Good Night, Sleep Tight

Sugarhouse, UT

 

Emily stood up straight, arched her back, cracked her neck, and rubbed her eyes. Around six the Greens had left, and Emily had sent the kids to their bedrooms to finish up homework while she cleaned the rest of the kitchen.

Now she could see Marks feet up on the coffee table in the next room, probably reading the latest issue of Time, the one and only magazine or piece of writing he seemed to read other than Ensign and the BOM.

Emily appreciated Mark’s work and the money it brought in, but she also felt incredibly tired, being at home with the kids all the time. It had been harder too with the older boys gone. Sometimes she wished it was she who could go to work, and Mark stay at home. She had studied physics at BYU after all. When she told other people in Utah this, most of them didn’t believe her, men especially. Her professors at BYU had encouraged her to go far. But she had married Mark and settled down and was now doing her role as a mom and wife. She was active in the ward. Active enough that she was even starting to question why it was only men who were allowed to run things while the women seemed to do all the work. But no, she mustn’t think like that. She had a good life. She must be grateful for it. She shouldn’t listen to these sorts of tempting thoughts. It was the way God had set things up. We were here simply to listen and serve.

She squeezed the yellow sponge with her left hand and watched the soap bubbles and water slide off into the sink. They drained slowly toward the middle of the drain into the mesh, along with other leftover food particles. She picked up the drain and walked over to the fancy trash can (it had cost an almost unbelievable $200), where she knocked the drain against the side of the can, rinsed it upside down in the sink, and did one final wash down of the metal basin. She’d started doing the dishes left-handed just to make things more exciting.

“Mark,” she called to her husband from the kitchen.

“Yes, dear?”

“Are you worried about Lee and Becca?”

Emily leaned on the butcher block counter and stared out the window into their black backyard.

“Hmm, no, not really. Why?”

“Well, you know, the viruses, the wildfires, the dust storms. It’s not as safe to drive across states these days.”

“Oh, you know how those things are, a lot of hype. It’s perfectly safe to drive.”

“Are you sure? I mean what if they pick up something from a rest stop or what if the wildfires come here?”

“We live in the city, hon.”

“But on the news–”

“What, do you want to pack up the whole house and just move to Canada somewhere?”

He sounded annoyed.

“I don’t know, it’s just . . . scary.”

Mark finally got up off the couch and came into the kitchen, rubbed her shoulders.

“There’s nothing to worry about, dear,” he said.

“You’re right, I know. I just worry.”

 

After they brushed their teeth, Emily’s hands still smelling like a dirty, musty sponge, they climbed in bed and Mark read the latest copy of Ensign.

It made Emily think of the young women’s group she used to be a part of. The group where she and the college girls would flip through wedding magazines during Sunday school and literally cut and paste what they found interesting and beautiful in the magazines upon a predesigned bride/wedding template handed out by the Church. Marriage had seemed so exciting and romantic then. So . . . fulfilling. She knew she was preconditioned, though, through the Church and American movies and television, to expect some sort of final and fulfilling heavenly bliss once she was married. Happily ever after. Isn’t that where all the good stories ended? In marriage and happily ever after’s? And her marriage was happy, wasn’t it? Her life was good, wasn’t it? Yes, it was. She shouldn’t forget. She asked her Heavenly Father for forgiveness as she dozed off to sleep.