthew for school, smoothing his uniform and finding stray socks lost behind the radiator. While the tea steeps, I tidy the sitting room, clearing yesterdays traces, then turn to the packed lunch and get ready for the day ahead.
When the others finally appear, everything is as it should betoast popping, eggs warm, the table neatly set. Thomas rarely sits down to eat. He fingers his phone, scrolling, chewing in silence. He often leaves the house without a word, not bothering to mention whether the breakfast was good or not.
Once theyre gone, the house grows hush and hollow. Thats when the second part of the day begins.
Laundry tumbles in the machine. The bathroom floor calls for mopping. Beds are made tight and smooth as if no one ever slept in them. I check through bills and council letters, then dash to the shops, wondering how the weekly grocery bill keeps creeping up in pounds and pence. After lunch, its the cycle againtidying, thinking ahead to supper, lists that never end, tasks that pile up even as I work through them.
The house is always breathing, never sleeping.
When Thomas gets home, he barely sets down his bag before asking, Whats for dinner tonight? If hes not impressed, he lets me know. Hes said more than once, Is this your best effort today? or Youve been at home all day and this is all you could manage?
I stay quiet. Arguing only thickens the heavy air in our little nest.
And with Mattheweverythings changed since he turned fourteen. Now, it seems, whatever I do just rubs him the wrong way. If I ask him to clear his plate, he sighs loudly. If I remind him about his room, he tells me to leave him alone. Sometimes he slips past me in the hallway as if Im just part of the wallpaper, a pattern he no longer notices.
A few nights ago, something happened thats kept me turning it over in my mind ever since.
We were at dinner. Thomas started on about how work was draining him. Matthew, his face aglow with the cold blue light of his phone, muttered that school was wearing him down, too. I mumbled that, really, were probably all tired in some way.
Thomas snorted. What are you tired from? he asked. Youre home all day.
Matthew gave a short, automatic laugh.
It didnt last long, that laughter. It was thin, sharp, and then goneleaving the words hanging over the table, thick as silent rain.
No one spoke after that. We finished the meal in a fog.
Later, with sleeves rolled up over the sink, hands deep in the washing up, something surfaced in mesomething Id been brushing aside for years.
In this house, everything I do is invisible.
The meals appear by magic on the table. The uniforms are fresh and folded in drawers. The rooms are always neat as if tidiness just happens by itself.
For them, its all just therefixed and finished, as if the house tends to itself.
And sometimes, I find myself wondering
How long can a woman live in a place where her effort has become so ordinary, so expected, that she all but disappears?
