THIS IS US
Quiet Home
Parenting, work, chess
I have walked through this quiet house, bare feet on wooden floors, feathers as bookmarks, cobwebs in high shadows, 4745 times. Mothers can calculate our routines like that.
It’s late and my son is in bed and I am closing my laptop, pouring the last inches of water out of my glass and into the drooping Christmas cactus on the window sill, wishful thinking. The cats stir as I push in my chair, put up my books, lock the front door. The stray who we don’t have the heart to kick out watches me through half-opened eyes, stretches, and goes back to sleep on a pillow.
I know the floorboards of this house, where to step, where to shift my weight so I can move through the darkness, through the bands of street lights warped coming through the windows, baskets of folded laundry, shoes by the front door, a framed picture of my grandfather fixing a broken chair.
I’ve worked shift work and I’ve worked late and I’ve worked mornings and I’ve worked nights; I’ve worked until the birds come up and start to sing again. But it is the privilege of my days, the privilege of my nights, to be able to close up this house around my sleeping child, even now, as he grows into a young man. It will always be a sacred routine.
