Listen to the author reading this story:
He sits at the table they bought when they first moved in. The varnish dulled, his chair wobbly. He should fix that. He’s meant to fix a lot of things. He has been up for an hour, trying to find the right words. The kind that don’t sound rehearsed, or desperate. They argued again last night. No longer loudly. Just quiet, brittle words in the stretched space between them. He’d said something about how she never talks anymore. She said, ‘What’s the point, you never listen.’ He hears a creak on the stairs, straightens a little, puts his coffee mug down. But the creak is followed by silence. He exhales, long and low. Maybe she’s waiting for him to make the first move. He stares at the mug in his hand. He should go up and say sorry. Tell her it’s not too late. Tell her that he can, or they should, try harder. He wants to sound calm, not needy. He still believes they can find it again. Whatever ‘it’ is. He stands, wipes his hands on his jeans, walks towards the stairs, then stops. He needs another minute.
She sits on the edge of the bed, listening for movement downstairs. Other than the soft rhythm of his pacing followed by the scrape of a chair, the house is still. She remembers when it, and they, were full of life. How he’d run up the stairs to tell her some fun anecdote from work, his sentences spliced with laughter. Somewhere along the way, he started staying in the kitchen and stopped telling stories. She picks at a loose thread on the blanket. Let him come up this time. She imagines him down there, coffee in hand, thinking she’s the one that drifted away. Maybe she is. She stands, looks at the half-packed suitcase in the corner, then continues. She pauses at the top of the stairs when she sees him below, rehearsing something in his head. For a moment she almost feels sorry for him, almost calls his name. Then she returns to her room.
He hears her moving around upstairs. Drawers opening and closing. It’s a good sign she’s up early, he thinks. She couldn’t sleep either. Maybe she’s still thinking about last night, about what he said, how they could start again, find their way back. The noise gets louder while he thinks about what to say when she comes down. Probably something about the rain, or the hydrangeas. Normal things, safe things. Maybe he should make the first move this time. He stands, wipes a ring of coffee from the table with his sleeve, and listens again. She has stopped whatever she was doing. The stillness makes him nervous. He sits back down. Waits.
She can picture him below as she folds her clothes. His usual mug, the slouched shoulders, the way he’ll look up every time the floor creaks. She hears the clink of a spoon against ceramic. Always the same routine, the same kitchen noises. Always waiting for her to come down first. She looks at the pile of clothes. It doesn’t look like much, but it looks like leaving. She closes the case and looks around the room. The dent in the pillow, the cardigan on the chair, the photo on the dresser of the two of them smiling. She steps into the hall and hears him shift in his chair. He’ll think she’s just going for a walk to clear her head. She wishes, briefly, that he were right, before stepping outside and closing the door.
I stay in the bedroom, leaving her to scream at the bare cupboards. The kitchen is too small for her anger. I tap my cigarette, and answer her accusations in my head. ‘I’m a waster, am I?’ I’d heard it all before. In truth, I knew one of these outbursts was coming. She held it in it while our son was home for midterm. The hate and frustration simmering. The house falls quiet for a moment. I wait for a gap long enough to step into, but she starts again.
He’s upstairs again, hiding, pretending not to hear. I want to shake him, drag him into the light, make him face the rot between us. I hear his footsteps in my room. I throw his dinner in the bin. Where was he all day? Not looking for a job, that’s for sure. Everything is down to me now. I shout again and picture him cowering with that stupid look on his face. I know I can say one word and set him off.
It’s not like I haven’t been trying. I sent out CVs, went to humiliating interviews, felt patronized by people young enough to be my son. Now everything is my fault. The shouting continues. Our son never sees her like this, or when she loads herself up with pills. He loves her and tolerates me. If only he knew.
How has he managed nine interviews without a single call back? He blames the ‘children’ he fails to impress. He drinks too much. Our son can’t stand him anymore. I open drawers just to bang them shut again but he still doesn’t come down. I think of Tom. Our last conversation over dinner. How he took my hand and begged me to leave. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the last. I regret it now and again but more often lately.
‘You’re a fucking waster,’ she roars. I light a cigarette. I’d murder a whiskey. A sharp truth pierces me. I’m the loser that couldn’t satisfy his wife, so she had an affair. I’m the waster that can’t find a job, and some days can’t even force myself to look, so she’s the breadwinner now. I usually wait for her to calm down before approaching, but she’s calling my name. Her voice is getting louder, closer.
I’m starting to sound like my mother in those manic years before she died. As that realisation dawns, I open the bedroom door. ‘Why don’t you just go?’ I say. He doesn’t say anything this time. ‘Why don’t you just fuck off?’ He makes no attempt to calm me.
She said these things before, but never with such malice, and then, the gut punch. ‘Tom was right.’
I pull on the cigarette until the filter burns. ‘I’m going for cigarettes,’ I say, and she watches me leave.
Donna Leamy is a PhD scientist currently working in the biopharmaceutical sector. After winning a placement on The Walls of Limerick mentoring program, she took a career break to pursue an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. She graduated with first class honours in January 2025. Her work has featured in a special edition of Silver Apples magazine, and poetry anthologies Washing Windows IV and V.