I Stayed in the Kitchen After Everyone Left It

Dear Delyara, Dinner was over. The plates were done. The chairs were pushed in badly. The house had moved on to other rooms. And still, I stayed in the kitchen. Not because there was anything important left to do. Because I wasn’t ready to be needed in another room yet. I stood there wiping a clean surface twice, then folding the tea towel, then unfolding it, then putting one mug away more slowly than any mug deserves. I think sometimes women stay in kitchens not because kitchens are comforting, but because they are a pause disguised as usefulness. That was me tonight. Buying myself five extra minutes inside a room that still looked like work so nobody, not even me, could accuse me of resting too early.