Where the Work Gets Done

by Matthew Hand

Morning is not announced here. It leaks.

Light seeps in through the slats above the sink and catches on the grime that no one has the heart to scrub. It lays soft across the counters, tracing yesterday’s coffee rings like crop circles—evidence of a life that happened, but never quite landed.

I don’t mind the dust. I’ve worn worse. There’s dignity in being used. In being needed. In being the thing they return to, even when they don’t say thank you.

The man comes first. Always the same tread: heel-heavy, hesitant, like he’s still deciding whether to greet the day or file a complaint about it. His joints crack. He doesn’t wince. Not anymore.

He starts the coffee before he speaks. He won’t speak, not to me. But I feel him—his pulse a low vibration in the soles of his feet. He opens the fridge. He forgets why. He closes it. He leans against the counter like it’s about to confess something.

His mug is chipped. It’s been chipped for weeks. He hasn’t noticed. I have.

Upstairs, she moves. Slower now. She used to run the hallways like they were her own private track—hair wild, socks mismatched, a half-song on her lips that only made sense to her. These days, she doesn’t sing. She doesn’t even hum. She pads down the stairs like she’s visiting someone else’s home.

They pass each other. He kisses her head. She lets him. The heat between them is brief, like something borrowed from last winter.

She draws something in the corner. Folds it once. Then again. Then presses it to the fridge with a magnet that fails. It flutters to the floor. He doesn’t see.

I hold it there. Not by strength. Just by remembering where it was meant to be.

He sits at the desk now, back curled like a closing parenthesis. The screens cast a thin glow across his face, pale and too blue. His fingers strike the keys, but it isn’t music. It’s maintenance. He types like someone pulling weeds he knows will return tomorrow.

I cradle the wires. I channel the electricity. I hum low, under it all, the way a body does when it’s keeping organs warm.

The cat, who has never doubted her place here, finds the window ledge above the vent. She curls in a patch of sun, pressed against glass streaked with the slow sediment of weather and neglect. She doesn’t care. The warmth is enough. I let her have it. I shift my heat to follow her.

Outside, the deck wants to give. The boards have gone soft near the center, where the grill once stood. No one steps there anymore. The railing leans left, half-detached from the post, but still upright—like a soldier who knows the war is over but won’t sit down just yet.

The grill remembers touch. It was cleaned once with a wire brush and hope. Now it rusts with grace, cradling spiderwebs, listening to the wind through its seams like a man listening for the voice of an old friend.

Voices echo from the office—screen-bound, performative, hollow. They speak in bullet points, in corporate tongues, in the language of nodding while not listening. No one says anything true. But they all pretend to agree. I’ve heard sermons with more doubt. I’ve heard silence with more clarity.

A drawer sticks. He wrestles it open. Forgets to close it. Later, he’ll bump it with his thigh and swear. I will absorb the blow.

The vacuum is retrieved. It’s plugged in. Then left, cord trailing like a lost thought. It hums once in protest before being abandoned again. It’s not the first time.

There used to be music here. Not just on speakers, but in motion. The treadmill moved. The child danced. The windows were cleaned for the way they caught light, not because anyone was coming over. That feels far away now. But I remember. I hold it. Like I hold the weight of their feet, and the warmth of their sleep, and the smell of burned toast they never talk about.

A spoon drops. Or maybe a folder. Something small. It hits the floor, makes a sound sharp enough to matter. No one bends to retrieve it.

I do. Not with hands. But with presence. I keep the space around it still. Nothing will crush it. It will not be broken. It will be here, when they’re ready.

The day folds in on itself. They cook again—something from a box, stirred twice, forgotten once, eaten warm but without pride. The scent isn’t unpleasant. Just tired. Like steam rising off a forehead after a fever breaks.

They eat in the same room, but not together. He sits. She picks. Someone forgets a fork. They don’t speak much, but I can feel the sound of their chewing—how it echoes in a room once filled with music and mouthfuls of laughter. They finish quickly. Not urgently. Just… with finality. Like sleep is a task they’ve earned.

The hallway lights flicker before catching. I try not to let it show, but the wiring’s gone stubborn. It’s not the bulb. It’s me. Even I have trouble remembering how I used to glow.

The bookshelf leans now. Not enough to fall—just enough to be noticed by someone who once measured it with a level. The top shelf holds a row of books they keep but no longer open. One is dusted. Just one. I don’t know why. But I honor the choice.

There’s a photograph on the far end—family, smiles, someone mid-laugh. It’s turned, just slightly. No one adjusts it. No one claims to have moved it. But I remember the moment it tilted. A tremor in the floor. An argument in the kitchen. A slammed cabinet that sent the frame askew. That was months ago. Maybe longer.

They don’t remember. I do.

There’s a door at the end of the hallway they don’t open. It’s not locked. Just… unasked.

It used to be something. A nursery. A writing room. A place where plants were grown under timed light and soft praise. It changed. It kept changing. A fold-out bed. A drawing table. A yoga mat once. Then boxes. Then silence.

Now, it’s a holding cell for intention. A mausoleum for unfinished versions of themselves.

I hold my breath around it.

I don’t let the air settle too long, or grow too cold. I keep the light outside the door soft, filtered through the shade she never raised. The floorboards don’t creak in there. They could. But I make sure they don’t.

Even walls know when not to interrupt.

There’s a sweater slung across the back of a chair. Still smells like her. No one moves it. They’ve all walked past it a hundred times. But when the draft hits, I adjust the pressure. Keep the sleeve from sliding. That’s what I can do.

I can’t change what they left.

But I can keep it from falling.

They don't take the trash out. But they bag it. Tie it off with that single, practiced motion. It leans by the back door, a monument to good enough.

The man sits again. The glow of the screen is softer now, less interrogative. He types. Pauses. Reads the sentence back—once, twice. He doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t delete it either. That’s as close as he’s come to peace all day.

He stands. Leaves the screen on. Letting it hum. Letting it keep watch in his absence.

The cat knocks over a cup on the windowsill—ceramic, empty, already chipped. It breaks. But no one yells. She darts once, pauses, and is forgiven. They all are, in small ways.

Outside, the deck light stutters again. I hold the current. I keep it steady—not because it matters, but because he’s watching. He hasn’t looked at that light in weeks. But tonight he does. So I hold it for him. Just a little longer.

Everything here is still trying.

He powers down the screen. The room exhales blue. He doesn’t turn off the hallway light. Just walks through it, slow and unfinished.

I hum in his wake—low voltage, steady. A song made of wires and intention.

The house breathes. Not like lungs. Like settling wood, like warm air rising from vents that no one cleans, like memories that shift in the night and don’t demand to be believed.

The child has long since fallen asleep. The woman follows soon after. He stays up later than he means to, as always. But eventually, he lies down. Not with resolution. Just rest.

At 2:13 a.m., the treadmill beeps.

Once.

No movement. No footsteps. Just that brief, electronic reminder that something used to run here.

I do not flinch. I am used to echoes.

I gather them. I do not let them go.

Tomorrow, they will try again.

I will too.

‘Pull Quote’

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‘Pull Quote’

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‘Pull Quote’

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