Balance

Click-clack, click-clack. The heels of her boots slapped tiredly up the cement sidewalk.  She paused, heaving her purse farther over her shoulder, careful not to crush the eggs that were wedged into one of several plastic grocery bags dangling from her arms.  Click-clack, click-clack; the metal grate stairs were the last obstacle and they were covered in ice.  When she scaled them without falling, she felt like she had won. 

Warmth burst out of the little apartment like a welcoming embrace as she turned the key in the lock and shoved the sticky door open.  She grimaced and made a face as she stepped in, dropping the bags, except the one with the eggs, onto the floor.

“It smells like something has died in the walls,” she called out.

“Well, do something about it,” a voice responded frigidly from the bedroom. 

“I always do,” she retorted.

The tension in the formerly welcoming house grew like bacteria.  She took a can of beans out of one of the bags and slammed them onto the counter.  She crumpled the plastic bag noisily and shoved it under the sink.  She glared at him through lowered eyelids as he walked out of the bedroom with his slippers on and turned on the TV, settling comfortably on the couch. 

“Uhh…” she started, “I thought you were cooking tonight.”

“I can check the score and still cook,” he shot back at her. 

Hot, angry tears filled her eyes.  Women’s rights did nothing more than make women work twice as hard, she thought, emptying another bag and stacking the pancake mix and rice on the pantry shelf.

After a few more minutes of pained silence (except the pointedly loud unpacking of groceries), she began to angrily pick through some chicken she had laid out on the cutting board. 

He smirked from his throne on the hand-me-down couch, dying to ask for a beer, but preferring to make her wonder when he was going to ask for one.

“Blasted neighbors!” she spat.  She washed her hands in the kitchen sink and stormed to the bathroom to return with a can of air freshener.  She pressed the top and held it, marching through the house in protest of the smells of old fish and curry that wafted through the wafer-thin walls.    She took extra care to linger in the living room, spraying more than necessary.

Her husband covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve and glared at her.  “You don’t have to use the whole can,” were the muffled words that came out. 

“If I didn’t always have to deal with everything…” 


He tuned her out.  It was the same argument, different night.  He remembered what happened last time, and the sun sagged low.