Our son shouted again.
My husband gave me an uncomfortable look, as if waiting for me to handle it.
I didn’t.
After a moment, he stood and went into the hallway.
“Mom said no TV,” he told him.
The sentence was so ordinary that it almost hurt.
Mom said no.
He had backed me up.
Once.
It shouldn’t have felt revolutionary.
When he returned, I turned to the second page.
It was nothing sophisticated.
Just dates and notes in my handwriting.
Casino.
Casino.
Home late.
Weekend gone most of afternoon.
Bedtime alone.
Bedtime alone.
Bedtime alone.
Beside several dates, I had written the exact phrases I remembered.
“They’re just kids.”
“You have every day.”
“You’re not my mother.”
My husband rubbed the back of his neck.
“So you’ve been keeping score?”
There it was.
The defensive version of him had arrived.
“No,” I said.
“I’ve been trying to understand why I’m drowning.”
“I work.”
“I know.”
“Someone has to pay for everything.”
“I know.”
“So what do you want me to do? Quit?”
I stared at him.
That was always how our arguments worked.
I asked for an hour and he pretended I’d demanded his entire life.
“I asked you to help with bedtime.”
He looked away.
“And I asked you to stop laughing when the kids ignore me.”
Silence.
“And I asked for time on the weekend.”
Silence again.
“And I asked you to stop acting like being home with them means I’m resting.”
He folded his arms.
“I never said you’re resting.”
I flipped to the next page and tapped something I’d written down after our last argument.
You have every day.
His face changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
“That’s what you said.”
He didn’t answer.
I closed the folder.
“I’m not doing this anymore.”
