I am not afraid of being unloved. I am afraid of being unsafe. And the longer he refuses to fall back into the old, predictable rhythm, the more scared I get. I feel myself being pulled back into a life I swore I had escaped—a life on a razor’s edge, always waiting, always bracing for the other shoe to drop.
I’ve walked past this café a hundred times. Maybe more.
Today I stopped.
The paper is taped to the glass. White. Curling at the corners. Black letters.
HIRING: CLEANING STAFF
Apply Inside
My eyes stick to the word.
Cleaning.
I know how to clean. It’s one of the first things I ever learned and the last thing anyone can take away from me. I’ve known it since I was tall enough to reach a sink. My father would stand behind me while I scrubbed the kitchen floor on my hands and knees. If I missed a spot, he’d put his foot on my back and push.
I wipe my sweating hand on my jeans. Then I wipe it again.
I stand there for a long time.
Long enough for three customers to enter and leave. The first one held a briefcase. The second one laughed into her phone. The third one held the door for someone behind him and didn’teven look at the paper. Just walked past it like it wasn’t there, like it wasn’t a hand reaching out from the glass.
Like it wasn’t the first thing in years that had felt like it was meant for me.
I should go home.
Julian will be home in a few hours. He’ll walk through the front door. He’ll call my name. He’ll find the house empty.
I don’t know if I’ve ever done that to him before. Left the house empty.
My heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my throat. In my temples. In the tips of my fingers.
I don’t know if I can do this.
I don’t know if I have the right.
I don’t know if a woman like me—a woman who has spent her whole life being nothing, having nothing, wanting nothing—is allowed to walk through a door she chose.
Go home. Go back to the kitchen. You know how to survive that. You don’t know how to survive this.
I almost listen. My weight shifts to my back foot. I could turn around. Be home in fifteen minutes. Wash the dishes. Stand at the counter with a towel in my hands and pretend this moment never happened.
Then another voice speaks. One I haven’t heard in years. One I thought died somewhere inside me, curled up in a corner and went to sleep.
You will not survive being terrified in your own home either.
That is the thought that moves my foot. One foot lifts off the pavement, lands on the first step. Then the other. My hand reaches for the handle. It is cold. It is solid. It does not move away from me.
The bell jingles when I open the door.
I step inside.
The warmth hits me. Coffee and sugar. Voices all around, low and easy. Cups clinking. The espresso machine hissing and growling.
I freeze just past the threshold, my feet stopping before I tell them to.
People are sitting at tables. Talking. Laughing. They don’t look up. They don’t see me standing here with my hands twisted together, trying to remember how legs work.
