I folded my husband’s t-shirts and felt angry for reasons that had nothing to do with cotton

Dear Delyara, It was such a small thing, but there it was. I was standing by the bed folding his clothes into neat piles and suddenly thinking about how many acts of care women perform that vanish the second they are done. The t-shirts go in the drawer. The drawer closes. The labour disappears. Nobody is cruel about it. Nobody applauds either. It simply becomes normal. I don’t need applause for folding clothes. That isn’t the point. The point is that there are nights when invisible care starts to feel too invisible, and the body notices before the mind catches up. Last night, my body noticed. The anger wasn’t really about him. It was about being tired of tasks that leave no emotional trace except in the person doing them. I folded the last shirt more sharply than necessary. Then I laughed at myself. Then I felt like crying.