Emily visited him and found him sitting at the kitchen table, staring at an old notebook.
It was mine.
For years, I’d used it to organize the household.
Every page contained ordinary things.
Monday: Wash bedding. Clean bathrooms. Grocery shopping. Prepare dinner.
Tuesday: Vacuum bedrooms. Iron shirts. Pay electricity bill. Clean refrigerator.
Wednesday: Wash towels. Change bedsheets. Prepare meals for the week.
There were appointments, birthdays, shopping lists, reminders, and notes about his mother’s care.
Robert turned page after page.
Years of invisible work, written in my handwriting.
At the back, he found an entry I’d written six months earlier.
“Today Robert told me again that I do nothing. I wonder whether he would notice if I stopped.”
Emily told me later that her father sat there for a long time without speaking.
Then he covered his face and cried.
On the twenty-fifth day, he came to Linda’s house.
