Travis cut the grass.

Took out trash when reminded.

Fixed things when he felt confident.

Worked hard.

And because he worked hard, I told myself the imbalance was normal.

That was before he lost his job.

The plant announced layoffs at the beginning of February.

Not layoffs, technically.

Restructuring.

That word has ruined many kitchens.

Travis came home with a packet, a tight face, and a cardboard box with his work gloves, a coffee mug, and a framed picture of Sophie from kindergarten.

He set it on the kitchen table and stood there like he did not know where his hands belonged.

I went to him.

He said, “They cut my line.”

I held him while he stared over my shoulder.

For the first week, I treated him like a man who had been knocked down.

Because he had.

I made soup.

Called his mother for him.

Helped him file unemployment.

Updated his résumé on my lunch break.

Told Sophie, gently, that Daddy was going to be home more while he looked for a new job.

She said, “Good. He can come to library day.”

Travis smiled when she said that.

A real smile.

I thought maybe something good could come out of the bad.

A chance for him to rest.

A chance for him to know Sophie’s weekdays.

A chance for our house to be held by both of us in a different way.

For a few days, that seemed possible.

He took her to school twice.

Loaded the dishwasher once.

Called two places about work.

Talked to his old supervisor.

Then the couch began claiming him.

At first, it was understandable.

Depression can look like laziness from the wrong angle.

I know that.

He was embarrassed.

He was grieving.

He had lost the place where people knew his value.

I tried to see all that.

But grief still has to wash a cereal bowl eventually.

By the third week, he was sleeping until eleven.

By the fourth, he was forgetting to certify unemployment unless I reminded him.

By the fifth, he had missed one required online appointment with the job center because, as he put it, “the link didn’t work right.”

The link had worked.

He had not logged in.

Meanwhile, I picked up extra hours.

A weekend shift.

A late shift.

A double when another aide’s kid got sick.

I came home with compression socks digging into my calves, and Travis would tell me, “I was going to start laundry, but I got a headache.”

The laundry would be exactly where I had left it.

The trash would be full.

The sink would hold dishes from whatever he and Sophie ate after school.

The unpaid bill would sit on the table.

Waiting for me.

Just like he was.

That evening, it was already past seven when I unlocked the door.

Rain had been falling all afternoon, and the parking lot at the rehab center was a mess of puddles and dirty slush. My shoes were damp. My hair was pulled back too tight. My shoulders ached from carrying the same black tote I had carried through every shift that week.

I had worked ten hours and fourteen minutes.

I knew because the time-clock slip was still in my tote, printed in blue ink from the machine by the employee entrance.

Ten hours and fourteen minutes.

Not counting the twenty-minute lunch I spent eating yogurt in the break room while texting Sophie’s teacher about a permission slip.

When I opened the front door, the house smelled like stale cereal and cold coffee.

No dinner.

No dishwasher running.

No laundry.

No warm sound of something being handled before I got there.

Travis sat on the couch in his hoodie and jacket, looking irritated before I even took off my bag.

“Where’s my dinner?” he asked.

At first, I thought I had heard him wrong.

I looked toward the kitchen.

The sink was full.

The trash needed taking out.

A cereal bowl sat on the coffee table from breakfast, the milk dried around the edges.

Sophie’s toys sat untouched in the corner, a plastic veterinarian kit spread open beside a stuffed dog with a bandage around one ear.

“You’ve been home all day,” I said quietly.

He leaned forward.

“And you’re my wife.”

The sentence landed like a slap because he did not even say it angrily.

He said it like a fact.

Like vows were a contract for me to work, cook, clean, pay, smile, and keep him feeling like a man no matter how much of the house I was holding alone.

I stared at him.

“I just finished a ten-hour shift.”

His face tightened.

“I’m still the head of this house.”

There it was.

The old line.

The one he had learned somewhere and used whenever responsibility felt too heavy but authority still felt good in his mouth.

Head of this house.

Head of the house had been his phrase since early in our marriage, though back then he used it jokingly, usually while opening a pickle jar or killing a spider. Over time, the joke hardened. It appeared when I questioned a purchase. When I asked if he could call the plumber. When I reminded him that Sophie needed help with homework and I was still cooking.

He liked the title.

He did not always like the labor.

I looked at the entry table.

My time-clock slip had fallen halfway out of my tote.

Ten hours and fourteen minutes printed at the top.

Right beside it was the electric bill I had asked him to pay online that morning.

Still unopened.

Still waiting.

Just like everything else.

Travis saw my eyes move.

For the first time that night, his expression shifted.

Only a little.

But enough.

His hand froze on his knee.

I picked up the bill slowly and held it between us.

“Did you pay this?”

He looked away.

That answer was louder than anything he had said.

“Rebecca,” he muttered, lowering his voice, “don’t make this bigger than it needs to be.”

I almost laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because every woman who has carried too much knows that sentence.

It means stay quiet.

It means do not make me look at what I am avoiding.

It means keep holding the weight so I can keep holding the title.

I set the bill back down.

Then I looked at him and said the calmest thing I had said all week.

“The head carries the responsibility, Travis. Not just the name.”

The room went still.

He blinked once, like the words had reached a place he was not ready to defend.

Standing there with my bag still cutting into my shoulder, the kitchen behind me untouched, and the bill still lying between us, I understood something.

He had prepared for me to come home tired.

He had not prepared for me to come home awake.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“It means if you want dinner, make it.”

His face changed.

Not shock exactly.

Offense.

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“I lost my job, Rebecca. You think I don’t feel bad enough?”

“I think you feel bad and still expected me to cook after ten hours.”

He stood.

The couch cushion rose slowly behind him.

“You act like I’m doing nothing.”

I pointed to the electric bill.

“You didn’t pay the bill.”

“I forgot.”

“You forgot because you were busy?”

His jaw tightened.

“That’s cheap.”

“No. Cheap is asking me where dinner is while the bill you promised to handle sits unopened beside my time slip.”

He looked toward my tote.

His eyes landed on the slip.

I saw him read it.

For one moment, something like shame crossed his face.