I spent so much of my life putting my family first that I forgot who I was outside of caring for everyone else. Looking back now, I can see the signs were there long before everything I thought I knew came apart.
Despite being all the way in the living room, I could smell the faint starch of Howard’s shirts, already pressed and lined up in the closet down the hall. I sat on the couch in the soft gray light before sunrise, rubbing lotion into my hands, which never seemed to stay soft anymore.
I was 56 years old and knew the layout of my house better than my own face.
I poured a second cup of coffee, which I wouldn’t finish.
I could smell the faint starch.
***
By 7:15 a.m., I’d packed my husband Howard’s lunch, signed a birthday card for someone at the dental office where I worked full-time, and texted our son, Steve, back about helping him during his slow month at the shop.
“Mom, you’re a lifesaver,” he wrote. “Can you cover the gas bill until the 30th?”
“Of course, honey,” I typed without thinking.
The next thing I did was call my daughter, Monica. Her voice came through the speaker, breezy and rushed.
“Hey, can Biscuit stay with you again? Just four nights while I’m traveling.”
“Mom, you’re a lifesaver.”
Biscuit is my daughter’s dog.
“That’s fine, sweetheart,” I said. “Drop him off whenever.”
“You’re the best!” Monica said excitedly.
Howard wandered in then, phone in one hand, looking past me at the refrigerator. He’d been doing that a lot. Looking past me, not at me.
“You ironed the blue shirt?” he asked.
