When Anna mentioned the alumni reunion, I could barely take my eyes off the phone.
She stood by the kitchen counter, her hair braided into a loose bun, just as she usually did when she tried to sound free on an important matter.
Behind her, as usual, there was chaos. One child could not find a shoe. Another complained about their math homework. The infant was hitting the tray of the high chair with a spoon.
Our life. Loud. Ordinary. Full.
“Next month they will celebrate their tenth anniversary,” she said lightly. “I was thinking about going.”
I burst out laughing briefly.
Not because it was funny. Because it seemed unnecessary.
“Why?” I asked.
She blinked. “Why what?”
“Why go?” I asked, leaning back in my chair. “To be able to tell everyone that you stay home and wipe your noses all day?”
She slowly turned towards me.
“Co?”
I shrugged, the irritation was building somewhere, which I didn’t look at too closely. “Come on, Anna. Your classmates are probably surgeons, lawyers, company presidents. What do you think? That you’re just a housewife?”
This word hung in the air like smoke.
I immediately saw the change—the way her arms tensed and her lips tightened into a narrow line.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “It’s okay.”
No shouting. No tears. She turned back to the sink and went back to washing the dishes.
She did not go to the alumni reunion.
And for a few days she didn’t speak to me.
She answered practical questions – what time does football training end, do we need milk when we have to pay the electricity bill. But the heat is gone. A slight laugh. An absent-minded hand on my back as she passed me down the hallway.
At night, she lay face the other side of the bed, her body forming a silent wall that I couldn’t climb.
I kept telling myself that she was oversensitive.
I told myself that I was just being honest.
Two weeks later, a large box appeared on the porch.
Anna’s name was clearly written at the top. No return address.
She was upstairs laying the baby down when I carried him inside.
Curiosity won.
I told myself that I was just checking for damage. I opened it.
And I felt something sink inside me.
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