Tired Mom Diary – Chapter 9 – Things Nobody Asked Me to Do
It’s been five days since Ben took over school.
Five days.
I haven’t died.
Nobody has died.
I’m not enjoying it.
Monday morning, Nora came downstairs wearing two different socks.
One pink. One yellow.
“Ben.”
“What?”
“Her socks.”
He looked.
“Nice socks, Nora.”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
I looked at both of them.
Apparently, we were raising a circus performer.
I said nothing.
It was physically painful.
Tuesday, the school sent an email.
PLEASE RETURN LIBRARY BOOKS BY THURSDAY.
I read it.
Then I remembered.
Not my department.
I felt like someone trying to quit smoking while holding a cigarette.
At dinner, I casually asked Nora what she was reading.
“Unicorns.”
“Where’s the book?”
“I don’t know.”
I knew.
Under her bed.
Next to a sock and something that used to be a cracker.
I went upstairs.
Just to put laundry away.
The book was exactly where I thought.
I put it in her backpack.
Nobody asked me to.
Nobody thanked me.
Nobody even knew.
Which was somehow worse.
Wednesday night, Ben was packing Nora’s lunch.
He put strawberries in the container.
Whole strawberries.
Not cut.
I watched from the doorway.
“She’s going to complain.”
“About strawberries?”
“She likes them cut.”
“She ate whole strawberries yesterday.”
“At home.”
He stopped.
Looked at me.
“Are you supervising my strawberries?”
“No.”
“Because it feels like a strawberry inspection.”
I left.
I came back thirty seconds later.
He was cutting them.
I felt victorious.
Then I felt ridiculous.
Thursday morning, Ben opened Nora’s backpack.
Found the library book.
Looked at me.
“Did you put this in here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it was due.”
“I know. I was going to get it.”
“It was under her bed.”
“I know where it was.”
“Then why didn’t you -“
“Because it wasn’t Thursday yet.”
I stared at him.
He stared back.
Apparently, he had a system.
A terrible system.
A system that worked.
That night, I found the parenting forum again.
The woman who’d stopped answering questions.
The one I’d called lazy in my head.
She’d written something else.
I wasn’t just doing everything. I was making sure nobody else got a chance.
I read it twice.
Then I looked at the kitchen.
Ben was loading the dishwasher.
Wrong.
Obviously.
I stayed on the couch.
For six whole minutes.
Then I got up to get water.
He didn’t even look at me.
“Your glass is beside you.”
I sat back down.
Marriage is surveillance.
THINGS NOBODY ASKED ME TO DO THIS WEEK
Put a library book in a backpack.
Check the school emails six times.
Inspect strawberries.
Count the clean socks.
Rearrange the dishwasher.
Google whether children can get sick from eating unwashed grapes.
They can.
I washed them again.
Friday, Nora came home with a drawing.
Three people holding hands.
Mom. Dad. Nora.
Above my head she’d written:
MOM KNOWS EVERYTHING.
Above Ben’s:
DAD IS FUNNY.
I looked at it for a long time.
“Why am I not funny?”
Nora shrugged.
“You know stuff.”
“I can be funny.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t sound convinced.
Ben saw the drawing.
Laughed.
Of course he did.
Then he put it on the fridge.
Right in the middle.
I considered moving it.
I didn’t.
Saturday morning, I was drinking coffee.
Ben asked, “Have you seen my keys?”
I knew exactly where they were.
On the little shelf by the door.
Under his sunglasses.
I opened my mouth.
Then I remembered the forum woman.
Two weeks.
Everyone survived.
I took a sip of coffee.
“Have you checked the shelf?”
He looked.
Found them.
“Thanks.”
I smiled.
Then he said, “You could’ve just told me.”
I could have.
That’s sort of the problem.