Things are different now.
Outwardly, I still do not smile, but I am smiling inside.
I go through my routine, but I feel better:
Confident.
Indifferent.
My husband clearly isn’t sure what to make of this.
He is suspicious, but still does not care enough to think too deeply about it.
My husband’s mother only cares that I am not as miserable as she would like me to be, and so she watches me closely.
But I don’t care anymore.
I sleep with the cleaver under my bed.
In these warm last days of summer, I loosen my long, brown hair from its braids and knots; let it flow through my fingers.
I deliberately hang my wet laundry on the line in the backyard, now my oasis.
It is kissed by light breezes I never noticed before.
He watches me from afar.
Always our eyes are locked, as if we are inches apart.
Shirt. Dresses. Pants. Bed sheets.
I hang my washing on the line while he watches, and waits.
I sing, and he listens.