This is one of those ideas that may never go anywhere. If you’re wondering why it’s so raw, it’s because I’ve been this woman before. I know what she’s like.
She wakes up long before the alarm has gone off. She doesn’t fall back asleep. She stares at the ceiling, thinking of nothing, thinking of everything. She hits snooze when the alarm finally chimes. She hits snooze again because she is not ready to get out of bed. She silences the alarm a third time, rolling over and convincing herself she really does need to shower today. She peels the covers back. Her husband is still asleep. She pads softly to the bathroom.
She looks in the mirror. Her hair is greasy, but she could pull it back. She decides not to. She gets in the shower, makes the water as hot as she can stand it. She boils in it, reveling in the pain. For a moment it washes away the heaviness. The heaviness returns when she rolls back the shower door and the cold air hits her. She brushes her teeth mechanically. She doesn’t put on make-up. She doesn’t care if she looks like death. She feels like death. She looks at her eyes. She looks tired. She looks at her face. She doesn’t like what she sees. She brushes her wet hair.
She takes the kids to school. She comes home and forces herself to eat breakfast. She goes to work, counting down the minutes, hating every email she reads. The heaviness presses on her. She can’t answer all the questions. She has to do research. She has to follow up later. She has to go to meetings that aren’t related to her tasks. She sits in her chair and wonders what it would be like to be wealthy, to be independent, to do whatever she wanted. But there isn’t anything she wants to do, so she might as well just keep doing this.
She goes home. She goes out to the patio. She sits in the silence before her husband comes home with the kids. She watches the bees in the garden. The stillness of it soothes her. She soaks in the sunlight. Maybe she can keep doing this. Maybe she can keep going. She closes her eyes for a moment, drifting. She is tired. She should try to take a nap.
The gate opens. The children see her. They run to her, cling to her, as if she is the best thing in the world. She wishes she could see what they see. She wants it more than anything. But there is too much doubt, too much criticism, too much pain, too much wishing for things she cannot name.
She makes dinner. She ignores the bickering from the kids. She heats up chicken nuggets because she can’t stand to hear them complain about the food she has made. She sets the table. Her family is nowhere to be seen. She feels invisible. She is invisible. She calls for them and it takes them several minutes before they come. By the time they sit down, her food is cold. She eats it anyway. It doesn’t matter.
She takes out the trash, her slow walk to the trashcan like a funeral procession. She almost keeps walking past the cans and past the neighbors’ house and past the entrance to the subdivision. But she can’t. She can’t leave the kids. What would her husband do with them on his own? She places the bag in the trashcan, stands in the driveway for just a moment, gathering the few threads of strength she has left. She goes into the house.
She bathes the kids. Her youngest is sticky. She had no idea why. Her oldest complains about scrubbing his nails. She is immune to his complaints. She brushes their teeth while her husband lays on the couch, reading a book. She puts the kids in bed. She puts herself in bed. She waits. Her husband doesn’t come for her. He doesn’t check on her. He never says anything to her.
She picks up a book but she doesn’t read it. She opens Facebook and scrolls until her eyes are raw. Her husband comes to bed. He asks her what’s wrong. “Nothing,” she lies. She switches off the light, but she doesn’t sleep. She lays awake listening to her husband snoring, thinking of nothing, thinking of everything.
And this is how it is, day after day. It does not get any worse, so she thinks she might have actually found the bottom of the pit. But it never gets any better, and she had no idea how she is going to climb out of the hole she’s in.
The Quick and the Dead 