At 11 PM, she didn’t go to bed. She dragged the ironing board into the living room. For two hours, she pressed my shirts, smoothing every wrinkle with terrifying precision. She looked ready to collapse, swaying on her feet.
The “cheating” I suspected was a lie I told myself to excuse my own negligence. She wasn’t giving her energy to another man; she was pouring it into a black hole of ungratefulness—me. I saw the “headaches” for what they were: exhaustion.
I closed the laptop. The anger I had felt earlier was gone, replaced by a nausea so intense I almost threw up. I had treated her invisible labor as a natural resource, something that just *happened*.
I checked out of the motel at 2 AM. I drove home, speeding through red lights. When I unlocked the front door, the house smelled of lemon polish and lasagna. The silence was heavy.
I found her asleep on the sofa, clutching one of my shirts. She jumped when I touched her shoulder, eyes wide with panic. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t get to the windows.”
I fell to my knees. I didn’t say a word about the cameras. I just buried my face in her lap and wept. I told her the business trip was cancelled, that I was an idiot, that I saw her.
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