One day, I will walk out the door and I will not come back. One day, I will stop being the wife. One day, I will just be the woman.
Until then, I will hold my secret close. I will breathe. And I will not let anyone take it from me.
*****
The sun is generous today. It spills across the terrace and I pull my sleeves up just to feel it on my arms.
This is my favourite part of the day.
Fifteen minutes of quiet. Fifteen minutes where the espresso machine falls silent, and all of us sit with hot coffee or tea and just talk.
I sit on an upturned crate between Maeve and Kieran, my hands wrapped around the warmth of a mug, trying to act like my presence here is natural. I hold my shoulders the way they hold theirs. I keep my chin up the way they keep theirs up.
They talk about bands I’ve never heard of. Difficult customers who send their food back three times and then leave no tip. Orders that make them laugh. I mostly listen, soaking in the normalcy like a plant finally feeling the rain. Every word is a drop of water on soil that has been dry for decades.
Kieran is recounting a story about a couple who started a blistering argument over oat milk versus almond milk while he stood there awkwardly not knowing what to do. He demonstrates his own face—eyes wide, hands raised, mouth frozen in a half-smile—and Maeve snorts into her coffee.
Everyone laughs.
I smile faintly because that’s what you do when people laugh. But the story sits differently in my chest. A man and a woman, yelling at each other over something so small. I wonder what happened when they got home. If they forgot the argument or if it followed them inside. If the woman flinched when the man reached for the milk the next morning. If he even noticed.
Maeve turns to me. The laughter is still fading from her face, leaving behind a warmth that looks like interest. “So… Nora,” she says, “what’s your story?”
My stomach plummets.
The mug in my hands suddenly feels too hot. The sun on my face feels too bright. A familiar stillness locks my limbs, the old defense against being seen.
She’s still smiling. Warm, open, without a trace of malice. She is not trying to hurt me. She is not trying to trap me. She is just… curious.
Maybe it’s that unwavering kindness. The same kindness that hired me without a resume, without references, without anyproof that I could do the job. The same kindness that taught me the schedule three times because I kept forgetting. Never once sighing or rolling her eyes or making me feel like a burden.
Maybe it’s the fragile sense of self this job has given me. The small, stubborn belief that I am not just a wife and not just a survivor—that I am more, unnamed, and still growing in the dark.
Or maybe, after a lifetime of holding my breath, I am simply too tired to keep silent.
So I tell her.
Not the whole thing. Not the worst parts. But enough. My father. The hunger. The locked door. Julian. The flowers. The guilt that feels like a second cage.
I don’t cry. I haven’t cried in years. The tears are somewhere inside me, frozen, locked in a room I no longer have the key to.
I don’t expect anything in return.
I just need to be heard. I need someone to know. I need the story to leave my body and go somewhere else, somewhere it cannot live inside me anymore.
But Maeve’s expression shifts. It darkens, tightening at the edges.
Her smile is gone. Her eyes have changed—no longer warm, no longer curious. A shadow is moving behind them. Judgment. Frustration.
She stands up so abruptly her chair screeches against the stone tiles. The sound is sharp, violent. I flinch. The old reflex. The one that sayssomething is about to happen.
“I don’t understand women like you,” she snaps, her voice cutting through the quiet.
The words hit me before I understand them. I blink. The sun is still warm on my face, and yet the world has skewed. The air is thinner. Harder to breathe.
Kieran shifts. “Maeve—”
“No.” She shakes her head. Her curls whip across her face. “I don’t. I really don’t. Staying when you have a choice. Playing the martyr. Your mother, fine—she had a kid. I understand why she felt stuck. But you?” Her eyes bore into me. “Why are you still there? You don’t even have kids.”
