What We Never Named

Blair


Because the baby monitor cracked open the dark like something dropped,
and the toddler started calling my name with the urgency of someone drowning in three inches of water.

I woke already bracing.

Not fear. Just readiness. The kind that lives in muscle before it ever reaches thought. The kind that knows rest is over without checking the clock.

6:12 a.m.
My body knew. It always did.

I slid out of bed carefully so I wouldn’t wake her. She was curled on her side, one arm flung toward the empty middle of the bed where one of the kids must have been earlier in the night. Even asleep, she looked tired—like rest skimmed her instead of landing.

I paused.
Just a second.

There was a version of me that wanted to crawl back in, to steal five more minutes of being held before the day asked for me again. But wanting felt indulgent. Touch would wake her. Wake would cost energy. Energy was already rationed.

The monitor crackled again.

I was moving before the sound finished.

The floor was cold. The hallway smelled like baby shampoo and yesterday’s dinner and something sweet gone stale. A toy waited in the dark like a test. I stepped on it anyway. Didn’t swear. Didn’t slow down.

By the time I reached the nursery, my voice was already tuned to the exact frequency that soothed without waking the whole house.

“It’s okay. I’m here.”

The baby cried like this was the worst moment that had ever existed. The toddler clung to my leg like proof.

The morning unspooled.

Diapers. Bottles. A cup dropped on purpose. A spoon refused. A cartoon turned on too loud because silence sharpened the crying. Breakfast dishes stacking in the sink like they were waiting to be noticed.

I didn’t sit.

I moved the way people do when stillness feels dangerous. Wiping counters that weren’t dirty. Folding laundry halfway before being pulled away. Picking up the same toy three times.

At some point, she got up.

I noticed it indirectly. The bedroom door opening quietly. Footsteps careful in the hall. The low murmur of the coffee maker starting in the kitchen. She existed softly, like someone passing through a space that wasn’t quite theirs.

She kissed my temple once. Brief. Weightless.

“I’m heading out,” she whispered.

I nodded without looking up. “Drive safe.”

She hesitated—just long enough for the moment to almost become something else—then grabbed her keys and left before the kids noticed. Before goodbyes demanded more than she had.

The door closed quietly.

The house expanded in volume immediately.

By noon, it felt smaller.
By two, it pressed against my chest.

I checked my phone standing at the counter, one hand braced against the edge like I might need it to stay upright. I wasn’t waiting for anything specific. I just needed proof that time was still moving somewhere else too.

Her text sat there from earlier:
Busy morning. Hope it’s calm there.

I stared at the word calm.
It landed wrong. Soft in a way that missed.

I typed: All good here.
Deleted it.
We’re surviving lol.
Deleted that too.

Finally: All good ❤️

Because it was easier. Because it closed the door. Because it didn’t invite questions I didn’t have the energy to answer.

Around 5:30, something shifted.
Not relief. Preparation.

I started straightening up. Not because she expected it—she never did—but because I didn’t want her walking into the chaos I’d been sitting in all day. I wanted the house to look manageable. Calm. Like nothing here required me to disappear to keep it running.

By the time headlights washed across the living room wall, the house looked like a normal, reasonable day.

I felt proud of that.
I also felt emptied out.

I told myself what I always did:
Be easy. Be calm. Don’t unload. She’s tired too.

The ritual was already waiting at the door.




Sage


I drove to work without music.

Not as a rule. Just because sound feels like something I’d have to respond to. Silence doesn’t ask.

Work began before I clocked in. Someone needed clarification. Someone else needed reassurance. A problem from yesterday followed me in like it knew I’d take responsibility for it eventually.

I did. I always did.

I was good at being necessary. Good at anticipating what people would ask for before they realized they were about to ask. People thanked me for it. I smiled. Said, “No problem.”

By noon, my body felt used in that quiet way that doesn’t count as pain. I ate standing up. A sandwich I didn’t taste. Coffee gone lukewarm before I remembered it was there.

Then the tug started.

Not dramatic. Just a quiet misalignment. Like standing in the wrong room of your own house.

You’re not where you’re supposed to be.

I checked my phone.
All good ❤️

Relief hit fast and clean.

Good.
Okay.
Good.

I didn’t imagine the deletions behind it. Didn’t hear the strain folded into the heart.

By the time I pulled into the driveway, I felt hollowed out. But I straightened anyway. Adjusted my shirt. Smoothed my hair.

Don’t be tired. Be helpful. Be light. She’s tired too.

Inside, dinner was already ready.

“Oh,” I said, surprised in a way that felt bigger than it should have. “You already cooked.”

She nodded. “I figured I’d get ahead of it.”

I thanked her. Meant it.

We moved through the evening like choreography we’d learned years ago. Plates. Cups. One kid crying over the wrong fork. Another spilling something no one reacted fast enough to stop.

After dinner, baths. Pajamas. Teeth brushed badly, then brushed again. One kid overtired. The other refusing sleep like it was a personal boundary.

I took one. She took the other. We didn’t discuss it. We never did.

When she asked if I could watch them for a minute—just a minute—I said yes before the sentence finished.

Of course.

I meant it.

The kids settled. One asleep against my shoulder. The other curled beside me. The house quieted in layers.

I waited.

When she came back, lighter, cleaner, relieved, I smiled. Said it was no problem.

That was the ritual too.




What We Never Named


It went like this for a long time.

I stayed quiet.
She stayed functioning.
We called it love.

I learned how to swallow wants before they became needs.
How to turn need into usefulness.
How to make myself smaller without thinking about it.
How to confuse endurance for devotion.

How to make devotion look like competence.
How to stay so carefully it almost looked like peace.

She learned how to lean without noticing how much weight she placed.
How to accept relief without asking where it came from.

To mistake quiet for consent.
To believe that what never asked for anything must not need anything at all.

The ritual persisted.
It held.

I stayed quiet so she wouldn’t disappear.
She stayed because nothing demanded she choose.

I told myself that if I didn’t ask, she wouldn’t leave.
She told herself that if I didn’t complain, everything was fine.

When it ended, it didn’t announce itself.
It didn’t end loudly.

There was no argument sharp enough to remember.
No sentence anyone could repeat later and say, That was it.

There was only a moment when she stopped turning toward me.

No fight.
No betrayal anyone could name.

Just absence.

A moment when my silence was no longer useful.

I had stayed.
I had been good.
I had been quiet.

She left anyway.

The ritual did exactly what it was meant to do.
It kept her comfortable.
It kept the house running.
It kept the connection intact.

It consumed me slowly.
Politely.
Without urgency.

I learned how to stay quiet.
I learned how not to need.
I learned how to disappear without leaving.

And when there was nothing left of me that could ask to be chosen,
the ritual let go—

not with grief,
not with cruelty,

but with the calm, indifferent precision
of something that had already finished its work
and left no self intact to mourn.