I wanted to close the kitchen for the night like a shop and put up a sign

Dear Delyara, Closed. No more requests. No more cups. No more can-I-haves. No more where-is-the. No more one-last-thing. Just the emotional shutters down. I think there are evenings when the kitchen stops feeling like a room and starts feeling like a service counter. Everyone approaches it with a need. Sometimes I’m still in there cleaning up from the previous need when the next one arrives. Tonight I wanted the dignity of closing time. I didn’t get it, of course. Someone wanted toast at nine-twenty and someone else wanted hot water for a bottle and my husband remembered he hadn’t eaten enough at dinner and was “just grabbing something small.” I smiled more tightly than necessary and kept going.